Social Networking and the Cloud: How Location Intelligence is "everywhere" - Alex MacKay, CEO

I was talking with Jeff Akers, CEO of Critigen this week about the advent of the use of location attributes in social networking offerings such as Twitter Places and Foursquare and we both agreed they will all increase the enterprise use of location intelligence by a significant factor. It’s very similar to what Google Earth and Microsoft Bing did to heighten awareness. Jeff makes a great point in observing that people under 35 have largely grown up in a world where just two dimensions (ex. spreadsheets) are a bit passé. Instead their world has been multi-dimensional and has been filled with location awareness, especially in digital games. As well he notes that the military has been 10 years ahead of business in the use of location (ex. The USA AirForce had a program by the year 2000 to map out every asset they had) and this knowledge and technology is quickly entering main stream usage. Just a few years ago everyone was excited to go to Microsoft or Google and see what their house looked like on the online maps. Today, they are at work thinking of how to take advantage of mapping out where the company’s assets are, how the management of those assets varies by location, and where is the best marketing or service enhancement opportunities relative to those assets locations. Jeff also pointed out that some businesses have been way ahead of the market using location. Walmart has grown to be the world’s greatest retailer by taking advantage of “where” the stores are and matching their logistics to just in time inventory of hot selling products. Other companies are noticing and following such leaders.

Jeff agreed with me that the use of location intelligence is growing, but that the key to its successful implementation is about the vertical application. At Critigen, they are seeing the greatest expansion of the “where” filter in asset based industries. Oil and Gas, Engineering, and Communication Service Providers (CSP’s) are the biggest new users. They continue to see it growing in Public Sector and Finance as well, but noted that even in their work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation the use of location is significant as determining the best location for a water plant or school in Third World countries is a very big “where” decision.

We talked about how the Cloud will also impact the world of location intelligence. Critigen are already seeing that companies are realizing that some information is most efficient coming out of public cloud offerings, but that for competitive and security reasons almost all clients are needing to have a private cloud for key sensitive information thus a “hybrid” model using both public and private is going to be the norm. Jeff commented that the big thing about location data, within the Cloud, is that location data is often the most or only consistent data inside disparate databases. And thus, location can be a special integration key when pulling together multiple sources. Jeff points to the example of the Gulf Oil spill crisis where 3 separate emergency operation centers have been established in 3 separate states. For this crisis the most consistent data available is location and the 3 emergency operation centers should be integrating their efforts and resources spatially via a cloud integration based on location knowledge.

Next week we begin a detailed series of posts on one specific industry (similar to the series we ran on insurance) when we drill into the growth of location intelligence within the Communication Service Provider vertical market.

Learn more about Address Governance - Christine Gemmell, Director Demand Generation

In one of our earliest posts on the DMTI blog dated April 30th, we discussed Address Governance. In that post we wrote in detail about this subject and we have had feedback that you’d like to learn more.

In working with Addresses, there are some fundamental tenants that organizations should apply to be able to leverage the power of Location Intelligence, and to be able to get the best possible performance out of their efforts. The 3Cs of Address Governance – Correct, Current and Context define the discipline and help organizations apply the power of location to make better business decisions.

The discipline of Address Governance certifies that you can trust, with confidence, that your data will support your business decisions. Address Governance is about implementing the processes that give you the most current, correct and contextual information on your assets, customers and facilities.

Chris Thomas, our VP of Solutions Consulting will be hosting a free webinar on the topic that discusses the basic principles of Address Governance by asking the following questions:

1. Are Your Addresses Correct?
2. Are Your Addresses Current?
3. Are Your Addresses in their proper Context?

By sharing his tips and experience Chris will discuss how the ability to answer “Yes” to these three basic questions can significantly contribute to the success of leveraging the power of Location Intelligence within your organization.

Date: Tuesday, July 13th
Time: 2:00pm EST

Register today to learn how your organization can profit from Location Intelligence!