Jim Querry: City of Philadelphia GIS is among country’s best, part of open gov future [Q&A]

Jim Querry at center, with the City of Philadelphia Office of Innovation and Technology GIS services group that he leads, including, starting at his right, GIS specialist Sarah Cordivano, GIS manager Brian Ivey, GIS application developer Adam Conner and system and database manager Julia Jia

In 1996, when Jim Querry started at the then called and still evolving Mayor’s Office of Information Services, there was a single Internet connection, an Apple dial-up tool at 1234 Market Street.

“That’s where you met to get on the web,” he said.

Fifteen years ago, Querry, who now leads the city’s geo-spatial information systems group that is responsible for mapping, tracking and evaluating city services, was joining an effort by some in the city to get ahead of what was already being billed as the digital revolution, a chance to bolster transparency and efficiency of government systems.

The Planning Commission, Querry said, led the charge to put the City of Philadelphia in a position to be setting the standard for what municipal use of GIS could yield.

To create the foundation on which the city’s crime analysis evaluations, trash collection routes and 311 complaint locations are determined, early city leaders chose platform tools from Calfornia-based Esri, now the global gold standard for GIS products. After early hesitance, Philadelphia became a leader in publishing its longitude and latitude-based map layers to state clearinghouse PASDA. By 2000, the city had won the prestigious Esri President’s Award, an honor again earned in 2008 — a two-time win that no other organization or level of government has yet duplicated.

Though other big cities have caught up in the GIS space in the last 10 years and the surging open data movement has captured public attention in other ways, Querry says the City of Philadelphia maintains some of the most dependable map layers around.

If accuracy is at the heart of making impact with data, then, Querry might argue, Philadelphia has a lot of reason to be a leader again.

Below, Querry speaks to Technically Philly, flanked by his young, four-person team, about the past, present and future of city GIS.

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City of Philadelphia Streets Department wins honors from Public Technology Institute

The City of Philadelphia earned three honors in the 2010-2011 Technology Solutions Awards competition from the  Public Technology Institute, a national membership organization for local government IT executives.

City initiatives won in the sustainability and the GIS categories and received a ‘Significant Achievement’ honor in the sustainability category as well.

• GIS WIN: Optimizing Traffic Signal LED Installation Using Mobile GIS Technology: In 2010, the City of Philadelphia Streets Department Traffic Division began replacing over 70,000 incandescent traffic signal bulbs with energy saving Light Emitting Diodes (LED) modules, with funding by the American Resource and Recovery Act. To help manage this enormous effort, a mobile GIS solution was developed and deployed to enable field personnel to accurately track the replacement of these inefficient and undependable incandescent bulbs using GIS-enabled mobile technology. This project, funded by the American Resource and Recovery Act, also enabled field crews to track and maintain the City’s street pole inventory using scanning technology and edit capabilities native to the GIS mobile environment. Based on ESRI’s ArcGIS Server Mobile platform, this set of customized desktop tools also ensures data integrity as well as provides many advantages, including data standardization, GPS navigation, minimized paper use, and x/y coordinate locations with real-time efficiency. [This initiative started in July 2010, with more technical details here]
• Sustainability WIN: Big Belly – Solar Powered Energy Improving Service: The Philadelphia Streets Department’s Sanitation Division employs the latest innovative technology to track maximum capacity and disposal of trash in bins better known as BigBelly Solar, solar-powered trash receptacles. This system features a wireless monitoring and management capability which creates staff efficiency through better deployment of crews and better management of personnel when planning collection routes and work zones. Software solution tracks all compaction and collection activity, allowing collection crews to maintain high service levels. [These trash cans were rolled out summer 2009]
• Sustainability Significant Achievement: Maximizing Swift Reach Results for Maximum Communication: The Philadelphia Streets Department employs the latest innovative technology to disseminate information about the department’s services and programs to Philadelphia citizens. The service most frequently utilized is Swiftreach Networks Emergency Notification Service also known as Reverse 911. The service is used as a means of quickly and efficiently broadcasting recorded voice messages to citizens over the telephone simultaneously. The department has utilized this service to distribute thousands of messages ranging from emergency road closures to trash collection delays/changes. This service can be activated by advanced technology users, but, most importantly, activation can be done by any technologically challenged person from any location with an Internet-connected computer using a web-based notification control panel and/or remotely by phone. A call/campaign can be scheduled with two simple components, a call list and message to citizens within mere minutes.

