FOSS4G update: sponsorship, logo, web site

The organizing committee has been working away on various tasks for next September’s FOSS4G conference in Denver. We now have sponsorship details sorted out – you can download the brochure here (PDF). We are offering a 10% discount for any sponsors who commit by the end of January.

We also have a winner in our logo contest, which you can see at our new FOSS4G Denver 2011 web site. We had over 800 votes in total, thanks to everyone who voted! The logo design was an interesting process. Creating a logo is always tricky because you have as many different opinions as people involved in the process! We used a site called crowdspring, as you will know if you voted – multiple people compete to create your logo, which we found worked very well. And then they also have a voting process you can use if you like, which I found very helpful to choose a winner from the multiple good entries.

And as mentioned in passing above, our web site is now up and running - it will have a lot more content added to it over the coming weeks. But check out the timetable leading up to the conference – some significant items coming up are the call for workshops which will be out in mid January, and the call for papers which will be out at the beginning of February.

ArcGIS for iPad: one small step for usability!

I just did an "upgrade all" on my iPad applications, and happened to notice that ArcGIS for iPad v1.5 includes the following enhancement:

We have simplified the experience of identifying locations on the map. A simple tap on the map replaces the Identify Location tool.

This is nice to see, since I'd pointed out in a couple of my recent usability presentations that it took a minimum of six clicks, and more typically 9-10 clicks, to display feature information on ArcGIS for iPad, and suggested that perhaps a single tap on the map would be simpler. My voice has been heard!! Or maybe it was just a coincidence :), but either way a big usability improvement for the product, well done ESRI folks!

Don't make me think: Ignite Spatial NoCo 2 from Peter Batty on Vimeo.

Update: hmmm, I just tried it out briefly (rather than just reading the description), and looks as though it still takes 3 clicks to actually see the attributes of a feature, and still has some significant issues distinguishing between features that are close together. So some improvement but not as good as I had hoped.

Help us choose the logo for FOSS4G 2011!

As I've mentioned previously, I'm going to be the chair of the FOSS4G 2011 conference in Denver next September, and I wanted to ask for help in choosing our logo. We've been using a cool site called crowdspring, on which people compete to design your logo, with the winner getting a prize. I have been very impressed at the quality of entries. Please take a minute to have a quick look at these entries and vote for the ones you like (you can rate with up to 5 stars), and feel free to add any comments.

Thanks!

Ubisense myWorld featured on Google blogs

Today I had a guest post about Ubisense myWorld published on the Google Geo Developers and Google Enterprise blogs, check it out! Thanks to Mano Marks of Google for working with me on this.