I was asked a couple of weeks ago to list the benefits for local government to belong to ICIS and I thought it appropriate to post my response here. Many municipalities feel that membership is a one-way arrangement with lots of give but very little in return. Here's what I wrote including a bit on the challenges that we still face:
The Integrated Cadastral Information Society (ICIS) was originally created to build a single seamless cadastral fabric for the Province. The mission has since broadened to encompass the sharing of all kinds of spatial data (digital maps). As a result, there is an expanded interest in ICIS membership and an increased interest in improving the quality all types of cadastral data not just the cadastral fabric.
The question is often asked, what are the benefits to local government for participating in ICIS since many local governments are mainly creators and not consumers of spatial data? Here are some of the benefits we have come to see:
• Less interruption to local government business – Major utility companies, regional districts and other multi-jurisdictional organizations are members of ICIS. They now come to ICIS when they need local government data. This translates to fewer queries that local governments have to respond to that are not directly related to servicing the taxpayer.
• Emergency planning and response – Because ICIS data is accessible centrally and span jurisdictional boundaries it is the ideal place to acquire spatial data that is necessary for emergency planning and response. Like it or not, disasters often do not respect municipal boundaries such as chemical or pipeline spills.
• Grants – ICIS works hard to find additional money that can be given to local governments in the form of grants to improve spatial data and develop GIS capacity. There is currently $250,000 available to local governments under the CivicSpatial grant program with equivalent funding for 2008 and 2009.
• BC Assessment Dependence – BC Assessment depends on ICIS to support its central assessment database used to conduct local government tax assessments. BC Assessment takes this approach because it is efficient and more accurate than manual methods. By contributing data to ICIS local governments are reducing the cost of BC Assessment operations and improving the accuracy and stability of the roll which reduces appeals.
• Political Influence – Local governments have 5 of the 16 seats at the ICIS board table and, as a result, have a high degree of influence over Provincial and Utility members policy and direction as it relates to spatial data issues in BC. Currently 137 of the 187 local governments in BC are already ICIS members.
• One taxpayer – Participation in ICIS reduces redundancy across government levels and industry sectors thereby reducing the burden on the single taxpayer. Efficient exchange of information that is common to everyone benefits everyone.
As ICIS continues to mature we face many challenges that we continue to work on including:
• Differing business needs amongst partners – It’s extremely hard to build one product or service that meets the needs of everyone. ICIS, like any other large organization, faces challenges in meeting everyone’s needs and expectations.
• Solid commitment from partners – ICIS has enjoyed tremendous support from its member groups but that support is often tempered. A cooperative organization like ICIS needs 100% commitment to the vision of sharing.
• Changing technology – Every organization in the world is faced with rapid technological change. ICIS is no different and must find ways creative ways to adapt to technological change without impacting our vision.
• Data standards – Open sharing of data requires some level of standardization. Developing standards and implementing them is a challenging undertaking at its best but is necessary to achieve useable and shareable data.
Given our challenges, ICIS is gaining a world-wide reputation in inter-agency cooperation and goodwill. ICIS continues to prove the power of partnerships that will carry us well into the future.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Multi-headed Dragons - Part III
In my last two postings I dealt with the Provincial and local government relationships within the ICIS family. In this posting I will take a look at the utility companies - the final group of the founding ICIS members.
To a large extent, I have found utility companies the easiest to deal with in terms of their wants and needs. That's not to say that there are no issues but simply that their issues are often much easier to resolve than those within local government and between local government and the Province.
Now, before I go further, I should also note that the utility companies do pay the majority of the bills that keep ICIS going (including my own compensation) so I'll state up front that my glowing view of utilities is perhaps tainted. Having said that, here are my thoughts. . .
The utility companies business aligns nicely with that of local government. Their needs for information are almost identical (in fact, a local government operates its infrastructure as a utility). The only major differences between the two is that utility company interests generally span jurisdictional boundaries (like the Province) and they are in business to make money (the Province and local government are not. . . well, not supposed to be anyway).
The business rationale for utilities to participate in ICIS is primarily to save time (not have to go to 200 different agencies for data) which, in turn, saves money. If utility companies saw no return for their investment they would not participate. It's as simple as that.
There are two interesting rub-points with respect to the utility members however. First, is the issue of positional accuracy of the utility infrastructure in relation to local government data. In some areas utility data was not mapped in relation to local government data so sharing becomes problematic. If the pipes don't line up with local government rights-of-way then the data becomes of little use to a local government for the purpose of locating foreign (other utilities other than the municipality) services. In this situation there is little motivation on the part of the utility to move its data since, like local governments, the data meets their own internal business needs. Moving the data would cost money providing little return to the utility's business operations. The result is some tension between some local government and some utility members. Doubly interesting is that this problem works the other way as well. Some local governments have poor positionally accurate data yet still insist on utility companies to provide accurate information.
The second rub-point with respect to the utility members is competition. When ICIS was originally formed the founding utility members were largely non-competitive amongst each other. That is, there was one gas company, one hydro company, one telephone company and one cable company. Now, as new utility companies want to join ICIS and existing members are providing services similar to other members (Shaw and Telus for phone service for example) there becomes some discomfort about sharing infrastructure data between these other members. It somewhat surprises me that, for the most part, this has caused little problem within the ICIS family. I find it hard to imagine that this sort of arrangement could work in the United States where corporate data security seems of much higher importance. In the end, it is the general cooperative nature that we see at ICIS that has got us this far. It's quite remarkable and quite Canadian!
To a large extent, I have found utility companies the easiest to deal with in terms of their wants and needs. That's not to say that there are no issues but simply that their issues are often much easier to resolve than those within local government and between local government and the Province.
Now, before I go further, I should also note that the utility companies do pay the majority of the bills that keep ICIS going (including my own compensation) so I'll state up front that my glowing view of utilities is perhaps tainted. Having said that, here are my thoughts. . .
The utility companies business aligns nicely with that of local government. Their needs for information are almost identical (in fact, a local government operates its infrastructure as a utility). The only major differences between the two is that utility company interests generally span jurisdictional boundaries (like the Province) and they are in business to make money (the Province and local government are not. . . well, not supposed to be anyway).
The business rationale for utilities to participate in ICIS is primarily to save time (not have to go to 200 different agencies for data) which, in turn, saves money. If utility companies saw no return for their investment they would not participate. It's as simple as that.
There are two interesting rub-points with respect to the utility members however. First, is the issue of positional accuracy of the utility infrastructure in relation to local government data. In some areas utility data was not mapped in relation to local government data so sharing becomes problematic. If the pipes don't line up with local government rights-of-way then the data becomes of little use to a local government for the purpose of locating foreign (other utilities other than the municipality) services. In this situation there is little motivation on the part of the utility to move its data since, like local governments, the data meets their own internal business needs. Moving the data would cost money providing little return to the utility's business operations. The result is some tension between some local government and some utility members. Doubly interesting is that this problem works the other way as well. Some local governments have poor positionally accurate data yet still insist on utility companies to provide accurate information.
The second rub-point with respect to the utility members is competition. When ICIS was originally formed the founding utility members were largely non-competitive amongst each other. That is, there was one gas company, one hydro company, one telephone company and one cable company. Now, as new utility companies want to join ICIS and existing members are providing services similar to other members (Shaw and Telus for phone service for example) there becomes some discomfort about sharing infrastructure data between these other members. It somewhat surprises me that, for the most part, this has caused little problem within the ICIS family. I find it hard to imagine that this sort of arrangement could work in the United States where corporate data security seems of much higher importance. In the end, it is the general cooperative nature that we see at ICIS that has got us this far. It's quite remarkable and quite Canadian!
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