Latest Contributions by ChrisCatania

We would like to announce the winners of the first 2017 Semi-Annual GeoNet Contest held from January 1st - June 30th 2017. This contest runs during the first and second half of the year. There is also a year long contest for our grand prizes. You can read more on this in https://community.esri.com/groups/geonet-contest/blog/2017/01/18/announcement-2017-geonet-contest-begins.   We appreciate each of our users and their contribution to the community. Each post, reply, and helpful rating helps GIS users create a collaborative atmosphere in order to find solutions to their problems, which helps us achieve our GeoNet goal: to help you work better and ultimately create a stronger, more valuable GIS and Esri Community.  We would like to especially thank a few of our members who have excelled as our top participants.   Our winners will be receiving a variety of prizes as outlined in the2017 GeoNet Contest Prizes.  Some of these prizes include Amazon gift cards, Esri Certification Exams, ArcGIS Home Use Licenses, and Esri Press books.   Within the community they will be awarded the 2017 MVP Badge that they can proudly display on their profile and in their Me in Three. They will also get an "MVP Champion" icon beside their name. Robert Scheitlin, GISP  Dan Patterson  Jayanta Poddar  Rebecca Strauch, GISP  Joshua Bixby‌ Abdullah Anter‌ Adrian Welsh  Curtis Price‌ Chris Donohue, GISP‌  Neil Ayres‌ Thank you all for your contributions to the community!   Are you wanting to get in on the second semi-annual contest? Check out 2017 GeoNet Contest Prizes.  ... View more

Welcome to the fifth and final day of UC coverage on Geonet! It's been an amazing week of connecting and collaborating with you all in San Diego and in the community.  The last day wrapped with the closing session featuring the Map and GeoNet awards, Jack's closing remarks and the Open Q&A session.  Here are some of the highlights and links to all the UC GeoNet coverage. Enjoy!  Note: If you missed any of the GeoNet coverage, check out the list below:  https://community.esri.com/community/events/user-conference/blog/2017/07/10/live-blog-2017-esri-uc-plenary-morning-session?sr=search&searchId=bfb4b6d1-2422-4fdc-90f5-4eee7f6f1ed6&searchIndex=0‌ https://community.esri.com/community/events/user-conference/blog/2017/07/10/live-blog-2017-esri-uc-plenary-afternoon-session?sr=search&searchId=0d3ba601-71d2-4c98-9813-edd582fec649&searchIndex=2‌ https://community.esri.com/community/events/user-conference/blog/2017/07/12/uc-2017-daily-updates-day-two-tuesday?sr=search&searchId=2089ce5d-1e64-4d49-b08b-f3df60946556&searchIndex=2‌ https://community.esri.com/community/events/user-conference/blog/2017/07/13/uc-2017-daily-updates-day-three-wednesday?sr=search&searchId=9c8653d8-afdf-4fc3-8fd8-86d82dce2e1a&searchIndex=0‌ https://community.esri.com/community/events/user-conference/blog/2017/07/14/uc-2017-daily-updates-day-four-thursday?sr=search&searchId=be42621d-e142-4258-974c-faa72b8f316c&searchIndex=3‌ Closing Session Segments (click to jump to segment) UC 2017 Map Award Winners The following is a list of the winners for this year's Map Awards. Congrats to the winners and thanks to all who submitted your work this year!  Best of Show: The Environmental Burden Index: Estimating Environmental Quality by Peer Group Jessica Kolling, Ian Dunn, Brian Lewis; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Most Unique - The Emoji Map of San Diego  Warren Vick; Europa Technologies Ltd. Best Map Series of Atlas - Atlas of Conversation Opportunities in the Amazon Bione Under Climate Change Considerations Johanna Prassmann, Ceasar Suajrez and Maria Elfi Chaves; WWF Colombia Best Use of an API in a Map - FlowsMapper Poster  Prepared by the Geography Division, Population Division, and Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Divison, U.S. Census Bureau Best Story Map: Remember the Alamo in 3D  Michael A. Garza, GISP; Pape-Dawson Engineers Best ArcGIS Pro Map: The Union Canal (Fallkirk to Edinburgh) Doug Cain; City of Fort Collins Best Large Format Printed Map: A Perspective View of Gallatin County, Montana Frank L Dougher; Gallatin County Best Analytic Map: Modeling the Prehistoric Extent of San Francisco Bay and Potential for Cultural Resources Paul Brandy and Shannon DeArmond; Far Western Best Cartography Special Interest Group Map: Santiam Pass Winter Recreation, Willamette and Deschutes National Forest; USDA Forest Service USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region Cartography Unit North American Natural Gas; S&P Global Platts Ginny Mason Alley Pond Park; NYC Parks Ben Perry Blackshear Best Instructional Map: Data Driven Pages to the Rescue Corey