Continuing your Professional Development and the AGI

One of the benefits that we offer to our members (that I have neglected to discuss so far) is the Continual Professional Development (CPD) scheme. CPD is a scheme which encourages people to continue learning and developing your professional skills over time.

Once you have got you initial qualifications and landed your dream (or at least acceptable) job it can be tempting to sit back and rest on your laurels. However the Geographic Information industry is one of rapid change and no one likes suddenly realising that they have been left behind by their professional peers. We help with this in two ways; firstly we can offer our members advice on which activities will qualify for the CPD scheme. Even better for those of you looking for a more structured approach we now offer our own AGI CPD scheme.

The AGI CPD scheme provides a way to record your attendance of training course, acquisition of new knowledge and to test your awareness of new technology.  At the end of each year, you will receive an official AGI certificate confirming your CPD record for that year enabling you to easily keep track of your progress. The good news for members is that the CPD scheme is now free for you to join!

CPD points can be gained for a wide variety of activities to reflect the broad base of interests and skills held by our members. We aim to be as transparent as possible about what we offer points for and why with detailed information available here. To give a brief overview you can earn points for activities as varied as attending lectures or giving a presentation to authoring GI/GIS reports for your employer. Effectively you can work towards your CPD by just doing your job well which is quite convenient!

We are looking to change and improve the CPD scheme in the future (more to be revealed at the conference)  so this is definitely worth getting involved with if you want to keep up to date in the GI industry.

If you have any experience or feedback of the CPD scheme please get in touch!

Thanks,

Chris

It’s the Regional Groups' turn to take the limelight!

Following on from the recent focus on the SIGs it seemed only fair and proper to pay some attention to the Regional Groups. The Regional Groups are, unsurprisingly AGI groups based around various geographic regions in the UK. The idea behind the regional groups is that they prevent the AGI from falling into the trap of becoming a ‘London centric’ organisation.

What they Do:

The existence of the regional groups allows the AGI to run events (both social and professional) in locations that make them more accessible to our widely flung members. After all we can’t really expect members to trek down from Newcastle for GeoBeers in London on a Tuesday night.

The other major (and probably more serious) benefit of having regional groups is that it allows AGI members to join a group with an agenda tailored to the demands of their specific region. This is particularly relevant to members from regions with devolved government institutions (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). However this is still important for other regions as it allows members to access Government at a local level. The regional groups also provide an opportunity for AGI members to communicate their concerns and ideas for the AGI at a grass roots level back to the council and the team.

Who they Are:

 Currently the AGI has six regional groups:

• Cymru/Wales
• Northern England
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland   
• South West England   
• East of England   

If you would like to register your interest in one of these branches of the AGI, please log in to the member area.

What’s Next:

Similarly to the SIGs we (I) are (am) going to be working to improve communication and cooperation with the regional groups and help them further their aims and further engage our members. The regional groups are a really important vehicle for reaching our membership and providing them with the chance to engage with the AGI.

If you are a member of a regional group and would like to see your group featured on this blog (events, success stories or just general information welcome) please email me at chris.rhodes@agi.org.uk

Thanks,

Chris

Speakers, Papers and GeoCom ‘13

Last week I wrote about GeoCom ’13 in the broad terms of what it is and why you should come if you are at all involved in the production or use of Geographic Information in the UK. This week I wanted to look in a little more detail at the very core of the event – the speakers and programme of talks.

We have over 40 speakers delivering a wide variety of talks from open GIS to infrastructure resilience. The key purpose of these talks is education and the sharing of knowledge, ideas and best practice between members of the UK GI community. To support this and to add transparency and extra credibility to GeoCom ’13 it’s time to talk about the selection process for the speakers...

Submitting Extracts:

The first step to having a paper and the corresponding talk accepted for GeoCom is to submit an extract. This is done well in advance of the conference (submissions closed in March this year) to allow plenty of time for review. To guide the extract submissions we publish a list of suggested topic areas on our website, however these are merely a guide based on the theme of the conference and not a constraining list.

