www.metrokc.gov/gis

Greg Babinski, GISPFinance & Marketing Manager

King County GIS Center“Putting GIS to Work for King County”

Entrepreneurial GIS Services:

Innovative Practices at King County GIS

44th Annual URISA Conference

Vancouver, British Columbia

September 27, 2006

What’s the Agenda?

� Why Entrepreneurial?

� Why Innovative?

� Why Should We Care?

� What Have Others Done?

� What Can You Do?

www.metrokc.gov/gis

King County, Washington

� Microsoft

� Boeing

� Paccar

� Nordstrom's

� Amazon.Com

� Starbucks

� Port of Seattle

� Weyerhaeuser

� Washington Mutual

� Univ. of Washington

Population: 1,808,000 (12th most populous US county)

Area: 2130 square miles (sea level to 8,000’)

39 incorporated cities

Viable agricultural and private forestry areas

Remote wilderness & watershed lands

How is GIS Used for King County Business?How is GIS used for County Business?

� Mapping

� Public information delivery

� Growth management & planning

� Property assessment

� Land development permitting

� Site selection

� Simulating environmental conditions

� Emergency response planning

� Crime analysis

� Transportation planning

� Bus & van routing

� Road maintenance management

� Public health service delivery

� E911 operations

� Airport sound abatement

� Boundary management (legislative districts, voter precincts, tax unit boundaries, etc.)

� And the list goes on…..www.metrokc.gov/gis

King County GIS� The King County Geographic Information System

(KCGIS) is a consolidated and coordinated regional

geographic information resource, organized to meet the

business needs of King County, local agencies, and the

general public.

� KCGIS is comprised of both the King County GIS Center(an internal service fund, responsible for core GIS

resources and enterprise GIS services for the entire

County) and business specific activity in various GIS

programs distributed across other County agencies.

www.metrokc.gov/gis

King County Geographic Information SystemInternal Service Fund

What is an internal service fund?

� Full financial and operational responsibility for

providing designated services

� Agencies receiving services or benefit are required to

budget for internal service fund costs

� Chartered to operate on an entrepreneurial basis –

both within the county and externally

www.metrokc.gov/gis

Enterprise Operations:

� GIS Data Warehouse Management

� GIS Systems Administration

� Enterprise GIS Data Coordination

� Core GIS User Applications

Matrixed GIS Staffing Services

On-Demand GIS Client Services:

� Application Development

� Training

� Mapping & Analysis

KCGIS Center Business Lines

What is an ‘Expert’s’ Approach to Managing?

� Definition: Expert = A master of systems, a technology, a process, etc.

� My mousetrap is the best!

� The customer should change to adapt my solution to his/her business problem….

� I hope you’ll pay for what I am offering

� “The customer can have any color of car he want’s, as long as it’s black.” - H. Ford

www.metrokc.gov/gis

What is an ‘Expert’s’ Approach to Managing?

� "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

� "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949

� "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

� "But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

� "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

� "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend.

www.metrokc.gov/gis

What is an ‘Expert’s’ Approach to Managing?

� "With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.

www.metrokc.gov/gis

What is an EntrepreneurialApproach to Managing?

� Definition: Entrepreneurial = Organizing and managing an enterprise like a business, with considerable initiative and risk

� Build a better mousetrap?

� Give the customers what they want? (But, what if they don’t know what they need?)

� You get what you pay for….

� Follow the money

www.metrokc.gov/gis

Why be Innovative?

� Definition: Innovative = Introducing something new or different

� If you don’t build a better mousetrap, will someone else? Should you care?

� Give the customers what you want to give them? (But, what if they don’t want it….or need it?)

� Give the customers what they want? (But, what if they don’t know they need it….or want it?)

� You get what you pay for….follow the money

� GIS is a tool….sell it like one….

www.metrokc.gov/gis

Why is Innovation Important?

�Progress is important

� Innovation drives progress

� Innovation is intellectually stimulating

� It’s fun

www.metrokc.gov/gis

How Does an Entrepreneurial Approach Spur Innovation?

