You're listening to a very spatial podcast, episode 764, July 8th, 2025.

Here inside my heart distance from the hello and welcome to a very spatial podcast.

I'm Jesse.

I'm Sue.

I'm Barb.

And this is Frank.

And.

This week we're gonna be talking about stuff.

But first of course some news and kicking off this week is not really news, or it shouldn't be news now, it's something that's already happened.

Esri has deprecated story maps.com and if you recall, back in the day, story maps.com was their attempt to try to get creators, social media people, whatever you wanna call it.

I am not gonna use the I word to use story maps, which a few people did.

But really it, it.

Really focused and continued to be more of the professional population that was using story maps.

And so, and that's kind of the upshot.

So not really a lot of news, just a, hey, if you had story maps on story maps.com, they've been announcing this for, I don't know, 18 years, 27 years on forever.

It feels like forever they've been saying, this is going away, this is going away, this is going away.

She really should know that by now.

As someone who was impacted, I have to, to say, even though you've been hearing it, like everyone, you just kept putting it off.

But Aaron Carroll, who created story maps, wrote a really nice article where he said, here's my process.

Look, you're gonna have to screenshot things.

You're gonna have to, you know, maybe download it as a PDF.

There's no good way to do it.

So save the ones you wanna save and just let the other ones sort of, you know, depreciate along with, you know the story maps.com.

So even though everyone's been hearing it, it doesn't really hit till you're like oh, I, I bet 80% of their client base went, wait, what?

Well, I'm in that category.

'cause you say everybody's heard about this, but I'm, I didn't find out about it until, I don't know, 25th, 26th of June when it was deprecating on the 30th.

So I, maybe the reason I, I mean they've been talking about it for a long time, and maybe the reason I knew about it was because I'm involved in the story maps, sort of.

Did you have an account on story maps.com?

I did.

See, I did not.

Maybe that's, well, I, I didn't use it very much, so I was like, I don't care.

But still, well, but you would've gotten the emails from it, whereas since I just used traditional story maps.

Maybe that's why I didn't say it.

Yeah.

I think my question in all this is, are they gonna keep the URL?

'cause it's still a cool URL and if it's just parked there, not doing anything, that's a bummer.

That's just my question.

It, it's Esri, they reuse every name eventually.

Right.

Next up in news a GS online has had its, I always want it to be quarterly, but it's not quarterly.

What's.

Three times a year.

Update name, try annually.

What?

Try.

Yeah.

So it, it's update.

This should be no, should not be a surprise to many RGS online users.

This is a very common thing they do just before the uc, which is coming up next week, I think it's so, it it, there's a whole bunch of new updates up there and like almost every update for the last a few years now there's a bunch of little things that are.

Very nice and very useful.

There's a bunch of stuff in there that is you, you never even knew it was an issue.

And then there's a couple things that are like, oh wow, that's really cool that they finally added that.

Like the ability to just drag and drop files over on the maps and the map viewer, like kind of a little thing, but actually a big thing.

And there's some other cool stuff about content management, which is quite nice because I've always been frustrated with the process of republishing data.

Because the workflow that I think most people who have been using GIS for a really long time have gotten into is using something like RGS Pro and making a a, a map and making, using some data and then hitting publish.

And then suddenly you have some feature layers up there and you got your map, and then you go to do it again in RRGs Pro and you hit publish and it goes, can't, it's already there.

And you go, wait, what?

So the, the process of updating was always a real pain in the neck.

This new data update thing is gonna make it easier.

I'm excited about the curved line, but you, you now can, you know, have that curved line sketch feature to add paths easily.

And I will note that Model Builder is now no longer in preview.

It is now general release as of this version, which means I'll have to go take a look at it.

I, I really just kind of waited.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't really use Model Builder.

On the desktop.

So I'm not gonna worry too much about using model Builder in this because most of the things I do, I spend more time doing one-offs as opposed to repetitious things so well, and on top of that, if you, if you're in the category of, of user that's in the low code, no code sort of mindset, it's a really cool product.

But if you're in the category of user that's used to just hammering out the code, it's.

