Ok, I don't know about you but after hearing so much about it, I finally jumped into the Twitter pool.  Only problem is, I'm not sure if I really feel like swimming.  In case you don't know what Twitter is, here's the lowdown.  Some call it microblogging, others a social network of sorts.  Essentially, you can say whatever you want in 140 characters or less...and people can follow what you have to say via Twitter clients, RSS, SMS, etc.  Here's some of the captivating content folks were providing today on Twitter:

srdny76 I just learned I was steps away from a vegan ice cream parlor yesterday! Yay! There's a vegan ice cream parlor!

caseypatton ate some sweet, sweet moe's bbq tonight.

CheesecakeBree Tired... but I have a few things I need to do before bed. (It's not late enough for me to fall asleep anyway.)

girliegeek if your friends won't tell ya you got spinach in your teeth, WHO WILL?

Truly scintillating, I know.  But, I'm trying to figure out how useful Twitter can be beyond reporting the mundane details of your life for all the world to see.  At first I thought, maybe this is a good replacement for instant messaging.  You can type something in and instantly message, well...everyone else on Twitter (or at least those who want to follow your life).  Is this effective communication?  Not sure.  Maybe, just maybe Twitter can be put to good use after all.  Good meaning: productive, useful, not wasting your time, not tying you to technology when you can be doing something else with your time (work or dare I say, even fun stuff like going outdoors!).  Here's my list of potentially good uses for Twitter:

1. Emergency response: People can use the relatively low bandwidth messaging of Twitter to send messages to entire response teams instantaneously.  No mixed messages.  No dropped calls. Everyone on the team gets the Tweets (it's what Twitter posts are called).  Very effective, and they can be tagged with locations as well.
2. Conference back-channels: OK, so maybe not super productive, but if you're at a conference, you can provide live commentary about the speakers, their lame PowerPoints, their incorrect statements, bad haircuts...you name it.  Not only are you sharing with other conference attendees, you're sharing your commentary on the conference with others who may not have been able to attend.  Plus, it's great for adding some fun and excitement during really bad PowerPoints (it worked really well at Where 2.0 recently).
3. Task tracking: OK, not exciting, but useful...use it track your daily work tasks.  "Started working on foo functionality"..."Finished working on foo functionality".  Boring to the world, useful to you.  Plus, if you're team is all following, it provides instant status updates on your tasks...and you thought daily stand ups gave good visibility into task status!!!
4. IN/OUT of office: OK, another not real sexy use, but it's good for in/out of office status with location info.  Especially good when you're on the road. 
5. Promoting you blog posts: Slightly self serving, but effective.  You can let people know when you have a new blog post up.  Hopefully, you're blog is compelling enough to have established a good subscriber base and you don't need to resort to this tactic...but worth a try if you're trying to build your blog base.  Probably good for directing traffic to a website too. I'll test this out and let you know how many people visit this blog and our website after posting the addresses on Twitter.
6. News Reader:  Some online news sources now issue Tweets.  Good for those people who like their news items short and sweet...can you say Short Attention Span Theater? Check out CNN, BBC and many others.
7. Quick feedback: On project teams, use it to do voting.  Post an idea and ask your followers or team members to vote on it or comment on it.  Really good for geographically dispersed teams.
8. Live coverage: For real time events or for folks who do field work, provide live coverage of what's going on to your followers (OK, a lot like #2, but I'm trying to get to 10 here to make this whole argument worthwhile).
9. Release/Build notifications: Notify team members or customers/clients of current software releases or builds.
10. Job candidate backgrounds:  Alright, this one may be borderline, but if someone is interviewing with you for a job, check to see if they Twitter.  If they do, check their Twitter feed to find out a little bit more about them.  You may not want to know that they are part of the Society for Creative Anachronism...but hey, it could be useful.