Assessing the Extracts:

Once submitted extracts are peer reviewed by the AGI’s Council Committee. In the interest of fairness the council committee is drawn from the AGI’s wider membership and includes members from a wide variety of companies and organisations. Your extract submissions will not just be reviewed by the staff of a competing company!

Guidance on what we look for in an extract can be found here. In short however what we are looking for is something novel and informative that is communicated in a clear and concise way. What we are not looking for are thinly disguised sales pitches, obviously everyone has their own favourite bit of software which can be mentioned but 20 minutes on why X software is better than Y is pushing it!

Once the extracts have all been reviewed the successful authors are contacted and can begin preparing their contribution to the lively and varied programme.

Hopefully this sheds a little light on how the programme of speakers for GeoCom ’13 is selected and put together. With a bit of luck this will encourage some people to submit extracts next year, afterall it is you conference and this is a major opportunity to get involved and help determine part of the programme.

Prizes!

Finally it is worth mentioning that there are of course awards given for best paper as selected by the Conference Committee and best paper as selected by the delegates, presented at the annual AGI awards dinner!

Thanks,

Chris

GeoCommunity ‘13 – It’s coming!

With just two months to go until GeoCommunity ‘13 (henceforth known as GeoCom) I have decided it is time for an update! With early bird bookings set to close at the end of July (less than two weeks away) preparations are well underway for the Nottingham Conference.

Why Geocom ‘13?:

For those of you who don’t know, GeoCom is THE conference for the geographic information community in the UK. Taking place in Nottingham between 16^th and 18^th of September GeoCom brings together speakers and delegates from all corners of the disparate geo information community from digital cartographers to local authority GIS analysts.

If you haven’t booked already I have compiled some of the compelling reasons why if you are a member of the GI community you should:

·        The largest and most comprehensive independent event in the UK GI calendar – providing unparalleled opportunities for learning, sharing best practice and networking

·        Long standing high levels of delegate satisfaction – 95% of polled delegates at Geocommunity ’12 thought the event was good value for money and 94% felt it me their expectations

·        The broad scope of the GeoCommunity conference brings together many different elements of the GI industry from BIM to remote sensing allowing delegates to see what developments are being made in sectors outside their own and inspire innovation across sectors

·        Unique to GeoCommunity ’13 is that we are running alongside and at the same location as FOSS4G ’13 giving you access to a wider set of international delegates than would be normal for a UK focused conference.

·        An opportunity to be a part of the wider AGI community

Preparations and Progress:

So far the build up for GeoCom ’13 is going well with over 40 speakers confirmed covering a wide range of topics from Open GIS to BIM. Alongside our speakers and in demonstration of the confidence the UK GIS industry we are also proud to announce we already have 10 sponsor partners signed up. This includes our Platinum members Ordnance Survey and Esri, for a full list of our sponsors see here. We are also happy to announce that this year our supported charity will be Map Action.

Away from speakers, sponsors and delegates the AGI team are also gearing up for GeoCom, this year is going to be a particular marathon as we are also working in partnership with FOSS4G. As a result we will be getting very well acquainted with the East Midlands Conference Centre as the prestigious global open source conference is running back to back with Geo Com ’13.

We hope you can join us for Geo Com ’13 and more updates to come on the preparations, hopefully with some awkward photos of the AGI team busy at work (if I can find my camera).

Thanks,

Chris

System and Service Supplier’s SIG – Who they are and what they do...

It’s time to start our SIG profiles and first up is the System and Service Suppliers SIG! (Because they asked and have been very helpful getting me additional information)

Who they are:

The Suppliers SIG represents the interests of AGI members who are commercial suppliers of GI services and hardware. The group’s membership represents over 40 companies operating on the supply side of the UK GI industry. The SIG is currently headed up by Andy Wells (of Sterling Power) and Matthew White (of Ordnance Survey).

What they do:

The purpose of the SIG is to facilitate networking, sharing of ideas and information and the discussion of concerns and issues pertinent to the SIG’s membership. System and service suppliers make up around 30-40% of the AGI’s total corporate membership. The views and interests of the suppliers broadly match those of the AGI as a whole, however they have some needs and specific areas of interest that are not catered for by any other SIGs or working groups of the AGI hence the creation of their own SIG. The agenda of SIG activities are agreed by the members themselves, working with other AGI bodies and the SIG is currently working to improve communication both between members and with the AGI as a whole.