Bowens, Michael Campbell, Bob Carberry, Paul Clement; St. Johns County ICA Winners: Geologic Map of Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado Paco VanSistine, Richard Madole, Joseph Romig; U.S. Geological Survey Relationship between geographical names and landforms with names of birds in Japan Masataka Satoh Best of User Apps Fair: Exotic Plant Information Collector (EPIC)  Best Student Map up to age 12: Colored Community Map Tri-County Preschool Class; Pro-West & Associates Best Student Map ages 13-18: Geospatial Analysis of the Distribution of Sea Turtles and Sharks off the Coast of Long Island, New York Sohum Sheth; Stony Brook University Best Student Map - post-secondary, university, and postgrad: Pinpointing Vulnerabilities - Protecting Regions of the Arctic Gabriel Rousseau and Kyle Lempinen; Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Office GeoNet Awards: 2016 Top Contributors  Earlier this year we recognized the top GeoNet contributors Robert Scheitlin, GISP‌, Dan Patterson‌ and Rebecca Strauch, GISP‌ and it was exciting to give them a well-earned shout out at UC too.  UC Facts and Stats  17,980 attendees  2,000 Esri Staff 136 countries  326 Exhibitors  400+ students  A special shout-out to the Student Assistant program. This program plays a crucial role throughout UC and in starting and further GIS careers after the event. You can get involved and learn more about it here.  900+ Young Professionals 37 Plenary speakers 314 Technical workshops 133 Special Interest Groups 407 Demo Theaters 290 Paper Sessions 900 Maps (Map Gallery) 703 runners (Esri 5K) 90,950 buttons (Did you get your first-edition UC GeoNet button?) Many Lifelong learners! The Road Ahead Jack's UC 2017 farewell, "Thank you and I love you. See you next year!  Thanks so much for following along! And a big thanks to all the guest contributors (Rachel Weeden, Dawn Wright, Joseph Kerski, Suzanne Boden, Adrian Welsh, Amy Niessen and many others)  who shared their experiences with us throughout the week. It was great to partner with you this year and expand the coverage and perspective of UC 2017.   We hope you enjoyed UC 2017! We look forward to hearing what you're learned and what your biggest takeaways were from this year's event. Let's continue the conversation in the User Conference‌ group and in the comments below!  ... View more

Welcome to Day Four of our UC coverage here on GeoNet!  We hope you're having a great UC and enjoyed following along on the updates.  Update: Check out each UC 2017 day recap:  Live Blog: 2017 Esri UC Plenary (Morning Session) Live Blog: 2017 Esri UC Plenary (Afternoon Session) UC 2017 Daily Updates Day Three (Wednesday) UC 2017 Daily Updates Day Five (Friday): Closing Session and Awards Day Four sections (click to jump to section) Exploring the Kids Fair: Planting the seeds of GIS The day started with a trip to check out one of my favorite times at UC: the Kids Fair. After hearing at the plenary how the 4H students have been using ArcGIS Pro, I was even more inspired as I walked around and saw the 6-11 year olds learning about geography from the Esri Training staff and creating maps with their parents. I'm pretty sure the next generation of geogeeks was born at the Kids Fair this week. I just wondered which one of these kids will be speaking at the plenary in 2025.  GeoNet Meetup: Making the community better and how GIS creates new career paths Then it was time to host the third and final GeoNet meet-up. Like we did earlier in the week, I shared success stories and updates on the GeoNet roadmap. Then we dove into the Q&A session, which was my favorite part as Daniel Inloes and Carol Kraemer shared several great ideas about how we can improve GeoNet and how to use the community for there organization. Carol asked if she could set up groups just for her team and I told her "Yes, we can!" And I explained how the GeoNet group strategy and setup process works. She also asked where new members can go to find out how to best use GeoNet. And I gladly shared how the GeoNet Help‌ group is designed just for that! Daniel then shared a particularly interesting idea which was to create a virtual GIS and ArcGIS dictionary that users can access on GeoNet and use to search on too.  I told him I would take that idea back to our Esri and GeoNet team and see what we could do to make this happen.   Daniel also shared an inspiring story about how GIS had played an critical role in his life and professional career because when we graduated college in 2008 the recession made it difficult to find work so he turned to GIS which gave him the opportunity to find a job and provide for his family, and that sent him on the path to where his today.    