Musings on the value of professional certification and branding

I am republishing this piece on my blog in 2010 because I think all raised issues are still very valid. I find that I am not the only one wondering about the value of the acronyms after their names (I became an AICP in 1993, a GISP in 2007). I will share more of my current thinking in a follow-up to this post.

Building a Brand

Directions magazine publishes my GIS architecture article

Directions magazine, the premier English language GIS publication, published my GIS architecture article. The article is based on my Design-Build GIS post.

Celebrating Four Years in Business

ENTCHEV GIS Architects was born four years ago today – on December 1st, 2005.

The past four years have been interesting – exciting, challenging, full of long hours and hard work. We had to learn a myriad of new things – management, accounting, business development, sales and marketing, human resources. We had to learn how to collect from deadbeat clients. We are still learning every day.

Read more on the ENTCHEV GIS Blog.

Macy*s's Dumb Move

Macy's web ads manage to get past Chrome's pop-up blocker and launch themselves in new tabs. Way to engender customer goodwill. This will surely get me into Macy*s stores.

Report: Wikipedia Losing Volunteers. Is Open Street Map Next?

My post on The ENTCHEV GIS Blog generated a lot of discussion, mostly criticism. Which is healthy. Add your thoughts to the discussion.

If you build a system based on volunteerism, what will you do when the volunteers don't want to volunteer any more? Proponents of various community mapping efforts seem certain of the existence of an unlimited supply of volunteer (read 'free') labor. But they should take note of this cnet news article, which shows that a volunteer's passion can be a fleeting thing.

Original post.

Parcels in Google Maps

Google launched a massive map data update today, plus a number of other changes. On the data front -- parcel data are now available for some areas in the US (more on that later). Also available are "more detailed natural features like parks and water bodies, and new base map data types like bike paths and university campus maps." There is also a new feature on Google Maps that allows users to report map data problems and send feedback directly to Google. Which brings me back to the data -- "Google has decided to stop using Tele Atlas map data for the U.S. Google will now use its own map data." At this point it is unclear what the source of Google's "own" data is, and what happens to the user-generated updates.

Read more on The ENTCHEV GIS Blog.

Web Malware and Isolated Tabs

Legitimate websites are getting injected with malware at a discomforting rate. A couple of weeks ago it was The New York Times (the NYT initially tried to blame the security breach on their advertiser Vonage, but quickly fessed up to being duped directly). This morning it is NJ.com – the website I go to for New Jersey news.

Both breaches “feature” the same malware, which pretends to be a virus scanner.

Read more at The ENTCHEV GIS Blog.