AAG 2009

Association of American Geographers annual conference.

=2009 Conference= Las Vegas, March 22-27, 2009 Meeting Homepage

Mini Report
Sessions were a success, we had 60+,50,20 for each respectively. The booth is going well and pictures will be posted later.

OSGeo Sessions
Tuesday March 24, Skybox 211, Riviera Hotel, 2nd Floor Starting at 1pm

The sessions are now co-sponsored by the AAG Cyberinfrastructure Specialty Group.

Session I: Papers
Title: Free and Open Source solutions for Geographers I (#3439) Details 3/24/09, from 1:00 PM - 2:40 PM in Skybox 211, Riviera Hotel, 2nd Floor Description:Case studies and general overviews of free software and data sources as applied to geography. Including neogeography tools, virtual globes, collaborative web portals, web mapping, GIS, remote sensing and statistics. This session aims to educate the general geography community about end user opportunities to implement cutting edge Free and Open Source solutions in your research. Anticipated Attendance:	50


 * 1) Stacey Ellis - A Wiki for every Geography : Talk will be given by alternate speaker
 * 2) Ron Buliung - Opening up the Geographers' Craft: Open Source Spatial Analysis with R - Cancelled
 * 3) Michael Treichler - Case Study in Sales Territory Definition using Open Source Software
 * 4) Andrew Turner - OpenStreetMap As A Successful Model for User-Generated Geospatial Content
 * 5) Joshua Campbell - The Disruptive Potential of GIS 2.0

Session II: Panel
Title: Free and Open Source Software solutions for Geographers II (#3539) (Text needs editing) Details Tuesday, 3/24/09, from 3:10 PM - 4:50 PM in Skybox 211, Riviera Hotel, 2nd Floor Description:The Free and Open Source Software movement is built on the idea that software can be functional and free. Programs such as QGIS (a GIS program), GRASS (GIS and remote sensing) and R (a statistics program) offer the same tools, if not more, as their proprietary counterparts but without the expensive price tag. Panelist from university, government and private consulting backgrounds will discuss how everyone can use free sofware as tools in their research. Database programs, web mapping, GIS, remote sensing, and statistics software are just some of the topics that will be covered. Come with questions or just come to listen. Anticipated Attendance:	50

(Up to 6 panelists)
 * 1) Alex Mandel - Graduate Student (University of California, Davis)
 * 2) Eric Wolf - Federal Government (United States Geological Survey)
 * 3) Andrew Turner - Private Industry (FortuisOne)
 * 4) Bruce Ralston - Professor (University of Tennessee)
 * 5) Shriram Ilavajhala - University Researcher (University of Maryland)
 * 6) -Open Spot-

Session III: Papers
Title: Free and Open Source Software solutions for Geographers III (#3639) Details Tuesday, 3/24/09, from 5:20 PM - 7:00 PM in Skybox 211, Riviera Hotel, 2nd Floor Description:Case studies and in depth technical discussions of free software and data sources as applied to geography. Including neogeography tools, virtual globes, collaborative web portals, web mapping, GIS, remote sensing and statistics. This session aims to explore the complexities and specifics of using cutting edge Free and Open Source solutions in geographical research. Anticipated Attendance:	50


 * 1) Dan Goldberg - A Framework for Evaluating Geocoding Research and Practice
 * 2) Jay Parsons - NASA World Wind Java
 * 3) Shriram Ilavajhala - Providing Effective Fire/Hotspot Information Access through the Open Source Fire Information Resource Management System (FIRMS)
 * 4) Eric Wolf - Functional Analysis for The National Map Server-side Computing
 * 5) -Open Spot-

Schedule of all FOSS speakers
There are at least 10 talks that identify Open Source or Open Standards, they will be added here when the AAG publishes it's schedule.

OSGeo Booth
It's about time we have booth at the US's largest geography conference. Also note it does attract a considerable foreign crowd.