Whew, made it to 10...didn't think I'd get there.  I'm sure there are plenty of other good uses for Twitter and I'd like to hear them if you have some ideas.  Hopefully, Twitter works out better than instant messaging.  When I think about IM'ing, I think about people taking longer to say less (just pick up the phone and talk to me).  I think Twitter is potentially more useful than IM but we'll have to see where it all goes.  However, if I have to constantly wade through Tweets like these:

PhilippaJane trim milk hot chocolate and marshmellows- helps me through today

I might be more inclined to spend my time checking out I Can Has Cheezburger...it's much more entertaining.  BTW, if you want to follow me on Twitter, check me out at http://twitter.com/cspag...but I'm not promising anything!!!

I've been thinking a lot about the collocation of agile development teams (or any development team for that matter).  Some people argue that collocated team members are essential to successful software development while others argue that it doesn't make any difference.  The more I think about it, and the more we operate with geographically dispersed teams, the more I'm starting to believe that collocation matters. 

Currently, our team is spread out between Ft. Collins, CO, and Orlando and Jacksonville, FL.  While things have not gone terribly wrong having dispersed team members, I have noticed a difference in communications.  The difference is that in the Ft. Collins office (and I'm sure in Orlando and Jacksonville), there is a lot of informal communication that occurs amongst collocated team members.  You know, the kind of discussions that happen spontaneously.  When these happen, a lot of project information gets passed between team members that doesn't get transmitted to other remote team members.  There is no malicious intent to not communicate.  It's just that the impromptu discussions don't usually inspire anyone to dial in to a teleconference number and all that...precisely because they are impromptu. 

On the flip side, the scheduled daily stand ups, planning meetings and reviews all happen when they're supposed to and everyone communicates on those calls.  However, I have found that something is lacking on those calls as well.  When a team is all together in a room, there is definitely a different dynamic than when there are "voices" on the phone.   Body language plays a huge role in communications and tells a lot more than than what people are saying.  However, what I find really absent is the sense of team and camaraderie that exists in a collocated team.  There are many "physical" exercises  that we used to do for planning meetings and retrospectives that have been lost due to collocation.  I found those really useful and without them, I think our planning and retrospectives are less effective than they could be.  Maybe we just need to adapt those exercises to be more amenable to the space between our team members.

All in all though, I think I would definitely be in the camp of folks who believe that collocation really does matter.  It build a better sense of team, increases both verbal and non-verbal communications, and really fosters a more collaborative work environment.

I'm on my way home to Ft. Collins, CO and thought I'd take a few minutes to jot down my overall impressions of the Where 2.0 Conference this week in San Francisco.  In general, I found the conference to be very interesting.  Interesting mostly because it offered a different perspective for me about the new world of geography on the web.  You see, apparently, I am what is now called a "Paleogeographer"...you know, someone who actually has a background in geography and GIS.  I'm OLD (well, not really, but in the world of Where 2.0...I'm old).  Then there are the "Neogeographers", folks who have recently discovered the value and linkage between social networks, photos, and other "data" and geography, or more specifically, location. 

I'm not crazy about the two terms "Paleos" and "Neos", and I'm not crazy about the apparent dividing line between the two "camps".  The terms were thrown around a lot this week, and I don't find them to be constructive in the slightest.  I really think both sides have a great deal to offer and would be well off to start collaborating with each other to bring the "Geoweb" to it's full potential.  While it was interesting to watch this little battle of the camps play out at the conference, I think the smarter kids in the room get it that we all need to collaborate to bring out the best of both worlds and go well beyond where "Where" is now.  To some degree, I think this is starting to happen.  We saw Jack Dangermond CEO of ESRI (a "Paleo") share the stage and talk about new collaborative efforts with John Hanke of Google Earth (a "Neo").  It was a big step and one that I think both the "Paleos" and the "Neos" should try to emulate.

One of the things I liked about this conference is that it showcased the simplicity of design in web based geographic applications.  Not simplicity in functionality....simplicity in design.  Many of the demos clearly illustrated the simpler is better mantra.  One- or two-click answers to specific questions.  Good interface design, ease of use...front and center.  I think many of today's GIS "web developers" could take a page out of this book and put it to very good use in simplifying and streamlining our sometimes cumbersome and bulky web-based mapping applications.

