Day one of this year's AGI GeoCommunity conference saw the geoweb track draw a sizeable, if varying, share of the delegate audience; some sessions were crammed tight and reduced to standing room only whilst others had a slightly less cozy but still enthusiastic crowd.
As part of this year's AGI GeoCommunity '09 conference, I took part in the Privacy: Where Do We Care? panel on location and the implications for privacy with Terry Jones, Audrey Mandela and Ian Broadbent, chaired and overseen by conference chair Steven Feldman.
Our location is probably the single most valuable facet of our online identity, although where I currently am, whilst interesting, is far less valuable and personal than where I've been. Where I've been, if stored, monitored and analysed, provides a level of insight into my real world activities that transcends the other forms of insight and targeting that are directed at my online activities, such as behavioural and demographic analysis.
Where I've been, my location stream if you will, is a convergence of online and real world identity and should not be revealed, ignored or given away without thought and without consent.In the real world we unconsciously provide differing levels of granularity in our social engagements when we answer the seemingly trivial question "where have you been?". To our family and close friends we may give a detailed reply ... "I was out with colleagues from work at Browns on St. Martin's Lane, London", to other friends and colleagues we may give a more circumspect reply ... "I was out in the Covent Garden area" and to acquaintances, a more generalised reply ... "I was in Central London" or even "mind your own business"
As with the real world, so we should choose to reveal our location to applications and to companies online with differing levels of granularity, including the ability to be our own source of truth and to conceal ourselves entirely, in other words, to lie about where I am. Where I am in the real world should be revealed to the online world only on an opt-in basis, carefully considered and with an eye on the value proposition that is being given to me on the basis of revealing my location to a third party. My location is mine and mine alone and I should never have to opt out of revealing where am I and where I've been.
It's probably an oversimplification of a complex issue but geographic conferences or events can be somewhat polarised towards one of two extremes. On the one hand you have the solid, slightly reassuring and established GIS world whilst on the other we have the upstart, slightly shouty, web-centric neogeography community. These two worlds don't always co-exist particularly well and each can be equally distrustful of the other. Where 2.0 in the US tries valiantly to get these two worlds to talk to one another and to share a stage but it doesn't always work well; the GIS community brandish their desktop GIS system while the neogeo hackers point to their PHP based web mashups.
But this year in Stratford-upon-Avon something brave, intriguing and altogether worthwhile is happening; both communities are being represented at the AGI's GeoCommunity '09 conference, which takes place in a little over two and half weeks time. Yes, there's GIS practitioners and yes, there's neogeo developers but there's also speakers covering all points inbetween; just take a look at the PDF of programme for this year. Even the tag line for the conference, Realising the Value of Place, places emphasis on the meeting of the geo-worlds.
Last night I presented a deck on Fire Eagle at the first London Geo/Mobile Developers Meetup, held at Google’s UK headquarters in Victoria; the full write up is here.
Last night I presented a deck on Mobile Location Based Services at the British Computer Society in an event organised by the North London Branch of the BCS and the BCS Geospatial Specialist Group at the BCS headquarters in Covent Garden; the full write up is here.