It's more important that they updated Arc Pi and others in Notebook?

Yes.

Yes.

Because sometimes it's just easier to write the Dogg on code yourself than to futz around with Model Builder.

'cause there's limitations, a model builder that don't exist in code.

So that's always been my problem.

Model builder.

I'm like, cool toy.

Lemme go get some real work done over here with Ark Pi.

Next up, Google brings historical street view to Google Earth.

And so if you are.

In Google Earth, and I think this is desktop or, or online, I only checked online.

And you go to a certain location that has street view loc photos, and in the upper bar you can click on other images and that'll show you historic images.

So if you have a location that's captured fairly often, you'll see multiple time slices that you can look at.

If it's ones that have just been captured a couple of times, like the one I I grabbed right before we were recording.

You can still see, so for instance, it was 2024 and 2021 in this fairly new neighborhood.

So yeah.

Well, and I think it should be mentioned that the reason why they're releasing it now is in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Google Earth right now.

So we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of all these things from the heady days of June, 2005.

Right?

Not, I suppose least of which would be the, the, very special podcast, right.

June, July.

Well, that's July.

Yeah.

Well we was talking about it in June, but anyway, the, it's weird like this, all these things are, are coming around now, 20 years and so, so this is just so as they noted, like it different articles about it.

Right.

It's partially to celebrate that, that that's how we're seeing the imagery.

So it's cool, but also it's not like we haven't been asking for it for 20 years, Google.

Well there have been various, like little projects and pieces.

But yeah.

That other people have done.

Yes, that have been visible in it.

Yes, but not done by next up in some remote sensing news.

We got bad news.

Good news.

So bad news first.

And that is that methane sat, so I don't remember if we talked about this last year when it launched, but this was a project to create a satellite that would monitor methane emissions.

So looking at, you know, climate change issues and IT law launched March, 2024.

So made it a year.

And unfortunately not too long ago, I think it was a couple weeks ago, like our recording time they lost contact with it, so communications lost, and then after some investigation.

They think that the power has been lost and the satellite might be lost.

So prior to that, over six, eight months, whatever we've been seeing some really interesting data from methane sat.

So proof of concept, I guess mission was successful in that sense, but they were actually able to look at methane emissions and get them right down to specific areas, and they had target areas that they were looking at, so it wasn't.

Available for the whole globe.

But just an example of when you get put all these things together and there was some, some really big partners that were involved in getting this done and getting the satellite built.

That when we try to look at how can we understand where, where things are coming from that are contributing to you know, greenhouse gas emissions, stuff like that we do have a technology and so hopefully they'll be able to.

You know, move this project forward or something like it to get something back up there.

Now they are running some diagnostics and never trying to communicate with it.

So I guess there's possibility that a miracle it will come back, but it's not likely.

So I think that they've recognized the loss.

Let's note that that was actually funded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon Fame.

Hand trickle.

I don't remember.

Well, yeah, the, but the point is, is that we're talking about people who have some deep.

Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep pockets.

So it, I would hope that even if they can't get it back online, they have the, the founders, the funders would recognize the utility of the importance of this and, and get methane two up and running sooner than later.

And of course, the Operator's Environmental Defense Fund, yes.

So, and if you wanna see the site's still up and you could see some of the data they actually did release.

I mean, it's really interesting.

I mean, it could pinpoint like sources in, in a couple of, you know, test areas, including one related to oil and gas industry in Texas, I think, and a couple others.

So methane sat.org?

Yes.

I think it's methane.

SAT explorer, I think is the tool.

So yes, that's the site.

All right.

So on a more positive note a satellite that was launched by the European Space Agency back at the end of April.

And of course, as you remember from all the years of us reporting on these, that that satellites, once they're lost, they have to go through commissioning.

They run tests and stuff, and then they usually release some preview data.

And that's the stage where we're at with this satellite, which is biomass, which is part of esa Earth Explorer series of missions.

And they've now been releasing the first images.

So at Living Planet Symposium, which was a recent event, and it got picked up by major news organizations.

Essentially biomass is using side synthetic aperture radar.

