The Last LIO Blog
Welcome to the last LIO Blog, and thanks to all of you who visited and especially to those of you who provided comments, both on the site and to me personally. It was fun.
As the coordinator of Land Information Ontario, I work directly with hundreds of private and public sector organizations that create, manage and use digital geographic information. The primary intention of this Blog was to discuss the underlying, often universal, issues encountered by those organizations as they execute their various initiatives. I expected these stories to strike a chord with many of you and they did. I looked forward to your comments, especially your suggestions, on ways to respond to these challenges. I was very pleased, and a little bit surprised, to find that several major organizations regularly followed the Blog postings and actually responded to some of the issues raised with some interesting solutions.
Some of the Blog postings, like the one on crowdsourcing, led to several requests for me to participate in forums, workshops and focus groups. Some of you told me that the postings on the joys of metadata and the concern about lack of concern on privacy issues led to examinations of your internal operations. The stories about mass market Geomatics like Google Maps and Microsoft Bing and their use in internal GIS shops resulted in a number of hits on the LIO Web site looking for examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly (not that LIO has anything ugly!).
The secondary purpose of this Blog was to experiment with the use of social networking media by Ontario Public Service staff as a conversation with the public. Blogging is not the same as a Web site; Blog postings are not used to disseminate information, announce policy, support online registration, or enforce regulations. They are a means of interaction. However, there was always a concern that opinions expressed on an uncontrolled Blog may be seen as government policy, that retention periods for the archiving of Blog postings and comments would have to be set just like other government documents, and that the look and feel of the Blog would have to relate, or not relate, to Government Web sites.
This Blog has served its purpose, and the lessons have been learned. Perhaps, someday, we will again pursue a Blog associated with LIO. For the time being, thank you for the opportunity to have this conversation. For more information about Land Information Ontario, please go to our Web site at Ontario.ca/LIO. Take care, and stay well…
Raphael Sussman
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