Latest Contributions by KarenRichardson

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The People Aspect of Technology Before we know it, the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding hot spots will be filled with Esri users and staff chatting about maps, apps, cool geo-tools, and innovative ideas for putting them all to creative use. It will be a beautiful thing. While the managers in attendance will be just as excited as the rest of us, they face a unique challenge. How does one convert creative, tech-fueled ideas into tangible results that benefit the organization? To start with, executive buy-in is required. Just as important, “people buy-in” is required. People, after all, are an organization’s highest value asset and a manager’s main resource. Tech is cool but the people of tech are even cooler. New technology brings new processes. In order for technology to deliver the desired results, individuals must adopt and successfully adapt to the new processes. Inconveniently, we humans have a strong tendency to resist change. When this tendency is ignored, small projects and ambitious initiatives alike face substantial risk of failure. Fortunately, managers can overcome resistance by proactively preparing their people for change. Two complementary technical workshops at this year’s conference will explore proven approaches to addressing the people aspect of technology. Best Practices for Technology Change Management Tuesday, 21 Jul 2015, 1:30pm - 2:45pm, Room 31 C Presented by David Schneider, Esri training consultant, change management evangelist, and self-proclaimed weather geek, this session takes a deep dive into best practices and tips to successfully manage technology-driven change. Dave will alsoshare a change-leadership perspective on how the evolution of the ArcGIS platform provides unprecedented opportunities to engage non-traditional GIS users throughout an organization. Location-Enabling Your Workforce: You Can with a Plan! Wednesday, 22 Jul 2015, 1:30pm - 2:45pm, Room 31 C Co-presented by Esri training consultants Andy Spence and Diane Wagner and Jacob Boyle, GIS manager at Seneca Resources Corporation, this session explores the three-phase workforce development planning process. Jacob will share his experience with workforce development planning, and how it is helping him promote adoption of GIS technology and capabilities throughout his organization. By directly documenting how an organization’s GIS program aligns with business objectives and strategy, a workforce development plan helps managers earn executive respect and excitement around the technology and the knowledge workers who create, manage, and use it. Making sure your people have the knowledge and skills they need to be successful is key when rolling out new tech. A workforce development plan is also a valuable change-management tool. Because the plan demonstrates executive commitment to supporting individual success through training and professional development, staff feel more confident and motivated to perform at a high level. Last but not least, a workforce development plan helps managers feel confident their workforce is prepared to deliver tangible results using the amazing technology coming soon to a device near you. ... View more

When we say the Esri UC is the place to come and learn about technology - we aren't kidding. You can choose from almost 1000 sessions and if your brain still has room - dabble in all sorts of new experiences in the GIS Solutions EXPO. One of the best places to stop is Esri's Hands-on Learning Lab. Here you will find free training open to all conference attendees who want to explore ArcGIS workflows and applications. FREE. And there is no limit. You can choose from more than 20  45-minute self-paced lessons on desktop, server, and online topics. Each lesson includes a video lecture and a hands-on software exercise. Make sure you leave room in your schedule to get some free training at the Esri UC. More than 20 45 minute guided sessions await you in San Diego. And if that isn't enough to get you excited, visitors to the Hands-on Learning Lab can enter a drawing for one of three Esri Technical Certification Exam Vouchers during the course of the week! Are you big into ArcGIS, and want to see what ArcGIS Pro is all about? Attend a session. Using ArcGIS online and want to know more about the ArcGIS Platform? Attend a session. Looking to explore how to use CAD data in your GIS projects? Attend,.. well you get the drill. Stop by anytime during Esri Showcase hours, no registration is required. Esri instructors will be available to answer your questions. Lesson topics include the following: Getting Started with GIS 1: Understanding the ArcGIS Platform Getting Started with GIS 2: Using ArcMAP™ to Explore GIS Data Getting to Know ArcGIS ® Pro Advantages to Storing Your GIS Data in the Geodatabase Creating Presentation Quality Maps in ArcMap Editing GIS Data in ArcMap Multi-user Editing Using Versioning Editing and Maintaining Parcels Stored in a Parcel Fabric Geocoding Street Addresses to Create Map Points Importing and Preparing CAD Data for Use in ArcGIS The Importance of Spatial Reference in Tactical