Talking About Opportunities

Author: Sue Gordon
Date: 30 November 2009

Tags: LINZ, data, economy

I was pleased to take part in discussions last week between LINZ's Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and key influencers in Auckland's spatial sectors.

The six members of the SLT invited Auckland geospatial players - representing local government to firms using and providing spatial data and services, from infrastructure consulting firms like Opus to academia - to talk to us about their views of opportunities and barriers in the geospatial area.

There was plenty of energy and enthusiasm for the discussion, and we had some great conversations around three key areas:

• What are the main barriers or issues to you?
• What datasets are really important?
• What are the key opportunities for spatial information to help grow New Zealand's economy?

There was common understanding that organised co-ordination is needed to ensure key datasets are available and accessible in an accurate and timely manner, and that New Zealand becomes more aware of the opportunities and benefits geospatial information can provide them. Key datasets identified included addresses, road centrelines and LINZ geodetic data.

We heard that two-way sharing is hugely important to ongoing improvement of information. As information is put out there, others who then use it and add to it should feedback to the 'owner' so ongoing development occurs. There was an interesting conversation about how we might incentivise to encourage this feedback loop to occur.

We also had a useful discussion about key opportunities for economic growth. Here are just a couple of the ideas and issues that were floated:

• Discoverability of data for large projects - for example, roading or infrastructure firms could use data already collected for another project if they knew it was there. An example was given of one government agent having the same area aerial-mapped three times in the past (by the same aerial mapping company) - simply because the information wasn't captured and shared after each project.
• Developing New Zealand's technical skills and services to create an export industry/opportunity.
• Building awareness and skills through education institutes, to deepen the skills available and to increase the supply of suitably skilled people.

LINZ is keen to listen, act and deliver, so we'll be having more of these conversations in the future. There was positive feedback from the participants, particularly that they valued the opportunity to bring this diverse group together to share one another's views and experiences.

The organisations that took part in the spatial discussions with the LINZ SLT on 23 November 2009 were: Auckland Local Government Geospatial Information group, Ollivier and Co, Eagle Technology, Beca Infrastructure, New Zealand Aerial Mapping, Auckland University, Centre for e-Research, Ecological Associates, Watercare Services, Ravensdown Fertiliser, SwannWhere GIS Consulting, Opus, Sinclair Knight Merz, Koordinates and Ministry of Economic Development.

Sue Gordon
General Manager Strategic Development and Support
Land Information New Zealand

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