ESDIN

It's always difficult to take over where someone else left off.  Here in the UK I now project manage this impressive project we call ESDIN.

It's much easier to take over when the "light at the end of the tunnel" can be seen, and I think that is the stage we're at with ESDIN.  Let me explain...

We've recently seen big changes in the way that Mapping Authorities are reaching out to "communities"; in the UK for example the government have made it possible now for Ordnance Survey to "give away" some of its lower grade data. Geoportals now abound in Europe and we all seem to be at least interested in new phenomena like crowd sourced data.

Within our project we are building a strong basis for the sustainable development of what have traditionally been "National" interest business models.  Now these business models need to accommodate not just our user community, but our provider community and the sometimes unusual "in-between" communities of developers.

I've always thought of this as an era of open innovation.  Products are no longer left on shelves in the hope that someone will pick them up.  Everything from you running shoes to your child’s Lego toys are now the product of influences from well beyond your organisational boundaries.

So as we move toward the light at the end of the tunnel and propose our specifications and output our prototype services, what is our "ESDIN community"?  How do we engage them?  How do they participate in helping maintain the content and infrastructure of an SDI that is so genuinely useful, highly valued and definitely needed?

We have great tools and initiatives to reach-out, we have a thriving reference group and communities developing beyond the project.  We even have contributors to the project that don't expect to receive funding!

Now is the time to win over the suppliers (NMCA's and others) to this SDI, the users and their developers.  We have to convince them that our proposals meet the needs of their external communities (their users and consumers).

So our project is now coming together.  Don't let this happen in the dark.  Let’s succeed and be seen to succeed!