Catching up with Adrian  Adrian Welsh‌ continued to shared his adventures, insights and learnings as he made his way through the expo and other tech sessions.    Dawn and the Day of Science Yesterday was the world wide Day of Science and Dawn Wright participated and shared her experiences as the DOS was celebrated at UC. Check out more of Dawn's tweets as she continued to take us in and around the science side of UC.  Geogeeking with Joseph Kerski  UC isn't UC without spending time with Joseph Kerski.  I had the pleasure of geo-geeking out with Joseph and talking about his highlights so far this year. He was excited about what the 4H kids demonstrated during the plenary, how successful the EdUC conference was and how much progress he has seen in the GIS  education field in just a year. Each year Joseph does a UC "key themes" video wrap up so be sure to check back as we'll share the video when Joseph has it ready. Until then, check out the always helpful and informative previous blog posts from Joseph and the Eduction team.    Update: Check out Joseph's final thoughts video below!  Pop-up Chats: Talkin' neurogeography, emotional mapping One of my favorite parts of UC is having the chance to talk with users about their work, what they think of the UC and what they are thinking about the future of GIS.  One of my favorite pop-up chats was with Russell Mercer‌. Russell gave a big "thumbs up" to the improved usability of UC mobile app and then we talked about the work he's doing with as the GIS administrator for Imperial Beach Public Works and how he was intrigued by the neurogeography topic explored in the plenary with Dawn Wright. That then lead us into a fantastic conversation about the future power of maps to enable us to map psychological and emotional experiences based on where we are located and how that would be valuable for retailers, mental health, public safety and many other industries.  What great pop-up chats did you have this week?  Who is moving to ArcGIS Pro? Speaking of people, it was great to see GeoNet member contributions highlighted on the "Why people are moving to ArcGIS Pro" signs featured throughout the UC convention center.  I'm honored to say that our GeoNet community and the ArcGIS Pro‌ group have helped answer many questions users have about moving to Pro and you can explore the group find the details mentioned on the sign. Thanks to all the users and staff who have helped out and shared tips and experiences in the group!  Discovering Helpful Python Tips Speaking of helpful tips, I loved coming across Marc Mendez's Top Five Python‌ tips and tricks in the #ESRIUC twitter stream too. Great collection! What tips would you add to the list?  It's Time To Celebrate: UC Party  After a long and eventful week it was time to head to the Thursday night UC party. Like it always is, the party was a blast as geogeeks and their families and friends took over Balboa park in San Diego to celebrate a week-long adventure of sharing, collaborating and furthering the Science of Where.  That's it for Day Four! Stay tuned for Day Five as we capture final thoughts and the closing session.  What were your highlights from Thursday? What did you learn and enjoy the most?  ... View more

Welcome to Day Three of our UC coverage here on GeoNet!  Note: If you missed any of the GeoNet coverage, check out the list below:    Live Blog: 2017 Esri UC Plenary (Morning Session) Live Blog: 2017 Esri UC Plenary (Afternoon Session) UC 2017 Daily Updates Day Two (Tuesday/Monday) UC 2017 Daily Updates Day Four (Thursday) Day Three sections (click to jump to section) Esri UC 5K  Who else still has Shakira's "Try Anything" still running through your head? I know I was humming it non-stop for sure.   Speaking of running, Wednesday began with the annual UC 5K race. Hundreds of Geogeeks raced around the marina quickly and swiftly applying the Science of Where with their feet, legs and lungs and about 130 to 165 beats per minute. Congrats to the winners and high-fives to all who ran with us! Check out a nice recap of the 5K from the Esri social media team.  Now for the roundup of what happened on Tuesday and throughout the rest of the day on Wednesday.  In the Expo with Esri Services, Hands-On Learning Lab, and Lifelong Learning by Suzanne Boden‌ from the Esri Training‌ team.  