Geoplatform.gov

Although the thinking above is quite right in project launches in general, the Geospatial Platform is fundamentally different and cannot afford to “start small.” It is critical for the Geospatial Platform to show very quickly its value to customers and OMB. To do that it needs to be implemented “en masse” to cover, no pun intended, as much of the horizon as possible. The most important thing here is developing a user/customer base that values the Geospatial Platform offering.

As stated, all things have a price tag and these costs need to be covered one way or another. The funding sources outlined in the Business Model, though relevant and have good potential, do not come close to being a “sure thing”. The only “sure thing” is in the quality of the offering itself; it has to be of such quality that the value will be quickly apparent to the targeted end users be they government entities, business entities, or individuals, who will then be quite willing to pay for it! The Geospatial Platform should let revenues (or cost-avoidance/ROI) drive expenses and ongoing operations.

Of course, start-up costs are significantly different than costs of ongoing operations. For start-up costs, the Geospatial Platform needs to develop a Platform-specific budget request and justification. This budget request should be separate from the lead organization and the approved budget should be used as an incentive for lead agencies. That way, potential lead agencies can quickly assess the likelihood of success based on resource constraints.

I think/hope the OMB understands that the break-even point may well be somewhere down the road, but, and this is important, the Geospatial Platform can begin showing value long before breaking-even. That will then accelerate cost recoupment and time to break-even. Too much focus on step by step break-even would tend to sacrifice a “jelling’ of the Platform as a very practical and hence valuable whole in favor of incremental growth in pieces which never get integrated into a larger whole where the true value resides and which cannot be broken down into pieces – imagine casting a bronze statue piece by piece and expecting each piece to justify its cost while the true value of resides in a completed statue, the value of which is orders of magnitude greater than the value of the constituents pieces.

If the Geospatial Platform cannot show its value/impact to the community, it is DOA.

The Geospatial Platform should aim to be self-sufficient in the long term.

At the Federal level - the development, funding and stewardship model is upside down (top-down versus bottom-up) for a number of framework data programs. But there should not be a one-size fits all mentality at the federal level for developing the NSDI, for example…

• Local->State->Federal: Parcels for the Nation and Transportation for the Nation concepts being discussed as top-down need to be flipped. Local Government should be directly funded to develop and steward these data, allowing them to leverage existing or new private sector partnerships (e.g. NAVTEQ, local GIS service providers, etc…) as needed to meet the required FTN specifications. These data layers should then be regularly harvested (rolled-up and homogenized) for access at the State and Federal level.

• Nation-wide: Imagery for the Nation and Elevation for the Nation are examples of where a top-down Federal model to make base-level imagery and elevation products available to every State is good. But the State should then have the option to take that money [base-level funding], add their own funding, and build and govern their own custom imagery and elevation program that meets their specific needs while still fulfilling the federal program data requirements.

Role out the platform in phases based on funding. Identify order of priority based on cost and which items must be completed first in order for follow up items to be considered.