So it's a radar sensor and it allows you to get down through clouds to actually see.

The biomass, right?

The forest floors, the forests.

And so the hope is that eventually they'll have a 3D map of earth forest.

But the first, the first imagery is, is really nice.

So it's according to ESA, it's the first satellite to carry a PB band synthetic capture radar here into the, the techie stuff.

But the first image is that they did share are pretty impressive.

So and when you look at them, of course, they're processed images that represent.

The radar data having been processed, color added and stuff like that.

But but yeah, pretty cool.

I have a soft spot in my heart for SAR data because the first professional job I had was working with SAR data.

So, and one more earth observation piece of news tempo, which is the Tropospheric emissions monitoring of pollution mission.

Has been extended.

So it was originally supposed to end in 2025, June.

And it has been extended through September, 2026.

So this one and a half year project has been extended to become a two and a half year project.

Hopefully.

Of course, the sensor continues and the thing continues to, to go longer.

Yes, that's another one.

Pollution, air quality.

So that's what's been being monitored there.

Yeah, and that's one of NASA's.

Yeah, we have a lot of different things going on with Earth observation data, both positive and negative, and we can talk about how processing is happening as well.

So the folks over at EagleView who I don't know, did I interview them for the North Carolina?

I think so.

GIS conference, I think I did.

I don't know.

We've interviewed so many people that I've, I've after 19.9 years, just like who who, who was it this time?

But Eagle V one has been released and this is their new platform for basically putting everything into it, using AI models to get data out of this.

And of course allowing their.

Partners and clients to be able to access data more quickly.

So it's it looks like an interesting solution.

So if you are looking for something where you know, it's kind of a prepackaged solution, it's something you might wanna look at, especially for structures and those type of things that EagleView has been very much focusing on over the last few years.

And that's it for the news inside in the web corner.

The E-G-N-S-S Center for Excellence out of the eu.

Has a new website that is focused on understanding, positioning and timing, sorry, positioning and timing as well as the impacts negative largely that we're seeing right now, especially with a lot of the conflict going on two GNSS signals.

And so if you go over to portal, sorry, PNT portal.eu.

You can find out a lot of different information.

They have resources about understanding GNSS, looking at current impacts on GNSS, kind of some of the ideas of where we're going.

Everything from ground signals to quantum physics in terms of backup systems for GNSS and PNT.

So, yeah, it's an interesting site that you might wanna take a look at.

They have a really nice resilience assessment that you can go through to assess your own vulnerability to GNSS interference for, you know, your organization or yourself if you work with it dark here inside my heart distance from the.

This weekend, the topic in celebration of the Ezra uc, the 2025 Ezra uc, which is going to start on July 16th, I think it is.

14th.

14th, July 14th, which is Monday upcoming from when we, we've filmed this episode.

Record this episode.

I thought it'd be nice to talk a little bit about ucs of the past that we've been to, and some things we've learned give some just general advice for anyone going and, and some things that are changing, at least for me, for the uc this year, as opposed to in the past.

Hmm.

I, I do want to give a caveat on this one that it's been probably 15 years since we've been to a uc.

However, we can talk about a few things that aren't dated.

Like every uc.

Every uc, since.

I'm assuming like the second or third it's taking, well, early on it's taking place in San Diego, so the location hasn't changed whatsoever.

The international uc has been there since, for a very, very long time.

Time after they were at Palm Springs?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I, first end number, they were at Palms and then they moved to San Diego.

San Diego is a lovely place to be.

I.

I've never been there in January, but I'm gonna go ahead and go on a limb and guess it's 11 place to be year round at least where the uc is located at in the just off the coast there.

The other thing that is that has been true of the uc for a really long time now is that the San Diego Convention Center where it's housed is very big.

And it's designed specifically to have multiple conferences running simultaneously.

There are only two conferences where that is not true.

One is the much faulted and celebrated Comic-Con that takes up the entire building.

The other one is the Ezra uc.

It takes up the entire building, which is pretty impressive.

To have that much GIS under one more or less one roof for almost a whole week.

It's actually even more than one roof because since they've added the virtual component I've been attending, you know, virtually, well, we'll get to that.

