How about Maps? Ultimately, the end result for most non-technical users
will be some type of map, instantiated either on paper or digitally.
Think about explaining the value proposition of SDI or GeoWeb verses
Maps. SDI/GeoWeb - series of tubes used to produce maps verses Maps -
those things that help you find your stuff. People intuitively grasp
the end product and not the infrastructure to produce the product.
Electricity is the same way, people know what it is and that it takes an
infrastructure to deliver it to them. In fact, explaining SDI as a sort
of utility kinda makes sense.
I think that SDI was term created by GIS types who are in denial that
their employability is derived from their ability to use software to
make maps when not mangling data in its various forms so that they can
make a map.
sophia
Chris Holmes wrote:
Yeah, I've dropped use of the term except when talking to those who
already know the word. I use Geospatial web or Geo Web, it's a bit more
intuitive and easy to explain, and I can use it to emphasize the parts of
SDI that I like. When I was writing a paper I ran across some other
academic paper that had 7 different definitions for SDI. It does have
some decent recognition, but those who do know what it means have
different understandings of what it is, so I don't find it all that
useful. The Geo Web to me gets at the same end goal as SDI's, but in a
bottom up instead of a top down way - which is definitely my preferred
mode.
Chris
On Fri, December 28, 2007 7:34 am, Mick Wilson wrote:
I am in the process of writing a "Why SDI?" guidebook
for non-technical middle management types and cannot help but wonder why we
put a millstone of an expression like "spatial data infrastructure" around
our necks?
As a barrier to communication with an
instant-glaze-over factor of 100% "SDI" is hard to beat. It is
simultaneously pompous and intimidating while conveying very little
information to anyone outside inner circle. The term gives little
impression of what gets done or what improves if SDI's in place. And just
how much SDI planning and development these days is about 'just' data,
compared to discussion about value-adding services, chaining, mash-ups and
the likes.
I appreciate that term is (or at least was)
technically accurate and has built up recognition over the past 10+ years,
that it's associated with well-respected individuals and organizations.
I can but wonder whether it's not worth some effort to
come up with something snappier and zingier that even my mother might have
a chance of understanding, or at least being curious about. I have no
suggestions I'm willing to make at this stage but would like to gauge the
level of in taking some of the terminology in new directions.
Cheers
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