Articles

The last few months have been quite exciting, since we launched our premiere issue and website of LBx Journal this past spring. I attended a number of conferences over the summer and fall, including the ESRI User Conference (Business GIS Summit), GeoWeb, Cable Broadband GIS Summit, Location Intelligence, CTAM Summit (cable marketing conference), Enterprise 2.0 and the Web 2.0 Expo.

Eighty percent of all business data has a location component. The source of this oft-quoted figure is not known, but the statement is logical, since almost everything we do as individuals and as businesses is location-based.

The automotive industry is under pressure on multiple fronts, both in the U.S. and Europe. Fuel efficiency and CO2 reduction top the list of priorities, as consumers, politicians, and regulators drive change within the industry. The U.S. government-established Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations demand better fuel performance from new passenger vehicles and light trucks. This is particularly significant in light of the high fuel prices in late 2008 and the general consensus that $4 per gallon gas will return. The European Union is focused on CO2 reduction programs, which tend to…

BACKGROUND The cable industry is fundamentally a location-based business with a plant and customers tied to specific locations, yet management is just beginning to realize, develop, and invest in the power of location data or GIS (geographic information systems) beyond engineering. As the cable business moved from a single residen- tial video service business to multiple products and expanded into business services, a greater need arose to better understand the location of the plant and network equipment relative to new customers. Time Warner Cable (TWC) is the second largest cable company in…

The difference between a business executive and a manager, an entrepreneur and an engineer, an investor and so much of what Wall Street has busied itself with over the last fifteen years is the difference between the unknowable and the known.

LBx: What is your responsibility at National Geographic? ELDER: I am a Producer of Geospatial Media for National Geographic Maps. I manage online cartographic production projects and develop new products that build on the solid foundation of map-making and content development. LBx: What is your background? ELDER: I have a Masters in Geography. I had a focus in urban transportation planning, which had a heavy GIS component, and I was a cartographer with the FAA.

In a fast-paced and increasingly globalized economy, effective market analysis iscritical to maintaining a competitive edge. Understanding customer preferences, environmental and economic changes and other non-apparent factors can help marketer and retailers make critical decisions when launching new products, making changes to existing ones and winning new customers.

The timeless words of Peter Drucker (widely considered to be the father of “modern management”) surely apply to location-based “x” – “location intelligence” tools. These digital tools are developed from complex interactions of databases, software, user interfaces, satellite positioning, and geographic conventions.

About five years ago, the group I worked for at Microsoft looked at what was happening in the blogosphere and decided to bring it in-house. We saw that the conversations needed a permanent home—the thoughts that wouldn’t clog everyone’s inbox—and we felt that our team could benefit. The problem was that there was no IT support for a small circle of blogs,so we ran our own installation. Fast forward, and now companies are formally supporting and encouraging blogs and other social software.

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer . . . That doesn’t work anymore. We live in a global economy where the price of a product depends as much on supply and demand in your local store as it does on cost to manufacture, transport and market. The world is full of confluences; nothing acts as a separate entity. Factors five or five thousand miles away can have an equal influence on our lives as consumers and citizens.