A blog by Michel ten Brummelhuis, project and account manager at Argaleo
Like many of us, I have been working from home a lot during these extraordinary times. My daughter’s old room, complete with pink wallpaper and K3 posters, has been my daily office for quite some time. Since my life mostly revolves around home, it is wonderful to get out each day for a good walk and some fresh air. At home and around the house, life may sometimes seem dull and stagnant. The opposite, however, is true. My work has never been as enjoyable, dynamic and interesting as it is now. I am witnessing a significant shift in how governments organize and use ‘information on the map’. In this blog, at the end of the year, I would like to take you along to look back at these changes. I will also explain how we at Argaleo are responding to them.
Geographic visuals as a campfire
Government organizations today face many societal challenges. Whether it concerns creating a healthy and safe living environment or making cities more sustainable and accessible: to achieve results in tackling these major issues, it is essential that policy departments collaborate.
A vibrant neighborhood, for example, contributes to a greater general sense of safety among residents and businesses. Municipalities therefore see the need to organize more collaboration between domains such as spatial planning, economic affairs, healthcare, and public order and safety. This collaboration starts from a shared, coherent picture of the area. The map, geographic information, plays a catalyzing role in this. Joost de Kruijf (Program Leader at LCB) recently translated this driving role into a powerful metaphor. In his view, a map has the same function as a campfire during a camping trip. A place where people gather, gazing into the flames, where stories between people emerge, good ideas are born and new agreements are made. That metaphor has been the inspiration for this story.
Where map information was previously the domain of geographic information technicians (also known as ‘GIS specialists’), who occasionally provided colleagues with maps, it has now become a valuable means of sparking conversations between people and departments. It is also now an important source of information for executives, program managers, policy advisors and field professionals. One of the most defining shifts in my field is that the use of geographic information is increasingly finding its way from the basement or back office to the ‘front line’ of government organizations. I therefore speak more often directly with business representatives. This gives me even greater insight into the added value of information in practice. That is what makes my profession so exciting in these times.
Campfire: Symbol for the new role of geo-information
From siloed registrations and data to integrated information
To provide executives and the various domain specialists with a comprehensive picture on a daily basis, the need for integrated information has increased. In addition, due to the aforementioned shift in usage (by executives and policymakers in particular), it is more important than ever to make this information easy to interpret and readily accessible.
The challenge for information managers at municipalities and safety regions is primarily to obtain and maintain the required information from the multitude of sources, keeping it current and coherent.
Key registrations
Fortunately, the Netherlands now has 10 key registrations (basisregistraties). These are registrations that all government organizations must use when carrying out statutory tasks. This ensures that all government bodies operate from the same information, with fewer chances of errors in data use. Each key registration was established for a specific process or domain. For example, the Key Registration of Addresses and Buildings (BAG) for managing address data and certain building characteristics. By nature, these are siloed registrations, requiring government organizations to set up their own facilities to combine and use data from multiple registrations in a coherent manner.
It is encouraging to see that the national government and municipalities are undertaking various initiatives to make it easier for organizations to combine data from different key registrations. These include the Common Ground movement, the DiS-geo program and the Samen Organiseren scaling methodology. However, these initiatives need considerable time before delivering concrete and broadly applicable results. Furthermore, each government organization still has to organize and arrange much on its own to be able to query and coherently access data from the various key registrations.
Even more government sources
The existence of the key registrations helps information managers with their advice to the organization. In this era of data, however, municipalities, provinces and the national government produce much more relevant data and information than what is managed and made available through the 10 national facilities. While the number of key registrations is limited and has clear governance, the landscape of facilities where open data (open government sources) can be found remains highly fragmented.
Municipalities therefore spend a great deal of time bringing data together and creating coherent views to assess, for example, safety risks in the environment. Under the Environment and Planning Act, they are required to do this, as spatial planning must take potential hazards in an area into account. To paint this picture, using data from key registrations alone is insufficient. A combination of data from various open government sources is needed.
Something about reinventing the wheel
In my contact with municipal information and domain managers, I regularly notice surprise at the fact that hundreds of locations across the Netherlands waste unnecessary time and resources on ‘scrounging’ for data. Especially now that municipalities, in these extraordinary COVID-19 times, need to deploy their resources as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Countering this unnecessary waste of effort in gathering data was an important reason for our partner SPOTinfo to develop the Omgevingsserver (Environment Server). This dynamic cloud-based data platform (DaaS) already brings together more than 250 relevant datasets with data about the physical living environment, from key registrations and open government sources, in a coherent manner and keeps them up to date. It answers the question: What is where? This goes much further than the standard PDOK facility (public service on the map). Everything is made available through web services and can be used by organizations within their own application landscape.
From 2D GIS viewers to Digital Twins
I am pleased to observe in conversations with information managers and project leaders that they are increasingly using geo-information as ‘the campfire’ within their organization. Executives and policymakers are developing policy and measures more often from a shared comprehensive picture.
The Digital Twin, a 3D copy of the physical living environment in an area, is therefore on the rise. In a Digital Twin, the effect of policy, a measure or a disaster can be better interpreted. For example, the consequences of a fire in a childcare facility located in an apartment building. This is especially valuable for executives and policymakers who find GIS a difficult subject.
Cap Gemini recently delivered a report commissioned by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management: an inventory of smart city projects among the G40 municipalities. I find the conclusion striking that it is important to have data available in a coherent manner directly in a Digital Twin. Starting from an empty digital copy does not generate momentum in usage, according to experience. Precisely by providing integrated insights and showing the visuals, inspiration emerges, conversations between policy professionals and executives get started, and the concept comes to life.
Another compelling conclusion from the report is that for policy insights, it is not necessary to generate a highly detailed image of the built environment in a city. This takes a great deal of time and especially a great deal of money. Moreover, it requires enormous computing power from desktops and laptops. This actually hinders usage by executives and policy professionals.
According to the clients of the projects I am involved in on behalf of Argaleo, this is precisely a key strength of our 3D Digitwin. They can get started immediately because, with the combination of data from the Omgevingsserver and their own organizational data, they instantly have the necessary integrated insights at their disposal. They see that it immediately inspires colleagues to use it and to gather ideas for further development. The insights are presented in a well-functioning and fast 3D environment (which even works excellently on mobile devices).
Campfire stories in 2021
I am pleased with the development that geographic information is increasingly becoming the starting point within the various policy domains of government. My work is becoming more visible and this gives me a better view of the success of its use in practice. It is precisely because of this shift that I am very much looking forward to the coming year, when we at Argaleo can look forward to many great projects.
To answer the demand for use cases and to provide inspiration, I will regularly share a great campfire story about the use of our Digitwin throughout 2021.
For now, I wish everyone a wonderful end to this year!
Inspired?
Would you like to experience your own campfire and see how Digitwin can help stimulate connections between people and departments within your organization?
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