AGI 2008

One conference ends and the next one begins.

Just over a week ago we held the wrap up meeting of the conference team for AGI 2007, after basking in the glory of a successful event our thoughts inevitably turned to "What next?" Amazingly all of the committee were enthusiastic about the prospect of "just one more" so we are about to embark on AGI 2008 and somehow I was persuaded to chair a second conference and why not? The last one was a lot of fun.

We are starting to think about conference themes and whilst we have a few ideas we would welcome suggestions from delegates to the last event or from those who didn't attend the event but would attend the next one if it covered ......

I am keen that we get input from a neo-geographer to counterbalance the brontosaurus like weight of the paleo-geographers on the team. So if you are a neo who would like to get involved in planning next year's conference mail me or post here or contact Chris at AGI.

Addressing Down Under

I was in Australia recently visiting our colleagues and meeting some clients.

I learnt about the national address database G-NAF (Geocoded National Address File) which has been built by PSMA in combination with Logica CMG and Geometry Pty and including data from local government and the Australian Postal Service and the electoral commission There seemed to be little of the acrimony between the parties that characterises addressing in the UK. Of course I may not have been there for long enough to get a full picture.

The metadata on G-NAF is refreshingly candid about its accuracy:

G-NAF is not 100% accurate nor does it have 100% coverage. The G-NAF project is a concerted effort to deliver the best possible geocoded national address dataset available and there is significant commitment to ensuring that it will improve with every release.
The magnitude of this dataset, the complexity of its content, and the multiplicity of its sources in both initial construction and ongoing maintenance, means that there is still a great deal of work to be done to improve the content, quality and coverage of the G-NAF.

A slightly different approach to that which we experience in the UK

Interestingly G-NAF is supplied with a database loader which avoids the need for multiple applications vendors to devise their own tools to load the data, it also ensures that the loader and schema are always aligned.

Saw some street theatre in Sydney. Could this be a new version of an OLAP Cube?

Strange?

Building a GeoCommunity - postscript

Jeff Thurston at Vector One was not only an active particpant at the conference but has also written some very complementary stuff about the conference:

"This conference can be deemed as nothing less than a resounding success. In fact, this is one of the best conferences I have attended this year - the AGI 2007 Conference having a sense of buzz and vibe!"

For more see:

Day 1
Day 2

Thanks Jeff

A single source of addressing truth?

I contributed to this article over 6 months ago but it has only just been published today on Contingency Today which is well worth a read (apart from my piece) if you are into Emergency Planning and Response.

Nothing much has changed in 6 months and the address wars rumble on.

When will we get this resolved?