Applications Exploring Health and Epidemic Patterns Using Spatial Statistics Tools Optimizing Transportation Routes Using ArcGIS ® Network Analyst Modeling Time and Distance Along Networks Using Linear Referencing Working with Geometric Networks to Manage Utilities Interpolating Sample Points to Create Rasters Using Spatial Analyst Tools Geoprocessing GIS Data Using Python Sharing Maps and GIS Content Using ArcGISOnline Understanding Web Services Using ArcGIS ® for Server Generating Web Applications for the GIS Novice Getting Started with the Community Maps Data Preparation Tools Mapping Excel Data Using Esri ® Maps for Office ® The Hands-On Learning Lab will be located in the GIS Solutions EXPO (Halls B, C and D). Hours are:  Tuesday, July 21 from 9:00am- 6:00pm; Wednesday, July 22 from 9:00am-6:00pm; and Thursday, July 23 from 9:00am-1:30pm. What's in it for you? Esri is dedicated to ensuring you get the most out of your GIS. Throughout 2014, Esri offered the Hands on Learning Lab at 32 different Esri conferences and tradeshows where Esri hosted a booth, offering 4300 lessons where 2300 attendees received training. Kevin Mumford has been managing the lab for the past six years and says that users always  find the sessions useful. He shared a follow up email from a past student, who learned about making web maps in one of the sessions: "The classes  were definitely helpful for a GIS consultant as we are expected to be well informed about all Esri extensions. It was great to experience the latest products released. I created a web map in two hours over the weekend." What can you expect to get out of these sessions? If you are an analyst, you can expand your existing skills in familiar areas and evaluate other areas of Esri's software solutions. You can try newly released Esri products and solutions to see if they meet your requirements. Many analysts find that the notion of 'free Esri training" helps support their justification for attending the conference. Managers shouldn't be afraid - even if you don't work with GIS every day! This is a great way to get exposure to Esri's solutions and evaluate the applicability of Esri products for your organization. It also gives you exposure to Esri's variety of training options so you can see what best suits your organization and staff needs. And here is a tip - yes, these sessions are popular! Through the years, we've found that a reservation system doesn't really work - there are just so many opportunities at the UC.  We all experience that 'UC conference time warp' and get lost in the moment. Instead, the lab is increasing the number of machines and lab staff suggest that the best times to visit the lab are the first day it opens, first thing in the morning, during lunch and at the half-way point during sessions. Get on your thinking caps! See you at the Esri UC! ... View more

When your organization depends on geographic information system for its day-to-day operation, data errors can introduce unacceptable risk and unplanned costs. Beginning at the 2011 Esri International User Conference in San Diego, Esri provided customers an opportunity to see just how clean their data really is. Since then, the Data Health Checks, as they are called, have become a staple service at every User Conference Esri users take advantage of the Data Health Check at the 2014 Esri UC, sitting down with Esri staff to check the quality of their data. At first, only eleven water/wastewater customers signed up for this service at the 2011 UC. Since then, Data Health Checks have become so popular that it was expanded to five industries supporting more than seventy users at the most recent 2014 UC. Data Health Checks are now offered at other Esri-sponsored conferences including the Esri Electric & Gas GIS Conference, Pacific User Group and other regional conferences. Participating in the Data Health Check is as easy as bringing a sample of your data in either a file or personal geodatabase to the conference. During your session, an Esri industry expert performs a diagnostic on your data using the ArcGIS Data Reviewer extension to assess its overall quality. Esri staff explains the key data checks (see example checks for water and electric) and any errors detected are reviewed with the user. The error features (captured in a separate geodatabase) and an Excel report outlining the accuracy rates of your data will be provided to you to take back to your organization for additional review. Running the ArcGIS Data Reviewer through its paces on an electric utility database,  checking for devices not connected to conductors, conductors and bus bars that overlap, and fuses and switches that do not split conductors and bus bars, among other issues. At the 2015 UC, Esri is offering the Data Health for users in: water/wastewater/stormwater, electric/gas/pipeline, land records/addressing transportation/roads & highways industries. How to Sign Up Where: Esri UC showcase located in the San Diego Convention Center When: Tuesday, July 21, 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.   Wednesday, July 22, 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.   