Great story in today’s New York Times about maintenance/repair issues with subway elevators in the New York City Transit system. Umibot finds this interesting because it draws attention to the hidden world of attribute data. While spatial elements (station points, entrances, routes, etc…) are valuable, attribute data allow users to act on information–hours of operation, are elevators in operation (today), real-time scheduling/routing, parking facilities, etc…Last week we announced our mass transit initiative, and lots more about that coming soon…

Great Flash graphic showing elevator entrapments and downtime.

UMI is growing and looking to expand its core team to include a seasoned technology professional who is comfortable managing projects, interfacing with customers, speaking at public events, designing systems architecture, overseeing offshore development, contributing to core products and developing/maintaining new ones.

Only those comfortable with the entrepreneurial ethic need apply–that means a can do ‘whatever the cost’ attitude, passion for the geospatial, excitement over creating the Next Big Thing and interest in joining a small group of management-limited, relatively meetings-free run and gun starup.

We don’t have a job description for this role, but can tell you a few things we look for:

• 15+ years experience
• Extensive project management/people skills
• Varied DBMS skills - you need not be a DBA, but you must have strong competency with flavors of SQL
• Varied programming skills - Programming isn’t something you’ll need to do (much of), but you must have this foundation to be able to manage others and make informed decisions about technology strategy
• Varied systems/environment skills - Vservers, various flavors of Linux, SOAP, REST, etc, etc…
• Geointerest or background

We aren’t looking for a lifelong ESRI booster. Somebody who understands the geo in the context of interactive web applications will have the ability to quickly learn and adapt. For Urban Mapping, the technology is only a means, not the ends, to achieve our goals.

If you are interested in this role, please forward a resume with a note describing your interest. Send it to talent [at] urbanmapping [dot] com with GEOTECHNOLOGIST in the headline.

Rafe Needleman’s Webware offers a concise overview of UMI’s neighborhood database product.

Urban Mapping seeks an inquisitive and capable entry-level researcher for a unique multidisciplinary role. Working with business and technical staff, we seek candidates who have proven themselves in conducting research through non-traditional and creative channels. You will support development of Urban Mapping’s print and digital products by taking guidance from product managers to identify, source, standardize and manage spatial data. You will use your technical skills to manipulate data, create reports and contribute to development of our home-grown tools.

Required skills include:

• 0-3 years professional experience
• Interest/background in geography, urban planning, cognitive psychology or computer science
• Strong computer skills (PC/Mac)
• Able to structure/perform complex web searches (think Google advanced search)
• RDBMS experience including basic SQL
• Detail-oriented, self-managed
• Clear, cogent written and oral communication skills.

We pride ourselves on working in a creative, entrepreneurially-driven environment. Our methods are novel, but our approach has yielded valuable insights and results. We are interested in candidates who have a solid technical foundation but want to apply these skills in a broader context. This position will be a contract position of about 20 hours per week.

Please Note: If you come from ‘traditional’ GIS training, this position is (unfortunately) not for you.

Urban Mapping employs user-focused techniques to develop geo-spatial data products to industry and innovative maps and wayfinding-related tools for consumers. We are based in San Francisco.

To be considered for this position, please forward a resume and brief note speaking to your training and experience. Email to talent [at] urbanmapping [dot] com. Indicate “Geodata Analyst” in the subject line. Compensation is hourly rate. No phone calls please!

News from the National Weather Service that is sure to get (geo)data-wonks excited…

From the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Adminstration (parent agency of NWS), the current means of tracking severe weather events is done in the following manner:

…The NWS currently issues and disseminates warnings for tornado, severe thunderstorm, flood and marine hazards using geopolitical boundaries.

As of 1 October 2007, this system will change to something new:

Storm-Based Warnings (threat-based polygon warnings), are essential to effectively warn for severe weather. Storm-Based Warnings show the specific meteorological or hydrological threat area and are not restricted to geopolitical boundaries. By focusing on the true threat area, warning polygons will improve NWS warning accuracy and quality…

You may want to ask Umibot “what’s the big deal?” Some graphics from the Storm-Based Warnings (NB: press release to follow on 10/01/07) illustrate this:

On the left, the county is used as the unit of measure–this means if a predicted storm path touches a county boundary, the entire county will receive an alert. This is especially cumbersome in some Western states, where counties can be extremely large. Deploying emergency resources (first responders, food, supplies, etc…) and alarming the public when not necessary could prove and expensive proposition.

The image on the right highlights the new approach: “threat-based polygons” might sound menacing, they are no different from what the NWS currently uses with a key exception: the granularity has changed such that the unit of measure is now the municipal boundary.

From UMI’s perspective, what is interesting to note is that NOAA prediction accuracy did not drive the Storm-Based Warnings program–there are meteorological (and related) advances that help officials understand patterns of severe weather, and that is independent from presenting those data. Because prediction science has become more accurate, a smaller unit of measure (ie, municpal area) can be used. From this perspective one could say predictions were ‘hiding’ behind the larger unit of measure (ie, county).