� Entrepreneurial approach focuses on solving a business problem

� The success of the customer comes first

� The customer and service provider become partners

� Business solutions lead to innovations….

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Targeted Marketing to Communities of Users

� Business Problem: School districts slow or ineffective in implementing GIS

� Solution: King County School Districts GIS workshop

� Get a group working on business solutions together

� GIS for schools newsletter with ‘success stories’

� Result: Ongoing working relationship with SPSD

� Future – Regional Parks Departments, Health Providers

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Packaging Services: GIS Services Express

� Business Problem:

� Clients need approval for multiple small projects

� Marketing/admin overhead for multiple small projects

� Solution: GIS Services Express™

� One year package of services

� 100 hour commitment provides 8 free hours, reduced cost for training, data CD’s, plotting services

� Result: Multiple clients – School District, City, Special Districts, Private Clients

� Future: Many renewals and potential for many additional clients

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Finding Customers & Learning What They Want

� Business Problem:

� Who are the customers and what GIS services do they need?

� Word of mouth leads are best but don’t always find all opportunities

� Solution: Search RFP’s & RFQ’s

� Search newspaper of record and key agency web sites

� Get on agency vendor lists and enlist all your staff

� Attend key agency contracting fairs

� Result: Multiple leads & project proposals - $100K’s of work

� Future: Enhanced proposal development process

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Deliver a Business Solution – Not Just a GIS Solution

� Business Problem:

� Customers want ‘business solutions’ – with a secondary GIS component

� Solution: If you have the capability – deliver the solution

� Programmers & DBA’s don’t need to be limited to GIS work

� System development KSA’s can be applied beyond GIS

� Data development/data management can be non-GIS

� Result: Airport Information System; Real Estate Portfolio Management System

� Result: Business solution focus resulted in project work that might not have gotten done otherwise

� Future: Establishing agency and regional reputation

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Partnering to Deliver Business Solutions

� Business Problem:

� Customers want ‘business solutions’ – maybe you can’t deliver 100%

� Solution: Partnering

� Subcontract for required KSA’s

� Become a subcontractor

� Consider a joint venture

� Result: Partnering resulted in project work we couldn’t do alone

� Future: Establishing key business relationships

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Develop New Services to Meet Business Needs

� Business Problem:

� Customer feedback indicated that ‘standard’ GIS training was lacking –many cases of GIS users not implementing GIS successfully or fully

� Solution: Develop custom GIS curriculum: GIS Training Express™

� Detailed survey to characterize the KSA needs of 500+ users

� KSA needs refined into 60+ classes for 5 categories of users

� Developing 4-6 custom classes per year

� Result: Additional project work and more successful clients

� Future: Refine classes, expand pool of GIS educators, widen market

www.metrokc.gov/gis

KCGIS Innovations?

Clone Solutions to Meet Business Needs

� Business Problem:

� Web mapping development capability was fragmented

� Solution: Assembly line solution to 90% of web mapping needs

� A highly capable, standardized web mapping template

� Populate templates with custom, business focussed map sets

� Support with rock-solid infrastructure, on-line help, and free training

� Result: Roll new ‘map sets’down the assembly line in 40 hours+/-

� Result: 2 million user sessions, 140 million map hits, 99.9% uptime

� Future: Provide Web Mapping solutions to external agencies

www.metrokc.gov/gis

Conclusion

www.metrokc.gov/gis

Don’t Kill Innovation!

Conclusions & Questions

You too can be an innovator:

� "If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." -Orville Wright

� “The greatest ideas you will ever have are the ones that other people don’t understand.” - Craig McCaw

� "The power to question is the basis of all human progress." - Indira Gandhi

� "All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true." - T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia

� If you are an expert – learn humility, be curious, take risks

� Cynthia Rabe: The Innovation Killer – How What We Know Limits What We Can Imagine

� Questions? Greg Babinski, GISPFinance & Marketing Manager

King County GIS Center201 South Jackson StreetSeattle, WA 98104206-263-3753Greg.babinski@metrokc.gov