Okay.

I wanna get to the virtual.

That's the stuff that's changed, but if you're physically located there, that, but it has spilled out to some of the hotels on either side of it as well.

So you're right, it is under technically more than one roof.

So my first big tip then for anyone going to the uc is that if you're going there, you're gonna walk a lot and wear footwear.

That allows you to walk a lot.

I mean, a lot.

I think I walk more at the uc than I do anywhere else ever and allow travel time.

So, so you know, if you're gonna go to sessions and they can be.

You know, one in the sales civilian area, right?

Or if you're doing the, the map gallery, whatever, I'm assuming it's still there and then you have to run off to one of the rooms.

It's not like a, oh, I got five more minutes.

No, you don't.

No you don't.

'cause yeah, it's a long way.

Like a lot of times, and of course as soon as you're out of sessions or between sessions as you're going to lunch a lot of times you're gonna be going outside into the guest lamp district, so.

You're just as likely to be walking 5, 10, 15 blocks to your restaurant and back in the middle of your day as well.

So it's not just in the, the use the conference center, it's also outside.

Yeah.

And something they don't really talk about that much is it's a slow uphill.

If you go into the gas lamp, you're going slightly uphill now compared to West Virginia, it's not really, but after about three or four blocks, you go, there's a bit of a hill here.

Or if you're like those of us in west, in South Carolina currently where we don't have hills anymore, it it's noticeable.

Yes.

Like you can't, you can't prep by, by walking up hills.

I to go to various things because it's all flat here.

So there's a lot of walking.

And the thing that I, I particularly any students who are listening to this or anyone who may be, you know, interested in, in talking to vendors or talking to Esri, whoever it may be about potential employment opportunities, you wanna dress nice, that's understandable.

You wanna put on a good impression, wear comfortable shoes.

The nice dress shoes that you wear to an interview are not the shoes to be wearing walking.

That much unless, unless you just really hate yourself for some reason, because it would be, even with comfortable shoes, you get wore out.

So make sure you have a set of shoes that are very, that are very nice for walking if you have to carry the nice shoes and change I.

I, I would also say along with that I know that, you know, we need special, any conference, we go to special backpacks for all the gear.

But, you know, practice packing and unpacking what you're gonna carry, if you're gonna carry any equipment with you but also, you know, have a notebook to write things down.

A lot of times people aren't carrying any business cards, but you know.

Have a way to, to share your information.

'cause a lot of what you get out of the uc are those conversations in the hallway and with vendors and with people at booths and, and making those types of connections where you, you know, wanna be able to quickly add something to your phone or a notebook to keep in touch.

A lot of NFC options, so you can put your information onto an NFC card, ring, whatever, and just tap between your devices.

Space age.

It also helps to really plan out your, your days a bit.

I know it's kind of tedious, it's just fun to go and sort of see, but there is a lot going on and there's really, to my mind, I don't know what you guys think, but to my mind there's really two conferences happening simultaneously.

One is Esri's conference about this is the cool stuff you can do with our software, which is really P Vow, really valuable and powerful.

Particularly if you've hit problems.

'cause you can oftentimes talk to the person who actually wrote the stupid thing and ask How does this work?

That's a great one.

But there's also a lot of really wonderful sessions that are being put out by actual users who are doing this and who you know are saying, look, I know what the software says it can do and I know what the ad, the sales ad says it can do, but this is what we found trying to actually do it.

And that could be some ways more valuable and experience those bit of conference stuff.

So.

To, along with what Sue has talked about, the, the, there's a lot of spatial disjoint between these sessions.

It is very helpful to start thinking about how do I want to think about my days?

Do I want to focus on the Esri based materials?

I wanna focus on what the users are doing.

Do I wanna split it up?

It, it's, it can really help you get the most outta your experience.

You're gonna mix it.

Come on.

Well, you wanna mix, but.

You know, sometimes one's in one section of the building and another one's in another section of the building and there's a lot of running.

It's worth thinking it through.

Yeah.

