Locatum

And now for a bit of location fun - that post featuring in the early morning desert of Oman's Wahiba Sands circa Jan 1986 courtesy of the RGS programme ( Journal of Oman Studies Special Report is even available on amazon) initiated in me an urge to see if my recollection of that image having been used in a Rolex ad was indeed correct. After all I have said so out loud many times even though the absence on my wrist that day and even to this day (hey Rolex) of any form of Rolex only spurred on the doubters! And what do you know....that image was taken by none other than the inimitable Michael Keating , possibly amongst the quieter of his assignments! The roll call of those involved is worthy of a separate post sometime. As featured very occasionally (perhaps once only?) in The Geographical Magazine and National Geographic in c.1987. I would like to be able to share anecdotes (hell, any anecdote) about my times with all the other genuinely ground-breaking people who have gr...

After 20 years at the helm of emapsite, taking the company from start-up in the dying days of the dot com era to successful and respected multi-million pound business with a team full of talents and a portfolio of loyal blue chip customers for our unique array of products and services, I am stepping aside as CEO. Two years after leading the relocation to Farnborough and setting in train the next phase of emapsite’s evolution with a doubling down on the company’s strategic ambitions including succession planning, the company is set fair for the next steps in that journey. The company has been blessed and is made by its people, past and present – emapsite’s customers, suppliers and partners will know that from day one the company sought to delight and to exceed expectations in making location content accessible and insightful. This team will continue to thrive at emapsite and enrich those experiences. Always one for looking forward, in the immediate short-term I will be looking...

In 2018 I have as some of you may know (and been tapped up for) been 'competing' (that is, participating) in a variety of mainly triathlon and endurance events, culminating in my third Ironman 70.3 at Weymouth in September when hopefully I will be suitably trained and uninjured to enable a decent time after the below target times in 2016 and 2017. Why you might ask? Mid-life crisis you answer (no question mark). Who knows but this year there are very sound reasons to do a little bit more. Tom sadly passed away in the early hours of Boxing Day after a brave battle against osteosarcoma, (a rare form of bone cancer), aged just 19. His friend, my son Joel is the same age and we have known Graham and Jane since the boys were very small indeed. In the wake of his heartbreaking story (read more at Tom Stead ) putting my efforts into raising funds for the Bone Cancer Research Trust #teambones. This is the very least I can do to contribute to better outcomes for those affected by...

Back in the day I did an MSc in Applied Remote Sensing - yay - and for a while, working with Landsat and SPOT data to devive new insights and present information in then new ways, it seemed a potent tool, but then the music kind of died. GIS was the new kid on the block, funding of satellite borne sensors went soft, internet bandwidths (then) and imagery didn't work too well together. Today, we seem to have come full circle, and while 'remote sensing' sounds unfamiliar, the world of EO is seriously 'hot'. Among the major change agents has been the post 9/11 requirement to find out more about 'stuff' often a long way from 'home' and Moore's Law across the capacity of the related tools and technologies (storage, bandwidth, processing, compression etc). Depending on how you classify 'flocks' of micro/nano satellites there are c.1000 live image collection sensors in orbit, providing daily coverage (or at least the potential for) the entir...

Not that we're quiet at the moment but something must be in the air - so, like buses, another post! courtesy (c) MediaBuzz 2017 Steve Wilson has managed to capture in this post , on a specific case to do with health care data, arguably amongst the most sensitive of personal data, a sense that 'we' have lost or are losing (what limited) control we might have had, over our data, over who collects it, on whose behalf they collect, how they analyse and process it - in particular what other data they "join"* [see below] it to, on whose behalf that is in turn done, who that is sold or supplied to. * join - a short-hand here for the vast array of, to many, unfathomable ways in which 0s and 1s from X data set are ingested, validated/verified, analysed, combined, associated or otherwise linked, directly or indirectly, using techniques and methods in and from data science, statistics, information science, physics, geography, operations research et al with many other d...

Apropos of not very much and being as it is almost the Friday before Christmas, some ponderings. There has been a bit of a spat (I caught some of it on Newsnight) about cultural appropriation brought on by a journalist seeking expert input to improve the quality, insight and value of their work/output. I doubt if there is a single Twitter user who hasn't had or seen a similar request across their timeline. Various epithets might be applied to such requests/exchanges: open, transparent, accessible, sharing, what the web is for etc. It sometimes seems that others might equally apply: cheeky, cheapskate, lazy. This is especially true when what one is being asked to impart is part of the value - the knowledge, insight and wisdom that comes with age and experience, of those being asked. So, easy right, don't answer, don't engage and lose the opportunity to be cited, cross-referenced or widen your social and professional graph. Conflicted? But then does the actual 'com...

I guess we all think we know what access means - I can get hold of things or through to my target. Of course the definitions go much wider. There is tendency though, not unusual of course when pedalling a personal agenda, to look at access through a single lens. Before, I go there, I should declare my interest in what follows. As a founder of emapsite , the few of you who read this will think there is a specific axe to be ground here owing to our track record as a successful OS partner, turning OS and other data assets into products desired by our customers, and that specifically I am railing (or about to rail) against the the Chancellor's announcement that the government will be creating a Geospatial Commission and what follows on from that, as confirmed in today's Industrial Strategy . I defer to the Urban Dictionary . There have been some cogent posts from those with long interest in and insight into open data including those by Ed Parkes , Leigh Dodds and Owen Boswar...