Why Google Earth means business

Public services
This sort of functionality should be finding its way into local government, according to Ian White, Oracle's public sector industry director.

White sees a vast amount of potential for GIS — some of which is being realised in a small number of councils — in a range of applications ranging from providing spatial information to mobile council workers to making call centres more efficient.

Like Greenberg, he thinks mobility is the key. "I think that GIS has always been important, but the importance has only been recognised outside a specialised community of GIS specialists with the steady improvements in the technology that's available, particularly the link with mobile technology," he says. "I think business is missing a trick if they don't take advantage of the synergy that exists between spatial and mobile technology."

White's concern is that GI has long been regarded as being only of interest to technologically-minded people, but he sees GPS systems and greater use of Internet-based mapping services as two factors that could change this perception.

"It's similar in a way to the increased expectations that citizens have got from online banking, for online services from the public sector. I think the same kind of principle applies [with GIS] — you have rising expectations from citizens because of their experience, but I suspect that the senior people in public sector organisations haven't made the connection between using it personally and the fact that they have had GIS specialists in their organisations for years," he says.

There is a need to educate the general IT community on the kinds of technology and benefits GIS can deliver, but the GIS community would also benefit from an understanding of what a typical chief information officer is concerned about and trying to identify how that can help solve that individual's problems, adds White.

One rare example of a UK local authority putting GIS into practical use, says White, is an (unidentified) authority that maps its "street furniture" and links that information to its call centre staff; when a passerby rings the council to say a street light has gone out, the operator speaking to them can quickly identify which light they mean.

This is the sort of functionality that can make interaction with the public more useful — White praises New York, where citizens can call one number to access the full spectrum of their local services, as a model for how local authorities can make the most of GI — and also help services operate more efficiently.

Central government seems to be ahead of its localised counterparts in this regard, as a major review into public sector call centres is currently being conducted for the Treasury by Sir David Varney, the head of HM Revenue & Customs.

"This is saying, give the contact centre a better set of tools and they can adopt better working practices, and that will be a tremendous way to improve public services," White suggests.

Environmental GIS
The explanatory capabilities of GI can also make it easier to educate people, or just prove a point. The new version of Google Earth gives users several interesting overlays that illustrate environmental degradation, including data from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the US National Park Service and the Jane Goodall Service.

A glance at UNEP's comparative overlays for a portion of the Amazon rain forest, showing the effects of deforestation (this can be found in Google Earth's "Featured Content" section), shows what potential can lie in combining different data sources through GIS.

It is a comparison that's a lot easier to understand if you can see it in pictures and put it in context. And context, ultimately, is where geographic information systems make the difference.