And to add to that, if you're somebody who's also gonna be doing your job while you're there it helps to find a quiet spot that you claim for yourself and pick a certain time and just sort of time block that time off for whatever official job you've got.

So that you can touch in without having to leave and go somewhere else.

Just, you know, there are a lot of quiet places you can find and just go there every day of the uc and go, okay, this is my work time.

I found that better than trying to answer emails and do uc stuff.

You sort of wanna, you know, separate the two if you can.

Okay.

Going back to what Frank was saying.

I mean, you, you have this whole schedule is all available.

It has been available for a while now.

If you haven't already looked at this, the calendar and figured out where you want to go.

The thing with the not Esri sessions are, there are a lot that are in your industry, so you don't have to worry about it being software specific.

It can be something that's specific to how you do your daily job.

So yeah, focus on, on those as well.

And I would note that might be different for those of you out there that are in the education community, either academics, yourselves or students, that this is a professional conference.

I mean, there's, there's academic elements to it, but it's much more, a lot of the sessions are much more.

This is a experience convention, not a, it's actually a convention.

It's, it's less, yeah.

Conference and more convention.

Yeah.

So, and there is that, right?

But it's like if you're used to going to, to conferences where a lot of papers are about, Hey, this is this little, you know, this little, part of this subdiscipline and this, you know, set of theories and that, and, and things like case study are like just mentioned a little briefly in these papers.

Like a lot of the, the presentations you'll see at the Ezra you see are actually, this is how I did this, right?

I'm the city of so and so and this is how we implemented online mapping to report, you know, graffiti violations or whatever.

And so it's interesting there 'cause you can get a lot more, this is actually how I did it.

And the question and answer for that is, I, I thought those sessions were the most, the most enlightening, right?

And different than when I, the first time, time or two that we went to the uc.

Those I think, were the most different, like in terms of, of the material and the kind of interaction afterward.

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that for the most part, most of the attendees are paying a lot of money to go just be there.

If you're in education, you, you know, oftentimes you'll get a free pass of some sort or access to a greatly reduced pass, but most of those attendees, particularly in industry, are paying a lot of money and they don't hold back.

Really on letting you know where the problems are and where the issues are, and that I think is, like I said, is gonna be the most valuable piece of this.

This, yeah, we tried that, but it sucks.

Or you know, we tried that and it just didn't work.

You get a lot of that type of interaction, which can be really helpful for understanding when you're trying to do something.

You know what?

Avenues are gonna be a lot more work than other avenues.

Maybe go certain directions outta the gate and save yourself some time and energy.

And I think you very briefly touched on it earlier, Frank, too.

One of the things if you go out into the vast exhibit space, and, and I think, I'm not sure if you can do appointments, but you can actually get access to the various teams.

So one of the, the things that you can do is, you know, I'd like to talk about my GIS set up or this question I have and, and you know, you can get that which I always thought again was something I didn't realize till we were walking by.

And we were talking to, to various people.

So we were talking to the arc scene people one time, you know, things like that.

But just telling how old it is arc scene.

But anyway I think that's something that maybe people don't realize that are coming for the first time or, you know, they expect a little bit more of a usual conferencing experience.

Don't realize, hey, there's, there's again, also this interaction.

So when you do your planning as far, you know, Barb, others are saying, you know, scheduling, there might be these types of things that you can build into.

Right.

To really get the most out.

I think of all the conferences that we go to or have gone to back in the day this was the one where you packed the most stuff in.

It is, and I, I think, and we've been to both the, the uc and the Comic-Con, and it's amazing that yes, the uc U uses a little bit less of the, of the floor for its vendor hall.

Then Comic-Con does, but just a little bit.

It's like one small section difference and that, and you know, it's been 15 years.

It might not even be that anymore.

They may.

Be the same size at this point.

And there's that many, yeah, there's, you know, a good portion of it is Esri in the middle, but all the way around you have people from different industries, from different types of technologies.

You have traditionally kind of those groups that are on kind of the edge, kind of set over to one, literally on the edge, but figuratively on the edge of technology as well.