Umibot likes these kinds of stories because they play directly into his (or her?) sweet spot–the design of data. And this was the focus of a talk Ian gave last year on the very subject.

The analogy for local search is clear–data should drive the use case of an application. If one is going to offer an application that allows for (say) mobile search, will a user have the granularity that is needed to have a meaningful experience? An example here is “restaurants in San Francisco”–mobile means you are, well, mobile, on the go, and a city is (probably) not a meaningful geo-constraint. Something more granular, like a 2 mile radius (if the device is location-aware), cross street, or neighborhood will likely be more satisfying.

Urban Mapping seeks a detail-oriented and communicative individual to manage our globally-distributed research staff. In this role you will work with remote project managers and researchers ensuring we meet internal objectives, liaise with core UMI staff and support global resource needs. This is an unusual role in that it blends traditional elements of project management with domain expertise in urban planning, demographics research, cognitive psychology and geospatial technologies.

The ideal candidate for this position will have completed advanced studies in urban planning/demographic research, demonstrated project and people management skills, shown familiarity with basic GIS concepts and exposure to SQL and/or programming languages. Foreign language and international experience is also desired.

Please note this is a full-time contract position, expected to last 3-6 months, beginning immediately. This may become a temp-to-perm opportunity, depending on the candidate and UMI planning. Pay is $20-$30/hr, depending on experience. Also, note the above are ideal qualifications, and we encourage you to be in touch if you feel your background and skills are a match. To be considered for this position, please forward a resume and brief note speaking to your training and experience. Email to talent [at] urbanmapping [dot] com. Indicate “Project Manager (Contract)” in the subject line. No phone calls please!

UMI’s Ian White will speak at GeoWeb 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, July 23-27, 2007. His talk, Web-based GIS or GIS-based Web?, will address how neogeographers have changed consumption habits of spatial data.

A several weeks ago we posted a few thoughts about the death of the ZIP code. There’s a lot more to say from the geo-perspective on local search, and here’s some more fodder…

To give any data a geographic context, it must be spatially-referenced to the Earth. Geographic information systems (GIS) serve as a means of referencing this information. Within the context of local search, addresses, city boundaries, postal codes or other geographic data must be ‘translated’ from human terms (690 Fifth Street, San Francisco) to latitude and longitude, ie, machine terms (37.775429, -122.397314). This geocoding process allows databases to recognize human-language requests. To geospatially reference (say) a postal code, one would expect that area to be spatially-defined. When a user searches for (say) “coffee in 94107,” the ZIP code should serve as the geographic constraint, searching within this polygon. Correct?

Wrong! A variety of reasons are to blame for why the logical doesn’t happen: most obviously, ZIP codes were defined as letter carrier routes. They were not meant to serve any other purpose. As such, the ZIP may not even conform to what you expect–one side of a street, one floor of a multi-story building or one-half of a block may not be fall within what postal code you expect. In fact, many parties claim to use a ZIP code database in fact obtain this info from a sister governmental agency, and these boundaries are stylized representations of the USPS data.

More to the point, these stylized boundaries are likely not used. Instead of associating (say) 50 latitude/longitude points to define a the postal code boundary, technical optimization says one point is sufficient. The analogy here is reducing a novel to a word–in the context of local search, granularity matters, and using the mathematical center of a polygon serves to distort and misinform a user’s search. In practice, the centroid is used because it is more efficient to calculate than the actual shape. Reducing the contours and nuances of a small area to a point, often with a radius drawn around it, effectively makes all postal codes look like circles. Gaps and overlaps are formed, further distorting the expected reality for a user.

Graphically this can be represented with the ZIP code boundary and circle (with the center serving as the centroid). The circle includes area that is not shared with the postal code area and vice versa. A user searching in this ZIP will therefore not be returned all the relevant listings. Some will argue this is a technology issue, but from the above example, it clearly more of a mindset–getting product managers to think about the how and why of data will go a long way.

Surprise! Yahoo! Maps is going inhouse with its own map server. This is after 5+ years with Telcontar, aka deCarta. Some new changes out today and apparently more in the works.

Thanks, Adena.

Umibot feels that many readers won’t bat an eyelid over this, but my master feels strongly, so I must be a good slave and report…

The original idea was to have a Top Ten list, but frankly there aren’t many moves worthy of the Power Move moniker, so we will instead post them when we think of them.

Our favorite is AskCity’s draw-your-own-polygon and search within. There’s no hiding the fact that this take some serious geo-skillz to implement. To hell with ZIPs (or neighborhoods for that matter)–draw your own boundary!

This screen grab shows an area being drawn near UMI’s offices. As it is late morning, we are always hunting for new lunch spots in this half-industrial/half developed part of town.

This grab shows results–presto!