Thursday, July 23, 9:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sign Up: E-mail datareviewer@esri.com with the   following information: Name Organization Contact information (phone/e-mail) Dataset you're bringing Preferred date/time The Data Health Check is free, focuses expressly on features/attributes and takes about 45 minutes. Due to time constraints, only a subset of checks is performed during the session. When deployed for production, Data Reviewer can be configured to more thoroughly validate all of the organization’s data quality business rules. Customers may choose to implement the rules themselves, work with Esri partners or use Esri Database Services to review and optimize data models, to configure Data Reviewer beyond the checks that were run on their data at the conference and implement workflows for data correction and maintenance. These include the 3-day jumpstart package, RAT/ implementation work as well as training. The quality of your data is critical. Esri Data Health Checks can improve your GIS program by reducing the errors that create risks and unplanned costs. Sign up now. We'll see you at the Esri UC! ... View more

Galen Harry is the Marketing Events Team Lead – On-Site Events at Esri. We didn’t actually sit down for this interview, since Galen is usually running around campus delivering items for onsite meetings and checking on the status of conference rooms. Instead, we laced up our best cross training shoes and tried to keep up as he blanketed the Esri campus. Galen Harry is gearing up for the UC! What is your background? I graduated from THE University of Texas at Austin. I worked my way through school as a waiter and in retail and then spent twenty years in sales and marketing with Panasonic Consumer Electronics. You sound like a proud Texan. I am originally from Waco, Texas, but I’ve also resided in Austin, Houston and Dallas, Texas. Before moving here to Southern California I lived in Georgia, Illinois, and New Jersey. How did you discover Esri? I found out about Esri through a friend of a friend. I sent my resume to one of the Event supervisors and was asked to come in for an interview. The rest, as they say, is history. How long have you been at Esri? I started my tenth year here at Esri just last year, in November of 2014. Why do you like maps? Although I like maps, my job at Esri has more to do with event planning and execution. Let’s talk about that. What exactly do you do? My normal job, if there is such a thing, is to manage and coordinate the planning, execution and clean-up of all events that take place here at Esri headquarters in Redlands. I handle everything from simple meetings to full-on conferences and summits. There is one other person on the On-Site team that is instrumental in keeping everything running smoothly. We do everything from setting up rooms and spaces for meetings, conferences, summits, corporate and catering events on-site to planning and managing all the food and beverage events at the UC, excluding the Thursday night party. We also assist with community events including the Redlands Forums and the Annual Redlands Flower Show. When do you start preparing for the UC? Right after the previous one ends! I help manage all the food and beverage events so I am always either reporting on what just happened or preparing estimates, menus and logistics for the next year. What do you like most about the UC? I think my favorite part of the UC is the Map Gallery Reception. You can really see how GIS applications are changing our world.  The maps are incredible and the special displays tell such great stories about how GIS is used throughout the world.  You just can’t help but to be inspired. Do you have a funny UC story to share? Oh boy. My story, which wasn’t so funny at the time, was the first time I announced the Map Gallery Awards at the closing ceremony when the screen went totally black.  I had to improvise for about 3 to 4 minutes.  All of this happened in front of Jack, the Esri Directors and about 2,000 attendees.   It’s funnier now.  At the time however, I was sweating bullets!   I must have done something right because I still get to announce the awards every year. What is your insider tip for the UC? My don’t miss tip for attendees is to be sure to visit the Esri Showcase and ask as many questions as you can.  Our staff are the GIS experts and are always ready to help. We are ready to unleash Galen to the Esri UC! See you all there! ... View more

