GIS Day was a wonderful opportunity to learn and meet with people.
If you did not have a chance to come to ISD’s booth, you can download our video, poster, and fliers that we were displaying at the booth.
The Los Angeles County 2009 GIS Day Presentation Schedule has been uploaded to give you an idea of the presentations that will take place throughout the day (Wednesday, 11/18/09 – Downtown Los Angeles). Click here (PDF)
Of course, there will be demos, the maps display and GIS-equipped vehicles all day (9:30 am to 3:30 pm actually).
Full event information can be found by clicking here.
Presentation Schedule – Click here (PDF) NEW!
Our event is shaping up and things are almost ready for next week’s GIS Day Event. Our banner is up in the Civic Center Mall and we’re hoping to get a nice turnout.
Speaking of turnout. We really want to “show off” what we do with GIS in the County…it will be that much better the more folks we get down there. The courts are closed that day so a little less “juror” traffic… but the weather looks like it should cooperate for us; so maybe more folks will be out and about.
If you work Downtown and want to see some cool demos and see what GIS is all about. Come on down!
Full event information can be found by clicking here.
Time for another GIS Day update. Planning is going well for our event on the Civic Center Mall on November 18. If the weather cooperates again, this will be even more fun than last year’s. First, my requests for help, then the planning status.
I’m looking for donations! Does your department have any goodies in the range of a $10-$15 value that it gives out at community events? Could it donate one or two as prizes for our contest? I’d like to have a drawing every half hour, so I need 11 or 12 items to give away. Please send me an email if you can contribute.
I will be asking our non-County exhibitors as well; last year, they were very generous. This year, however, there are far fewer of them and I’m hoping they will donate refreshments for the folks staffing the booths. Of course, if your department can help supply water, coffee and/or a simple snack, I’d be interested in hearing about that, too.
I’m looking for help with publicity! Please help get the word out, both within your department and to the public. Blog it, email the flyer to your friends or send it in to your local paper’s events listing. Contact me if you need more information on what to say.
Links to materials:
I’m looking for event day volunteers! Please send me an email if you can help:
We will have 30 booths, 3 or 4 emergency response vehicles, a larger map gallery than last year, a “Where in the County?” GIS game that uses our new oblique and ortho imagery and a raft of short presentations with headliners Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and CEO Bill Fujioka. Our list of confirmed exhibitors:
| County | Schools | Others |
| Assessor | Cal Poly Pomona | Census Bureau |
| BH | Rio Hondo | USGS |
| CEOOEM | UCLA | City of LA |
| CIO | USC | LA Rec & Parks |
| DHS | HealthyCity | |
| DMH | ESRI | |
| DPH | ||
| DPSS | Manley Solutions | |
| DPW | Thomas Brothers | |
| DRP | ||
| FIRE | ||
| ISD | ||
| LAR-IAC | ||
| Parks | ||
| RRCC |
We are still awaiting answers from one or two others but we are completely sold out. My thanks to Alma Vazquez, David Kwan and Vijay Manghirmalani for ongoing coordination with these groups.
In addition to the Supervisor and CEO, we have 6-8 presentations taking shape for the Speakers’ tent. I will publish the schedule as soon as we firm that up. Presentations will be no more than 15 minutes and should target a lay audience. DRP will provide audio and video support for the tent.
Last year’s map gallery had 30 panels and we ran out of space. This year, we will have 36.
The “Where in the County?” game will feature photos of nine County landmarks, chosen both for easy recognition and the quality of the views we have available. Contestants must correctly identify at least six to be entered into the next drawing. They won’t have to be present to win, but they do have to have attended the event (last year, some folks put in entries for their friends and co-workers, who were clueless when I called). We will empty the hopper after each drawing.
DWP is donating photographers and a videographer for the event. That should provide great material for us.
That’s it for now. Still plenty to do but I think it’s shaping up nicely. Thanks for participating.
Martha Selig
Martha Selig
Please click here to download the flyer we’ve put together for this year’s event (November 18). Feel free to email me with comments or suggestions. Since it has all the relevant event date information on it, you can feel free to go ahead and start using it, if you wish.
I hope to post the results of the second survey tomorrow and start work on the third. One planning change, recommended by David Kwan, has been adopted. We will have a “university row” section of booths and David will head up the coordinating effort for that section. I will forward the names of those who volunteered to coordinate with different schools to him, so he can call on you for help with your school.
Martha Selig
I have just sent out the above update to my contact list. If you have not received a copy and would like to see it, please send me a note and I’ll get it out to you. Thanks.
Martha Selig
My thanks to those who took the critique survey. This feedback will be instrumental in helping us plan our next event. A slightly edited summary of the results is here. It includes some great insights and suggestions.
In brief, I think it is safe to say that the event was largely regarded as having gone pretty smoothly, though there are a number of adjustments we need to make. Most particularly, we need more map gallery space and a way to keep visitors out until the event starts. Apparently, a few tables were cleaned of goodies before 10:00! We also need projection screens – we may need to find out if the tent sides can be attached and lowered partway to serve as screens, which would greatly reduce the number of screens needed. Naturally, parking was a problem. We learned that a bullhorn is not a PA system.
The one disappointment for me, however, is that half the respondents said that few to none of their department staff attended. This could be a function of location, parking, timing, publicity, selection of respondents, etc., but it appears we need to pay more attention to how we get our audience out to see us. Well sure, we had a great time, but what of our objectives? The next planning committee will have to address this issue.
If you have any more thoughts to share about our GIS Day event, please email me directly at MSelig@planning.lacounty.gov.
Oh, and I took the liberty of booking the mall for Wednesday, November 18, 2009. We can always choose a different location but at least we have this as an option.
Enjoy the slideshow from the very successful GIS Day.
During our GIS Day event, I spoke with Warren Roberts at Rio Hondo College, which has a very robust GIS program. He let me know that his advanced students are always looking to gain more experience, and many departments, agencies, and cities are always swamped with too much work.
This is a first notification, but I do plan on working with our departments to establish a mechanism to connect their needs with the skills that many GIS students will have.
If you have specific needs now, I am adding Warren’s contact information here:
Warren S. Roberts
email: gisteacher@gmail.com
Professor Geographic Information Systems
Rio Hondo College
Lat 34.018768, Lon -118.037825
OVOV-NET is specifically geared toward the Santa Clarita Valley Plan Update Program, One Valley One Vision, covering the unincorporated areas of the Santa Clarita Valley in Los Angeles County. The site is specific to this area (a different approach than our countywide sites) and it shows information on proposed land use and circulation. The site has been available to staff for a couple of weeks and now to the public effective December 1, 2008. Everyone can access the site from the following link:
http://planning.lacounty.gov/intGisMaps.htm
Please provide any feedback…constructive criticism is always welcome.