Predicting future crimes in Philadelphia

Jeremy Heffner, product manager for Azavea's crime forecasting software Hunchlab, explains the program's potential to aid in making law enforcement more effective. Photo by Nicholas Vadala.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

The term “crime prediction” often evokes the pop culture memory of Steven Spielberg’s 2002 science fiction film Minority Report. In the popular movie, the government polices its citizens with the help of a trio of psychic beings that can predict who will commit a crime in the future.

Throughout the film, which was based on a 1956 short story by Philip K. Dick, future offenders are arrested before they actually commit the crimes they were predicted to perpetrate.

Ralph Taylor, a criminal justice professor and crime trend researcher at Temple University, was quick to dispel that connection in a recent interview with Technically Philly.

“With Minority Report, you have what is called, in techno-babble, an idiographic prediction,” he says. “And what that means is that you can say this person is going to do this [crime], at this time, in this place.”

In reality, “crime prediction” is more appropriately termed “crime forecasting” and is far less nefarious than its fictional, more clinical counterpart, researchers say.

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How Azavea is helping the Wilma Theater uncover new markets with GIS

A feature on Azavea building tools for the Wilma Theater, and other art organizations, to find trends in their subscriber base, from Directions Magazine. It is not unlike this project from MPIP and the Cultural Alliance.

The Wilma faces many of the challenges common to nonprofit arts organizations nationwide, including the need to attract and retain stakeholders, whether they are patrons, subscribers, volunteers or donors. To that end, the Wilma embarked on a focused analysis of its core audiences in 2005 that would enable it to describe and understand expectations of existing audiences, identify “gaps” in the marketplace where new potential audiences and donors might be found, and apply this knowledge to enhance the experience for all.

via A Geographic Gap Analysis Uncovers New Markets for Nonprofits – Directions Magazine.

Aaron Ogle: growing a family, a career and a better city in Philadelphia

Another in the Entrance Exam series, as part of the Why I Love Philly campaign from Young Involved Philadelphia and Indy Hall. Tell the world why you love where you live by tweeting #whyilovephilly.

Aaron Ogle says he’s committed to the idea that technology can change the world for the better.

While working at civic-friendly GIS firm Azavea, Ogle built Walkshed, which just might be the ultimate software tool for
Philly pedestrians. He decided to up the ante in 2011 and join the inaugural class of Code for America fellows.

As a part of the Code for America team, Ogle will spend this year dedicated to the cause of creating applications around Philadelphia’s open data. The goal of this effort is to make government more transparent and government services more accessible.

Having spent his childhood in small town Ohio, Ogle appreciates Philadelphia both for its urban escapes along the Wissahickon and for its thriving arts and tech scenes. While understanding that there are very real challenges in Philadelphia that need to be addressed, Ogle sees the potential for greatness.

Below, Ogle talks about what brought him to Philadelphia and what will keep him here.

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Switch preview: Josh Marcus on the future of CommonSpace from Azavea

Many in Philadelphia’s technology community already know about CommonSpace. Josh Marcus wants you to know how the online mapping application came to be.

Marcus, 34, the lead developer for the project from Callowhill-based GIS development company Azavea, will be presenting CommonSpace at Switch, the demo event Technically Philly is hosting tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 6.

(Admittedly, we’re on shaky editorial ground here — we recently called CommonSpace one of the 10 coolest interactive maps of Philadelphia.)

Marcus expects much of the audience may have at least heard of the tool, which was developed in partnership with nonprofit technology consultant NPower, the Sustainable Business Network and a handful of other partners, including funding from the William Penn Foundation. So he’ll chart the path of why it looks the way it does and seek feedback on where it should go.

“It’s an opportunity for folks to shape a project trying to promote locally-owned Philly businesses and Philly as a great place for a sustainable lifestyle,” Marcus tells Technically Philly. “And we will sweeten the opportunity by announcing four $100 gift certificates to locally-owned Philadelphia restaurants to folks who give us feedback on our site.”

