Have some fun, and make something good happen.

Dear PaMAGIC Members and Friends,
There are a lot of interesting developments in PA and in PA GIS, and for the first time in a long time we might even make progress as a whole! After a time of belt‐tightening and job consolidation there’s just a little more optimistic feel to the economy, and an amazing ability to spread a message. We collectively work with tools that hold and deliver promise in the future, and we are optimists by nature. Onward!

After much labor and desire Pennsylvania will have a GIS Council – specifically the State Geospatial Coordinating Board, slated to begin service late this Spring or early this Summer. The MAGIC Board chose Dave Gilbert as our representative, so he is your voice in advice to the Governor. In advance of the formal Coordinating Board meetings Dave is setting up a few ways to collect your ideas and input; his favorite tools are the PaMAGIC Facebook page and our ArcGIS Online account. Make some maps to share your ideas with the Governor and the other groups who are investing their effort there!

The most focused initiative is our push to unify and improve our water base map – we are about two years in on a 5 – 10 year project. We are promoting a pretty basic concept – connect all that we know about the water resource to an accurate spatial framework – what we have right now is not good enough in a Big Data world!  The politics and regulatory structure are probably more complex than the actual water network, and modernizing the maps and databases will clarify just who is managing any data about water. We have some cool demonstration projects to build on and some of you do too (or could). Contact me if you want to get involved. You’ll find some background documents at:
http://www.pamagic.org/initiatives/Pages/WaterData.aspx

The tricky part of this is engaging and connecting people to keep sharing ideas and energy. We struggle to find ways to involve more people than just our Board and we recognize the power of the (too?) many technologies – find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the website, Webex, Blog, and steadily more outlets.  Although your dues and donations are pretty handy, a better measure of membership has always been that you contribute some of your time and ideas. PaMAGIC has always been more about the collective vision and mission than about the organization itself, and the little things you do propel us forward. Arrange a meetup, share a mashup, respond to a query, point out a flaw and propose a solution, contribute an app – do it in view of the vision and mission and you are a member!

If you want to know the history, go read some of the old President’s Letters on the website. If you want today see the future, go look in the mirror!  

"Have some fun, and make something good happen."

Eric Jespersen,
President 2013‐2015

PaMAGIC VISION
"The Citizens of Pennsylvania will have a coordinated, flexible and integrated geographical information infrastructure to support better decision making and more efficient use of limited resources."

PaMAGIC MISSION
"To provide leadership, coordination and guidance to enhance the development, use and access to spatial information and related services."
“Have some fun, and make something good happen.”