Thursday, September 3, 2009

Reliving my past

Over 25 years ago I suggested to a range of business users, designers, engineers, surveyors, and planners - that paper based maps, plans and designs or specialised dedicated models suited to a single audience or purpose - were not a good way to bring all the information to together (and allow it to be integrated, maintained, analysed, accessed by a wide range of different parties etc.). In those days I focused on technical computing (mapping, CAD etc.).

In those days I was talking to people who had spent a lifetime learning how to create truely beautiful watercolours that the scrapping little draws that came from that generation of CAD were the way forward.

The challenge was to get different set of people (professions) each of whom sees things from the own perspective yo see the overall picture and what is required to suit the needs to the entire constituency i.e. that if all information was made available using the same framework e.g. co-ordinate system - we could all see what was there, why it was there, what it related to etc. Design work could be migrated to as-built in a fairly painless, predictable and straightforward manner.

Conceptually now - that battle at least is essentially won (though aberrations remain).

Now I am having exactly the same discussion with people seeking to implement complex IT infrastructures (e.g. NSDI) i.e. business users, designers, engineers and planners. In case it is the meta information that is on paper i.e. the maps, plans and designs that sit and describe the: functions, the data, the roles, assets, networks of related elements etc.

Now we have a different set of people each of whom sees things from the own isolated perspective and fail to see the overall picture and what is required to suit the needs to the entire constituency.

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