Materials

 * 1) Table Throw - Order(Design done)
 * 2) Pop-up Banner - Order(done)
 * 3) FOSS4G Postcards - Received
 * 4) Printed Materials - Prepare for printing
 * 5) OSGeo Brochure - Overview/Case Study Bound Book (x5): spiral bound, anchored to the booth
 * 6) Bookmarks(x1000 ~ 250 pages) - skipping
 * 7) Business Cards(x2000 ~ 200 pages) - ready to print
 * 8) Business Card holder(x1-2)
 * 9) Magazine Racks(x1-3)
 * 10) Configure Demo Machines
 * 11) Download latest live DVD
 * 12) Install and Configure partition

Booth

 * 1) Get support from marketing team for a booth
 * 2) Get booth
 * 3) Send in final paperwork for booth
 * 4) Conference Personnel - Due Feb 23 - Tyler is submitting
 * 5) Figure out what to do with the 2 conference passes - Hurricane and Josh if they can come.
 * 6) Booth Items - Due March 9th
 * 7) Get a union exemption for setup by volunteers
 * 8) Money for Table and electrical outlet($150)
 * 9) Volunteers for booth
 * 10) Volunteer Schedule
 * 11) Setup
 * 12) Take Down
 * 13) T-shirts - Send size list to Tyler

Sessions

 * 1) Get speakers for the sessions
 * 2) Ask the Edu group to talk about it at FOSS4G.
 * 3) Register the sessions
 * 4) Confirm speakers
 * 5) Arrange for laptop in room
 * 6) Bring some handouts to session

Volunteers
Name and specialty (These are all the people with exhibit hall passes for setup/takedown, other volunteers will be welcome during normal hours)
 * Alex Mandel - QGIS, GRASS, R, Postgis, GDAL, OSM,
 * Michael Treichler - QGIS, Postgis, Private Industry
 * Michele Tobias - QGIS, R, Teaching, University
 * Alyssa Nelson - Open Source Philosophy, Community Organizing
 * Dirk Munson - OSM, public geodata
 * Andrew Turner -?

Other Volunteers
 * (Add your name here and contact Alex)

Schedule
Should we set this based on session times for talks so people can go to talks when not at the booth? Exhibit hall is only open 3 days out of the 7 day conference.
 * Setup is Monday 8am – 4pm
 * Monday, March 23,     6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
 * Tuesday, March 24, 	9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
 * Wednesday, March 25, 	10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
 * Thursday, March 26, 	9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
 * Tear down is Thursday, 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Proposed Budget
List of Items we need and proposed budget request from the Marketing team.

Sponsors/Funding Sources
These are ideas for where to try and get funds for the booth. We will be sending them a [[Media:Draft_Sponsorhsip_Letter_Jan09.pdf]] soon requesting funding, after a few more revisions.


 * OSGEO - ?
 * Universities - Davis, Berkeley,Santa Barbara
 * Open Source specialized companies - ? CloudMade? FortiusOne?
 * O'Reilly (Napa/Sonoma)
 * CIRGIS members
 * Other trade org members focused on GIS
 * Google (Bay Area)
 * Apress (Berkeley)
 * Companies using OS - CoreMark,

Sponsor

OSGeo Social
Anyone want to schedule a social?

Time: TBD

Place: TBD

Who: Anyone interested in Open Source Geo

Why: To get together to chat socially about stuff over some beer and bar food or maybe a buffet?

Directions:

Last years AAG was in Boston, see the list of osgeo related speakers

Ideas

 * 1) Do we want to do a workshop, Deadline is Oct 1

Other Ideas:
Ideas (Claim one and move it up above with your name, and submit your abstract ASAP)
 * Open Source - Community websites (Content Management, Wiki etc)
 * Open Street Map - Free Wiki Based Road Data
 * Open Source Business Case (slides available from lisasoft)
 * LiveDVD GIS
 * Helena Mitasova - Advanced Open Source GIS (Can't come)
 * Brian Hamlin - Intro to PostGIS

Other Ideas:
 * Plan A
 * Session 1:Introduction to FOSS in Geography
 * Session 2:FOSS Case Studies - What you did, what you used and why.
 * Session 3:Technical FOSS - talks that throw in the technical talk.


 * Plan B
 * Session 1:FOSS in Qualitative Geography
 * Session 2:FOSS in Quantitative Geography