Barnsley celebrates GIS Day, and you should too!

Hello.  Did you know that November 16th was World GIS Day?  The good folks at the Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council sure did.  They hosted a very successful event at the council offices with PBBI acting as a sponsor.  The event was kicked off by Phil Coppard OBE, the Barnsley Council Chief Executive and also included presentations from members of the GIS team including Andrew d’Andilly and Riley Marsden.  Topics covered included Ordnance Survey data usage, applied examples of GIS usage in the council and a preview of the new Barnsley Property Account application (yes, this application is using MapInfo Stratus, of course!).  PBBI contributed to the agenda by hosting a side track of technical sessions on MapInfo Professional and MapInfo Manager.

The participants were not only from Barnsley, a number of neighbouring councils were invited to attend as well.  An overall goal for the event was to try and encourage further adoption of GIS within the councils by sharing examples of how the technology is applied.  We know we succeeded in this as quite a number of followup conversations are planned within Barnsley and with some of the other councils who attended.

… and you should too!

So, aside from a good story, what’s in it for all of you reading this?  I would like to suggest to all of our readers that you too should consider hosting some form of GIS event in the future.  You need not wait for the next World GIS day, either.  If your organisation has a GIS team you might want to consider organising a day where you invite your whole team, other departments and perhaps even

Andy d'Andilly presenting on the council's GIS plans and strategy.

other organisations to participate.  This sort of event might be a fairly large affair which requires plenty of advance planning and organisation but please don’t let that scare you off.  You can always start with a less ambitious agenda.  Also, if you are not part of a GIS department or even if you are a single MapInfo Professional user you should consider how you can promote the work that you do to your organisation.  And finally, if you do consider holding an event you should definitely let your local PBBI partner and/or your local PBBI office know.  There are plenty of us who like to get out of the office and we can support you in a variety of ways.

- Tom Probert…