One of my concerns at the conference was that although there were many interesting applications demonstrated over three days, many of them started "looking" the same by the end of the conference.  What I mean is, there appear to be many solutions for the same simple problems: connecting social networking to mapping, geotagging photos, Google Maps/Virtual Earth pushpin applications.  While I find tons of value and potential in all of these areas and am very excited about the possibilities that can be derived from each of them, I'm having a hard time distinguishing one effort from another.  This is clearly my opinion only, but it really reminds me of the dotcom boom all over again.  Lots of people scurrying to a happening party, all hoping they're going to be the next big thing, but all solving the same problem.  I personally believe that what we'll see happen over the next few years is a proliferation of "location based" and "location powered" sites all offering very similar solutions.  Natural selection will weed out the top solutions who will survive (or be subsumed by one of the big boys) and the rest will quietly fade away.  Seems like the new progression of lifecycle models ever since the dotcom boom.

What I am excited about is the rise of numerous crowd sourced data projects.  It has always been my contention that local geography and micro/personal geography was missing from most standard "geographies".  These localized, micro-geographies can't be built by just anybody, they have to built by the people who live, work, and play in those locales if they are to have any meaning and relevance.  So, I'm very psyched to see lots of local crowd sourced projects encouraging exactly this sort of behavior.  I think in the past two decades, people have lost their sense of "place" and their connection with their own geographies and these efforts are breathing new life into communities by helping people reconnect with  their local geography.  I know this sounds very touchy-feelie, but it's important and I'm glad to see it happening.

Finally, I'm really excited about some of the Open Source platforms and frameworks being developed for "GeoWeb" applications.  I think that the growth in this area will help fuel serious innovation and advancement in web-based mapping applications.  I don't mean to slight ESRI here, but their sometimes cost-prohibitive license model has effectively priced out smaller organizations, agencies, and consumers from playing in the world of the Geoweb.  I think that to some degree, this has had a chilling effect on innovation in the Geoweb space.  I think this is what really has spurred folks to start building open source frameworks for Geoweb development.  As a consulting geospatial development shop, I'm really excited about putting some of these open source tools to work for our clients.  I think that for us, the combination of ESRI's suite of tools in addition to these open source tools will give us a complete range of solutions we can offer to clients with a wide range of pricing and licensing options.  I believe in the end, this allows us to provide the right solution to any client in a cost effective manner.

THE DESPERATE PLEA: As an aside, I have to address presentation styles once again.  This is not really a rant or anything specific to Where 2.0, but as usual at a large conference, we saw our fair share of RBP's: Really Bad Powerpoints...and Keynotes (Apple people, you're not immune from this).  So, once again, I am making a plea that anyone...ANYONE...who is going to give a presentation to please, please, please read Garr Reynolds' most excellent book on presentation design and skills called Presentation Zen.  It's short.  it's concise. It WILL help you.  And we'll all be much happier at conferences if you do.  End of rant...apologies...kiss kiss hug hug...we're good now.

So, that's my take on Where 2.0.  We hope to be at Where 2.0 again next year and I hope we see more "Paleos" there next time.  Not because I want to hang with my Paleo-homies, but because I think there is a lot we can lean if we all start working and living together with the new breed of Geoweb developers.  See you next year.

If you were unable to make it to Where 2.0 in San Francisco, lots of the talks have been recorded and are available on Blip.tv.  If you want to check out the videos, cruise over to http://where.blip.tv/.  And, if you're looking for another excellent wrap-up article, check out my compadre Dave Bouwman's site...he's got a few good insights about the conference up there too.

