Users to Data Providers, 'Let go! And deploy more WMS ...'

I was at USGIF Tech Days this week - lots of leading folks in the geospatial community in one crowd. It was good to see old and new friends. As with most industry get-togethers, I had scheduled meetings and plenty of impromptu meet-ups - all of which were awesome.

One thing hit me hard at Tech Days this year, something in the crowd was different. I'm usually the one evangelizing standards-based online services like WMS, WFS, GeoRSS etc (hard to believe, I know ;-). But that wasn't the case this time. One Army officer said to me that access to data via WMS, WFS, GeoRSS, KML is vital - and that people need to 'let go' and do more in this area. Other folks said that 'without standards, there's chaos'. Still others wanted more apps to use online geospatial services.

What's changed? I think recent events like Haiti have given users a taste of the power and flexibility of being able to choose which WMS/WFS map and feature layers they need, which GeoRSS feeds to use, and the KML links that benefit them most - regardless of the system or vendor that provides it. Of course, many of the forward-leaning providers are already doing this.

What's next? I'd say users will want even more 'on-demand' interoperable geospatial services. In addition, seamless integration between partners, civilian, federal and international agencies are capabilities users will likely want more of - as well as the ability to contribute and validate crowd-sourced updates from many users into many different services. It's also likely they'll benefit from the speed and power of new services like WMTS - the open standard for fast web mapping.

One thing is certain - you can learn a lot when you listen in the crowd.

- Jeff