Location intelligence is to business as geospatial intelligence is to the military. Maps are not created equally a good map is “intelligent” because of intent and design. Images plus graphics plus analysis “fuse” to equal the intelligent map. The availability of relatively in expensive aerial and satellite imagery (think Google Earth) adds an exciting new dimension to the art and science of location intelligence. We starve for high quality, information rich maps when the technology and expertise to solve location and logistic problems is abundant and economical to access. In future postings, I will explore this topic further. Until then, take a moment to look at any maps you may come across. Ask yourself if it is an intelligent map. Read more about smart maps andvisualization of geographic data at VectorOne Media blog.

 

Improving State Government one process at a time can have significant impact on internal customer processes.  Just such a project was undertaken by the State of Maine Office of Information Technology (OIT) during Summer 2008 to improve their Procurement process. OIT serves a customer base of approximately 13,000 State of Maine Government employees and has a procurement process for consulting and other services, software, and hardware.  Well-known feedback about the lack of timeliness from order to receipt of the goods or services has been the cause of aggravation, frustration, inefficiencies, and excessive delays and costs.  OIT undertook a very successful process mapping and redesign project that was completed in less than 10 days, and resulted in an improvement action plan that is now being implemented. The initial data gathering phase of the project used activity-based costing which accelerated the project and resulted in completion in far less time than is typical.  Here is yet another example of how successful process improvement can be in a focused area with leadership in place to support the implementation of improvements.