It seemed like it would be an impossible task to match the energy and excitement of Monday’s all-day Plenary session, but when the Expo doors opened at 9 a.m. sharp Tuesday morning, the same energy and geo-powered enthusiasm were there in abundance. Attendees came in with business on their mind—talking with experts to get questions answered, exploring the latest Esri products and partner solutions, and discovering tips and tricks to streamline their GIS workflows. Perhaps nowhere was this on more display than at the Esri Services area, where the fairly small demo theater was packed for the first of 16 lightning talks presented throughout the day. The space was entirely full with dozens of people spilling out into the aisles on either side of the theater. The crowd grew even bigger when Esri instructor Nick Giner took the microphone at 10 a.m. for ArcGIS Pro – Top 5 Tips and Tricks. If the lightning talk crowd is a measuring stick, ArcGIS Pro is definitely one of the hottest topics at this year’s UC. Wednesday brings 16 more lightning talks at the Esri Services area—a new one starts every half-hour. On Thursday, the Expo closes at 1:30 p.m., so there will be only seven lightning talks. See the list below—you’ll probably find at least one topic of interest. Tip: Get to the theater early if you want a seat. Hands-On Learning Lab The Hands-On Learning Lab is also filling seats. It’s a popular place to sit down and focus on learning something new. With two dozen ArcGIS lessons, the Lab is a great space to build software skills while you’re at the conference. Located at the back of the Expo, just to the right of the Technical Support area, the Lab stations are consistently full. Tip: To get a spot without waiting, the best time to visit is first thing in the morning or late afternoon. Lifelong Learning Area Late Tuesday morning at Lifelong Learning, we were excited to see a group of special visitors: the three 4H teenagers who impressed everybody at the afternoon Plenary session, along with their program leaders and fellow 4H members. In the photo below, that’s Austin from Tennessee on the left. He presented his GIS project on stage like a pro Monday, inspiring all the adults with his poise and excellent grasp of spatial analysis (not to mention his expert use of ArcGIS Pro). He’s holding a sign with Fran, a 4H program leader from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Seeing the cluster of blue 4H shirts buzzing around the Expo is one of the more fun people-watching activities for those of us working at the Expo. After the blue shirts moved on from Lifelong Learning, we enjoyed meeting with lots of other UC attendees. Questions about workforce development plans, e-Learning, ArcGIS Pro classes, and resources to prepare for an Esri technical certification exam were just some of the topics being discussed. Tip: If you’re interested in certification, enter the July Giveaway for a chance to win a free exam voucher. It’s hard to believe day 2 of the conference is already over. If you’re in the Expo Wednesday or Thursday, stop by the Esri Services area, Hands-On Learning Lab, or Lifelong Learning areas—we’d love to chat and answer your questions. Hot on Developer Demos  By Amy Niessen‌ If you haven't stopped by Demo Theatre 11, you may have missed out on some of the latest features in our SDKs and APIs! We have a number of demo presentations that will get you up-to-speed and in-the-know on different techniques and enhancements to guide your projects in the right direction. Read more about https://community.esri.com/groups/geodev/blog/2017/07/12/hot-on-developer-demos.  Diving Deeper into the UC and EdUC with Dawn Follow along with tweets and photos from Dawn Wright's experiences in the Map Gallery and at this past weekend's EdUC conference in this Storify collection: Esri UC, EdUC 2017 - Day 1 (Backstage) + Day 2  GeoNet Meet-up (Video): The GeoNet Influence on ArcGIS Online Want to know how the ArcGIS Online  team finds value in user feedback on GeoNet? Check out the video as Kelly Gerrow explains during the GeoNet Meet-up.    Video: Creating broader community development ByRachel Weeden‌ and Keith Cooke‌ Today at the Local Government/Community Development area, one of the hot topics was Economic Development. In this video, Keith Cooke summarizes a common conversation, describing how communities are moving beyond site selection solutions to support broader community development activities like destination branding. To give economic developers a competitive edge, they are not just providing information about available sites, but also the context as to the characteristics of the site and what might make a community unique. Keith shares a quick overview of Esri solutions that support destination branding, including the Live, Work, Locate app and Story Maps.    YPN Party and GeoDev Meetup  Wednesday came to a close as Geogeeks gathered at the GeoDev meet-up and partied poolside at the YPN social event. Good times were had by all.  What were your highlights on Wednesday? What are you learning this week at UC?  ... View more