Presentation Success: It’s All About Preparation Get some help on your UC presentation, including coaching from Esri Instructors. Are you presenting a paper session or technical workshop at this year’s Esri UC? Are you excited to share your work? Or, like a lot of people, are you feeling a bit nervous about speaking in a room full of people you’ve never met? Studies show that public  speaking is one of the most common human fears. In fact, some people report being more afraid of public speaking than of dying. As the UC fast approaches, we do hope you’re feeling excited about sharing your work with peers. But for those of you who may be feeling nervous about your presentation, know that the best way to have a great presenter experience is to be prepared. To help with this, the Speaker Resource Center will be open Monday beginning at noon and runs through Thursday in the San Diego Convention Center. The check-in desk is open at 10:30 beginning on Sunday. You can reserve your time in the Center so you don't miss any of the other amazing activities at the UC. The center is staffed by an experienced cadre of Esri instructors, who know a thing or two about presentation success since their full-time job is teaching ArcGIS best practices to classrooms full of people they’ve never met. Bring your PowerPoint presentation with you on a laptop or Flash drive and an instructor will review it—slide by slide—with you. Expect to receive practical feedback on your slides and demos, and learn tips that will help you deliver an engaging session your audience will be glad they attended. Laptops, printers, computers, and projectors are also available for your use. There’s even a small, private section where you can practice presenting out loud (yes, you need to do this). Practicing your delivery will give you confidence, and having confidence will help you relax and focus on the fun fact that your audience is really interested to hear what you have to say. You - giving the best presentation ever! We hope your presentation is the highlight of your UC week! ... View more

Check out real-time analytics and full 3D publishing capabilities in ArcGIS for Server 10.3.1 at the Esri UC The hallways at Esri are buzzing as the development teams get ready for the Esri UC in San Diego, happening in a little over two months. To get some insight into what is happening, we grabbed Jay Theodore, the CTO of the server group at Esri, and asked him a little about himself and what he is preparing for San Diego. Jay leads the ArcGIS Server and Portal for ArcGIS software development teams at Esri and as we suspected, his teams have been working on some pretty exciting developments that they want to talk to you about at the Esri UC. Jay Theodore will be taking the scenic route to San Diego, where you will find him talking about ArcGIS for Server and all the exciting new capabilities. What is your background? I completed my Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering back in India and worked briefly on Computer Graphics, CAD/CAM/CAE and early 3D printing technologies –way back in 1990. Then, I headed to Florida Tech, where I completed my Masters in Computer Science. My thesis was on Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Graphics – research assistantship funded as part of NASA’s larger scoped design of Space Station “Freedom” (landing dock in outer-space, for space shuttles). Scott Morehouse hired me in 1993, to join Esri as a developer on the team that was envisioning ArcView 2.0. I’ve since worked on the core software development teams that built the various Internet Map Server products - ArcView IMS, MO IMS, ArcIMS, and now ArcGIS Server and Portal. I love long drives, preferably inter-state/cross-country ones. They help me relax and wind-down. My dad’s a tire designer - he’s been doing this work for 54 years, and counting! -and I remember my childhood dinner conversations with him were a lot about the engineering aspects of cars, trucks and roads. I guess his passion transferred into me, and I see many shared concepts when building software. I understand that most would find this connection more than a bit weird! Why do you like maps? Maps are a must-have companion for my road-trips! But on a more serious note, maps tell factual things in a manner that our brains can comprehend. Lots of disparate data sources overlaid together, with visual graphics and textual elements, all rolled in an artistic or realistic manner, making it compelling for the viewer. They help us make sense of the information, drive decisions and finally,communicate the story. Today, more than ever, technology has become a driving factor to what maps can do and how data can be layered and visualized in a map, at amazing levels of accuracy and resolution. Maps don’t just represent the data around us; they reflect our life and the world we’re in. Bringing large amounts of data and simplifying the visualization aspects of it, in order to make  it useful is indeed very exciting. As a daily decision-making tool, maps are no longer a once-in-a-lifetime road-trip companion for me! What are some hot topics you and your team will be covering at this year’s Esri UC? With the 10.3 release of Server, real-time GIS became a reality for Web GIS users who can now visualize real-time feeds, instantly. We’re continuing to expand our analytics capabilities to do more spatio-temporal analytics on large volumes of data flowing in real-time. A common example today is real-time analytics on IoT/sensor data. We are also adding new technology components into the ArcGIS platform to do highly parallelized geoanalytics on large volumes of archived data. We are doing this to empower users so they get faster and more accurate results - facilitating predictive analytics and decision making. A key aspect of interpreting the results of these analytics is visualization. It grabs your attention when you see it at a global scale and is increasingly accurate at drilled-down scales. We are very excited to work on these new capabilities in the ArcGIS platform, which will be delivered incrementally in upcoming releases, scheduled for 2015 and 2016 calendar years. 