So yeah, you have lots of different people that you can go and talk to and see, not just what you're using day to day, but what other things might be out there and talk to people to, you know, get a sense of what other tools might be out there, but also tools that are in what you already have access to that you just may not be aware of.

I mean, it's a great opportunity to physically touch everything, to, to literally go and handle and see things that normally you would only be reading about in the trade journals or online.

But to, to actually get that many vendors in one space.

I'm, I wanna jump to probably, I think my single favorite thing at the uc.

Because it's not something that, it's obvious once you hear it, but it's not something that you think about normally is it's gonna be the greatest location to get, interact, to interact with and see the most.

Cardiographic representations, diversity and breadth and depths that you'll ever experience maybe ever.

And that's the map gallery.

The map gallery is one of those things that I think that a lot of times you think, ah, whatever, I'm just gonna, I got too many other things to do.

It's really worth taking time to go there.

And Esri understands this.

They have a reception there on the first night I think it is, that you can go.

I think almost everybody has a lot to go for free, and you can see the maps there.

But really I have never found a place that was better at giving me a, a, a wealth of ideas in my cryptography of like, well, I never thought of doing that, or, oh, that's really kind of cool, or I wonder how they did that.

The thing that's really kind of cool about the map reception is a lot of times you can talk to the people who actually made the map.

They're usually are kind of there and you can say, well, how the heck did you do this?

Or, where did you make that?

And you'll find that.

A lot of this stuff is using tools that are just outside of esri's tool set.

You know, they go, yeah, we didn't here, but then we export it into Photoshop or, or Illustrator or whatever it may be, to try to touch it up.

But it's, you know, when you're thinking about how to represent your geographic data and your information, the Map Gallery is so wonderful for that.

There's lots of books.

There's the book that gets put out every year, but just sing it in real on the wall is amazing.

Yeah.

So the map book includes.

Ones that were in the map gallery, and of course there's a lot of interactive as well.

So even the last couple of times we went, there were already a lot of interactive stations set up for people to go to different story maps or different web maps that were being built and also moving into those multidimensional spaces as well.

So not just things like arc scene, but of course now we're talking about.

Web scenes and ArcGIS Pro and those type of 3D environments where you have a little bit more interactivity.

So it's not just static maps, but also interactive displays as well.

One of my favorite things is, you know, Frank talked about, you know, seeing so much of the cardiographic representation around you, but a lot of times, let's do spatial professionals.

We talk about how people don't know what we do, but here we have this very large gathering of other people who really understand what you do and you have an opportunity to talk to them and in, you know, the language that everyone understands in our profession.

But.

To counterpoint that also people who are doing things that are completely different from what you're doing and look at it completely different than you do.

And so it gives you people to bounce different ideas around with as well.

So you have that common language, but different perspectives.

And so you're just getting, you know, the best of both worlds in that.

Yeah.

I think that you hit on the nail on the head when you talked about it being a, you know, professional conference.

This is, you know, professional people coming together to talk about the subject matter or this tool set or this approach.

In a very intense way to solve real world problems.

And it's such a great way to just, as Barbara and Jesse said, to, to talk to other professionals in the GIS realm, but also talk to people who are trying to utilize this in other contexts or other ways of thinking.

To get new ideas.

I mean, I've, I don't think I've ever come back from a uc, not super energized about GIS and excited about the things that I can do.

Coming back with new ideas now throughout the year, rubber hits the road, reality sets in some of the stuff that's going on you can't implement.

But having that in the back of your head is just such a energy boost.

I think just to get you to think about the world a little differently, your GIS profession a little differently.

I always felt like it was partially public relations for GIS to make us feel really good.

So we keep doing the work we're doing successful then, I mean, it is right.

The energy.

Yeah.

Very successful.

And it does, it makes you feel good.

Yeah.

That's the energy that, that that's there every time we were there and has continued on.

Right.

And, and people that we've talked to have gone, you know, af.

In more recent events maybe where we hadn't been there, come back and they have the same, you know, like, it was amazing.

It was crazy and it was amazing.

So I think that's a, that's a plus.

It's, it's, it's that nice validation.

Well, and it goes back to what Barb was saying, and it, it's not about necessarily that it's as Esri and you're seeing what they're doing.