To Marcus, a long-time West Philly resident near Clark Park — “I am in ‘Squirrel Hill’,” he says, “although that’s not an actual neighborhood name I would normally use” — the project is a case study trying to answer two questions.

“Sure, we have cutting edge technology here in Philadelphia, but how do we build compelling applications with it, and how do we use it to promote our social goal of creating an economically and environmentally sustainable Philadelphia?” Marcus says, preparing to hit you with his firm’s new tag line. “And now is the time for next-generation location based services that go beyond simply putting dots on a map.”

Come get inspired by Apostrophe and four other Philly innovators at Switch on October 6th at the Levitt Auditorium. Get your tickets today.

A big thanks to our sponsors: First Round Capital, Genacast Ventures, The University City Science Center,MCD Law Partners, VC Deal Lawyer, The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, Corzo Center for the Creative Arts, and University of the Arts.

10 coolest (mostly interactive) online maps of Philadelphia

This 1838 map of Philadelphia from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania didn't make our list of the 10 best maps of Philadelphia.

We love maps.

For hundreds of years, they have helped us better understand our world. That understanding has grown wildly with time and technology, but, still, maps help.

In a place as inwardly focused, we have plenty of maps in Philadelphia. You also may know that we have something of a technology community here.

So there are resources like the Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access, or PASDA, which offers just a wild glut of GIS shape files for mapping geeks. We’ve seen cool mapping tools that are of broader scope though Philly got some love: from the addition of bicycle directions to Philadelphia Google Maps to the Google Building Maker to mapping the homes of those in the U.S. armed services who died in the Mideast this decade and many more.

But we wanted to highlight the coolest maps made for Philadelphia of Philadelphia.

Taking into account our own map obsessions, suggestions and calling out our community, we took on the task of listing, in no particular order, the 10 best online maps of Philadelphia.

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Azavea’s Cicero API goes international, GIS firm launches new website

Beyond dots on a map.

That’s the new tagline of GIS software firm Azavea, which has undergone a branding overhaul since it changed its name in March following a disputed legal claim.

As part of that move, last month, the shop based in the Callowhill neighborhood unveiled a new look to its website, completing the shift from a decade-old Avencia name to its new Azavea brand. Read about their CMS here.

The new look coincides with news that Azavea continues to expand the map they go beyond.

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New Philly mapping app gives dazzling directions to local businesses

This piece is reported in partnership with PlanPhilly, a news site that covers planning, design and development in the region.

This afternoon, I made last minute plans to meet a colleague to discuss some pressing business. We both had a packed schedule. I’d be biking from University City. He’d be on foot from 5th and South.

Sure, we could go to a staple favorite in Old City, one that’s convenient for him and I both. But what about trying something new? I usually rely on word of mouth, but I had no new ideas. And as for search engine results—where’s the serependipity?

I decided to try CommonSpace — a web application which soft-launched Friday morning — a joint project between Callowhill-based geographic information system firm Azavea, nonprofit tech consultant NPower, the Sustainable Business Network and a handful of other partners, and funded by the William Penn Foundation. [Full Disclosure: PlanPhilly is funded by the William Penn Foundation through PennPraxis and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.]

The glossy new mapping tool — which helps Philadelphians find under-the-radar businesses and events —is impressive.

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Azavea wins $150k NSF grant to develop GIS speed processors

In a world in which technology is being chased into the clouds, Azavea‘s calling card is still local.

The geospatial analysis work from the Callowhill software development firm formerly known as Avencia requires so much time, memory and processing power that its application are tied to workstations, despite trends in recent years for companies to become more web based.

So Azavea and its founder Robert Cheetham are working for a change that could impact the field and its implications for geolocation, mapping and the like. Armed with a $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, Azavea will begin testing the feasibility of using graphics processing units, a type of specialized processor more often implemented for rendering complex video game graphics at increasing rates. The aim will be to substantially increase the performance of many GIS software operations.

That means the development and implementation of projects that rely on GIS functions can be improved, like its noted Walkshed project.

Read more about the company’s grant here.