OGC News update for June

29 June 2010, 11:32am

From Steven Ramage, newly appointed Executive Director of Marketing and Communications:

"I would like to say a massive thank you for all the kind words of congratulations and support I have received from across the geospatial community. I am thrilled to be part of the OGC Executive Staff and looking forward to the challenge!"

Lance McKee has also returned to OGC on a full-time, permanent basis as Senior Staff Writer. If any of you have worked with him you will know how lucky we are to have him on board - his work speaks volumes.

Also Nadine Alameh, whom many of you know through her work in the OGC on behalf of NASA, is now helping George Percivall, David Arctur and Raj Singh, in her new role as Director, Interoperability Programs. So we are forging ahead.

One of the first things the team has supported me with is the creation of a series of free seminars (linked to the quarterly meetings), which provide a forum for discussing the value of geospatial standards.

Return on investment is important for all organisations, but in terms of participating in geospatial standards development the methods for determining and measuring value vary greatly.

On Thursday 17th June, as part of the OGC's Technical Committee and Planning Committee meeting in Silver Spring in the USA, senior management, consultants, policy makers, and sales and marketing staff of OGC member organizations attended the first, half-day, non-technical session on "Deriving Business Value from Geospatial Standards". This event was well-attended and a series of discussions took place ranging from how to determine and measure value of geospatial standards through to how do you convince your senior management about the value of participating in an open consensus process! As a result of this lively debate it was agreed that more work is needed in this area and some members have suggested a Business Value Working Group. This may lead to an ad hoc meeting of this Group at the next TC meeting in Toulouse.

For geospatial technology providers and users, OGC compliance is also a critical business issue because interoperability is a critical requirement and providers must have a way to confirm that products and systems comply with the standards that enable interoperability. We encourage you to download the new OGC white paper on the OGC's Compliance and Interoperability Testing and Evaluation Program (CITE), which was approved last week by the OGC membership. On the same theme, the OGC is also seeking a Director of Interoperability Certification.

If you're interested in this challenging and exciting opportunity please visit our website at the link below or contact George Percivall.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the Open Source GIS 2010 Conference at the University of Nottingham. As a result of our collaborative activities with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation, there is a white paper coming out soon around open
standards and open source. I also attended the INSPIRE Conference in Krakow. It was a privilege to be part of this extremely well organised and successful event and also to bear witness to the INSPIRE Krakow Manifesto that was approved by attendees.

Thank you for your continued support in the open standards process and for reading the OGC Newsletter.

Best regards

Steven, on behalf of the OGC Staff

OGC Interoperability Certification

Geo: International