10.3.1 is a significant release. It unleashes the full 3D capabilities of the platform. Some new aspects include the ability to publish textured buildings along with point, line, and polygon features, and elevation, terrain, and imagery layers in 3D. You can publish using Pro. Then, your Web GIS users can view and interact with these 3D WebScenes from any browser or device, from desktop to mobile, much like users are accomplishing with our 2D delivery, via WebMaps. 3D sure brings a new perspective to the world around us, and the ArcGIS platform enables the delivery of it.  Look out for more exciting features on the horizon. ArcGIS for Server delivers the complete Web GIS platform for enterprise customers who prefer to integrate and deploy within their own infrastructure, or within a preferred cloud platform, in a secured and compliant manner. We’re working to expand the hosted GIS capabilities of the platform while at the same time ensuring that all your enterprise GIS workflows with your enterprise data are simplified. This will make you more productive as you create information products for Web GIS consumers. We’re working to simplify deployment architectures that reflect your needs – centralized, de-centralized or distributed. What’s the most exciting thing about the UC this year? Most of our enterprise customers deploy the complete ArcGIS platform. That integrates well within the enterprise and brings in the secure, identity-driven Web GIS interactions, via simple, yet powerful apps. I see an explosion in the need to share, analyze and visualize data, whether it be raw, curated, authoritative, real-time or huge. This presents new challenges that we’re solving together, by working closely with our customers and their problem-space. The UC is a great venue for us to collaborate and share our vision and roadmap   What are you preparing for this year? I plan to share the roadmap for the ArcGIS platform, as a COTS delivery. This full-stack GIS platform can be used by our Enterprise customers, deployed either on-premise or in their cloud platform of choice. There’s also a growing pattern for hybrid deployments, combining ArcGIS.com for various field/public workflows and engagements. Architecture patterns that consider security and various DevOps workflows is another area that we’re focused on talking about at this year’s Esri UC. We see ArcGIS as a platform that can be centralized, Online or Server. The platform can be distributed across Online and on-premises portals or multiple on-premises portals within the same organization, distributed geographically or departmentally. I’m looking forward to input and feedback from users on these aspects, plus any course-correction we need to make for software aspects that we didn’t get right in past releases. When do you start preparing for the UC? Preparations usually start around the beginning of the year.  We envision, plan and visualize the product that we’re designing and developing, so we can share this with users at the UC – in all its rawness. We get very useful feedback at the UC and wrap-up our development after that. Members of the development team see this as a great way for us to stay connected with our users, so we try to have the user stories right – though the software that’s in-development may not be polished enough. Our presentations address user concerns, thoughts, ideas and direction. The product we build and talk about is only a reflection of our continued engagement with our users, beyond the UC. And if you see a typo or two in our presentations, it’s because we tried to balance the prep for presentation with the product development advancements, even during the last couple of days leading to the UC. The UC excitement is all around the software development corridors! Aside from your software presentations, what do you look most forward to each year at the conference? I really look forward to spending time with users, talking about what they do every day and how they’re solving real problems. Success stories are heart-warming, but the challenges faced are indeed what drives us to work closer together and build a better product – which lead to solutions, when done right. Sometimes these discussions can be intense, but they’re always appreciated for the time and effort our customers and users have invested in us. How many UCs have you attended? I have attended twenty two conferences! When you aren’t at Esri creating software, what do you most like to do? I love cars – the touring kind, which can take me on long drives. My idea of unwinding if I’m not working is a long 1000-mile drive, studying roads, people and their cars, landscape, weather and good food at the end of it all! Oh well, but I can’t do this often, so I just settle for some weekend tennis and maybe a short drive along the pacific coast – less endurance, but equally relaxing. I also like to read about and play with disruptive technologies that attempt to change human behaviors and social patterns. ... View more