What’s new:

The SIG is always looking for ways to adapt and better serve the needs of its members and one of the immediate improvements has been to increase communication by setting up a new LinkedIN group here. This group is designed to be used as a forum for debate both on issues facing the industry and for suggestion on changes and improvements for the SIG and I recommend that all AGI members with supplier related interests join this group and get involved.

Right, so that is our first SIG covered! More will follow over the next couple of month and if you want to have any input on the posts about your SIG please email me chris.rhodes@agi.org.uk.

As always comments and suggestion are most welcome!

Chris

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and the future

So what is an SIG?

The AGI maintains a number of different SIGs. These groups are designed to provide a vehicle for AGI members to discuss and further specific interest areas within the wider field of Gi. These can vary from focusing on specific areas of technology to different applications for GI or groups looking at specific issues facing the industry. SIGs operate as voluntary groups set up by one or more members for the benefit of the interested group.

SIGs are key to the success of the AGI as they allow members with specific interests to come together and discuss issues and developments in their interest area. They also provide the opportunity for many disparate individuals to come together and have one voice on an issue.

The Future

As a result a major part of our new drive for better communications with our members and the wider GI community is better integration of the SIGs. To further this I will be running blog posts on the different SIGs and their activities over the next few months, starting with the Suppliers SIG next week. We will also be offering support and guidance to the SIGs to help them market themselves and communicate with their members more effectively including advice on setting up Twitter and LinkedIN accounts.

List of SIGs

Below is the current list of SIGs, if you are interested in joining an SIG or creating a new one please contact me (chris.rhodes@agi.org.uk)

• Address Geography
• Asset Management
• Crime and Disorder
• Environmental
• i-BIM
• Land and Property
• Local Public Services
• Marine and Coastal
• System and Service Suppliers
• Technical

Call for content!

As already mentioned this blog will be focusing on different SIGs over the coming months, if you are a member of an SIG and wish to contribute (either through a guest post or a quote/information for a post) this would be most welcome. This is all about getting you (the SIG member) involved and showcasing your activities.

Images from any SIG events would also be welcome, I don’t want to subject you to a wall of text very week!

Thanks,

Chris

Welcome to the all new AGI Blog!

I thought I would kick off the new AGI blog with a brief explanation of why we are doing it and what it is going to contain...

Welcome to the all new AGI Blog!

Why –

The new blog is all part of our efforts to increase interaction and communication with and between our members. It will be used hand in hand with our revitalised twitter and LinkedIN to help ensure we are meeting the needs of the Geo Information community as best we can.

As some of you may have seen we used to run an AGI GeoCom (GeoCommunity conference) blog  but this has long lain dormant (since something like mid 2012). Also this blog only focused on the GeoCom conference and as a result became quite sparse for the rest of the year. With this in mind we have decided to replace it rather than restart it.

The new blog will consolidate news and views on the many and varied activities and interests of the AGI in one place.

What -

The content of future blog posts will cover a wide variety of themes including (but not limited to) updates on GeoComm and the showcase events and discussion of the various activities undertaken by the Special Interest and Regional Groups. Occasional ramblings and comments on the GI industry will also be liberally scattered in and we will be welcoming guest posts from our exalted members on a GI topic of their choice. If enough of you comment we may even run a ‘guest post of the year’ award to give some kudos back to our contributors.

When –

As the newest AGI team member I will be setting myself the rather ambitious target of posting twice a week on the blog, aiming for Tuesdays and Thursdays with the intention to mix guests posts in as and when we receive them. Being 2013 we will of course be linking to new blog posts on twitter and linkedIN so please follow us there to ensure you get all the latest information.

As this is a new blog and I am new to the AGI any feedback on posts or ideas for what kind of content you want from the blog are more than welcome, please either use Bloggers’ comments system or for a faster and more concise response tweet us with #AGIblog. If you would be interested in guest posting (or want to quietly point out a typo) please email me at chris.rhodes@agi.org.uk. I will do my level best to not try and be funny...

Thanks!

Chris