It's the fact that you, you have these other people that you're talking to in the hallways.

With that shared ideology, so, or language.

So yeah, it's, it's, that I think really pushes people to be excited about it as, as much as any, well, perhaps more than the technology itself.

So weird off question.

Is there any part of the uc that you would just skip, you just not worry about or give.

Cursory and we talked about the wonderful things that you can go interact with, but is there anything in particular you go, eh, it's okay.

You don't have to do it.

I have an answer.

I'm just curious if anyone else does.

My answer would be, I don't know if it's something I would skip, but I would definitely pick a time period when you wanna go explore things around San Diego or go do something so that you can enjoy being there, you know, for part of a day.

And I think that's gonna be different for each person, depending on, you know, what sessions are going on and, and what areas they're interested in.

No, I'm waiting for you guys to give an answer.

I'm, I'm curious.

I don't, I don't have anything that I would say skip.

I think as I remember did it very often.

Although they were cool and provided like way back then, like food truck lunches and stuff like that.

But we didn't really, so this is not even session related.

We didn't very often do that.

We love to go off into the city at lunchtime and, and get some gas lamp eats.

My controversial answer would be the preliminary.

I, I'll be honest with you, of all the things that go on that week, the preliminary, preliminary plenary is the less interesting of them all.

So for those who aren't aware, there's Hall H, which is, as far as I know, the biggest hall in all of San Diego.

Convention center It, they put out seats for ballpark of 15,000 people and literally it's the only thing going on on day one.

You all sit in this, these chairs and the big stage, and Jack comes out and all the heads come out and they talk about the year in GIS all morning they talk about the cool things they're doing in Esri and all this other stuff like that, which is neat.

It's interesting.

Years ago we used to live stream it.

But the reality is, is they're gonna talk about that the whole week, like.

The whole week, they're gonna be hitting on those points.

You get the highlights really cool in a three or four hour, whatever it is session.

But it's not that critical.

I, I don't think, see, I like it so much that I make my students watch the recordings of the plenary every time that we start the fall semester.

So, you know, I, I think it's not.

I think it's something to, to attend, to soak up that energy.

And also to, you know, see what people are saying.

I like to think about how much time they put into preparing for what they're gonna present.

'cause you can tell a lot of effort went into it.

It's a show.

So, just one slight comment on Frank's statement, that is Hall h.

Hall h is very important for Comic-Con.

This is Hall's FG and H Oh, my fault.

Alright.

I just remember being on, because we always went on the far side, which is age.

So that's, but it's, yeah, I mean, so yeah, it's, it's a big space with a lot of people in it.

I think 'cause it seems like we're, we're beginning to lean towards the virtual conversation.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So two things.

One, of course the Thursday night.

Don't skip that.

Oh no.

Yeah, go that.

So if you've, you or your company or university has paid for it, go to it.

Have fun.

Is it good food?

Where is it this year I didn't, I think I saw a Petco Park or something like that.

Park that's right across the street.

So you don't have to go that far.

Yeah.

And it's good food and it's a lot of fun and it's good wind down.

The other thing are the summits one.

The Education and Safety Security Summit.

So those are two different ones.

Education is one, and Safety and Security Summit is another.

Those are both taking place the 12th through the 15th.

So these are the pre-event, and then they include the plenary day and the date after.

There's a few last sessions for those.

But during the, the conference, well, there's also GIS Manager Summit the day before on Sunday the 13th, but.

The rest of them.

Spatial Analytics Summit Imagery.

Summit AI Summit Science Summit Native Nation Summit Developer Summit.

There are others that I think are further down this list.

These are all summits that are going on around themes, essentially, that you can participate in.

At the conference though, they do require reservations.

So if you are going, make sure to.

Go online, see if you can still get a, a reservation space.

And these are a little bit more focused.

So for instance, the dev summit that's here is not the multi-day dev summit that you get in the spring, but it does give you access to specifics as developers who are working in this environment.

So yeah, those are the two things I wanted to highlight about at the onsite events.

Yeah, and I would just say one thing.