(Sorry so stale:  had no connectivity in the past few hours).  Well, just like Wednesday morning's sessions, it was hard to find much to write about in the final afternoon of Where 2.0.  There was one standout presentation by Chris Spurgen of the Walt Disney Company.  He gave a really rousing and cheeky review of the best geo-hacks in history.  Essentially, it was a very entertaining look at Mercator (the man) and his genius of projection as well as the history of the biggest hack in geography...the ability to calculate longitude while sailing.  It was awesome and Chris really had the audience very engaged.  I wish I could say the same for the final speakers of the day but I can't. 

Fortunately, the day ended on a great note after an eye opening walk through downtown San Francisco.  Dave and I met up with an old friend and ate some of the best sushi we've ever had in a small sweaty local sushi bar on Market Street called Sushi Zone.  In a nod to the coolness of some of the new Google Maps goodness, here's where you can find Sushi Zone if you're ever in SF:

Lior started off with "Slides are bad, simple ideas are good, demos are better, launches are best.  So here are 9 launches in 9 minutes:"

New way of thinking at Google: Google Maps is Google on Maps.  Shift is from simple map applications to really being Google on maps. 

Not a launch, but check out the popular maps panel on the left side of Google maps now.  Places of Interest on Google Maps. 

Check out the new more button: Adds Wikipedia entries (Launch 1) or photos (Launch 2) to maps via dropdown selection boxes

New: Explore this Area tool in the left panel when you search/zoom to an area (Launch 3).  Ties map to photos, articles, YouTube videos, and user created maps in the content panel.

New: Real estate on Google Maps. (Launch 4)

New: Mapped Web pages on the Map (for this and real estate, use the Show Search Options link) (Launch 5)

New: News on Google Earth...spatially enabled news feeds placed on the maps.  Click the icon...pop up the news story (Launch 6)

Ability to all data for any kind of content aggregated to single geographic features (includes user created content). (Launch 7)

All open through the Google Maps API as of today (Launch 8)

As of 1 hour ago API is available as Flash (Launch 9)

Wow...he did it...9 launches in 9 minutes!!!

Juan Gonzales, Planet Eye.  Some very cool clustering and visualization for travel based geography.  You can share your own travel data and photos on a really nice Flash web map.  There is some very smart clustering going on as well.  To build some of their data, Planet Eye is doing some serious crawling to scrape GeoData and effectively index it.  Planet Eye has also developed a proprietary technology for maintaining an efficient GeoIndex regardless of the size of the database.

Well, I would have liked to have written a post about each speaker today...but there just wasn't much to yap about.  In my opinion, there were really only two compelling talks so far this morning.  The first was from Mikal Maron of Mapufacture and Jesse Robbins of O'Reilly Radar.  They gave a really great talk about crowd sourcing data for disaster response and recovery.  They showed some great examples of where this has been very effective (Myanmar Cyclone, China Earthquake, SoCal Wildfires) and some where it hasn't been so great (Steve Fossett search).  But overall, I think this has some great application for doing really good and important things with crowd sourced data.

The other good talk came from Jennifer Kilian of Frog Design.  She talked about the importance of design not so much from the traditional "form follows function" point of view, but from the "form follows emotion" point of view.  She presented a very compelling case study about Merian GPS (a Euro product) that, in my opinion, showcased a product that exhibited near perfect design.  And the most important part: It wasn't design for design sake.  It really fully considered the user experience and was built around that.  I think that the world of "paleo" GIS can really take a lesson from this.  We seem to always design from a function point of view with very little consideration of design.  Whether we want to believe it or not, design matters.  In the new world of Web 2.0 (well, new to the GIS community) design considerations will be just as important as functional considerations.

So, design and disaster...two words that could have described the rest of the morning session.  Lack of design consideration was evident in most of the other presentations this morning...and well, I won't say anything about the disasters.  (Oh and the wireless has been very spotty today, so sorry if my updates aren't as frequent as yesterday).

If you were unable to make it to Where 2.0 in San Francisco, lots of the talks have been recorded and are available on Blip.tv.  If you want to check out the videos, cruise over to http://where.blip.tv/.