You've heard us mention it a couple of times, so.

In as far as paying and attending or registration and stuff like that if you're with an educational organization or an agency or a company or whatever that has big licenses, check what comes with that?

So different levels there might be slots.

That will be paid so that you don't have to pay to to come to the conference.

'cause if you do, it is, it is pricey.

And so take a look at those.

I don't know, do they still, I was looking around.

Do they still have like the student volunteer opportunities and stuff, which can help out as well?

All of that would've been months ago.

Yeah, but I'm saying that for next year, if you're getting excited and you wanna go next time, right?

Yeah.

This year, next.

And those are things that you can think about potentially to offset some of the Yeah, those are generally due two to three months in advance, so Yes.

Oh, at least, if not more.

Yeah.

And if you wanna do a presentation, just know that that's due in the fall before.

Yeah.

And we generally, yeah.

In fact, a couple of months after this, you see the call will come out for next year's presentations if you wanna present.

So.

Another feature I do wanna highlight that often gets slept on is the SIGs, the special interest groups.

Mm-hmm.

They usually meet during lunchtime one day and they meet, there's anything you can think of.

It would be an interest group.

There's a special interest group for it, but it, you can, it's people who are passionate about it.

It's worth going to one of those, if it's something it's interested in, just pack your lunch.

Now I will say that most conferences, the SIGs take place one day at lunch.

Here it's multiple days during lunch and in the early evenings.

So there's, yeah, there's a number of different special in interest groups and I assume there are more now than we were, than last time we were there.

So probably spread from Tuesday, I'll be to Thursday at this point.

And that's where you get to go talk about your little niche.

Yeah.

Or listen to others.

So the new feature that is all relatively new, I think for certainly for us since the last time we were at the uc is the virtual conference.

Barbara mentioned it earlier on, but there is virtual attendance.

Now.

I'm gonna be attending the uc virtually this year, for example.

That is.

Again, if you have one of these large licenses, look and see if you're capable of getting a, a ticket for those for low cost or no cost.

You can still register even right now using for the virtual conference if you are wanting to go.

The nice thing is you can see the presentations.

Not all of them.

Not all of them are available online, but a large number of them, I think almost all of the Esri ones are.

So if you're particularly wanting to hear the presentations from Esri you can check that out.

The plenary is despite me, you know.

Poo-pooing it a little bit.

You know, you can't watch it virtually.

And that's a, a very cost effective way to attend quote unquote.

You see, you don't get the hallway conversations, you don't get all that stuff that's wonderful, and you don't get the great food, but you can get a lot of the information that way, particularly given, you know, air travel and, and hotel reservations and all that stuff can be quite pricey.

It's a very cost effective way to attend.

Con the conference, and we've done it a few times now.

So I don't remember the first year they did it, it probably was around the that four times.

Yeah, I, I, I think it's, yeah, I, I believe they did it, I wanna say 2018 to be honest with you, but it.

Really, obviously came up to speed during the pandemic and, and they've continued, which has been a wonderful addition.

I think I have to say, I, I, especially at the beginning, I was like, well, this is just the old folks conversation of the uc.

Wear good shoes, have good bags.

They're practical.

Those are important things.

Yes, they're important, but it's just like, oh my god, world.

Yes.

Because when you're, you're young and whatever, like those things don't distract you things.

I tell you what, when I was young doing the uc, I got done that week.

I was like, my God, I wish somebody had told me this 'cause.

It that's, well also keep in mind that every floor, I think every floor at the San Diego Convention Center is concrete, and that's extra hard on your feet.

So there's, there's a little bit of very thin carpeting.

Very, very thin carpeting.

It's just for those come from and the sizes, right?

It's just on just another level of, like another magnitude.

And so you just might not think of this.

Ironically, ironically, for geography you know, geospatial people, we don't really understand the scale of the problem until you experience it.

But I also would say that some of this is sharing things that we wish we had done.

And so that's why I said I wish that I had basically told work, no, you know, I'm here, I'm enjoying myself and just immersed myself every time I went to the uc, to its full potential.

But of course in hindsight you know, you can look back and say that, but it's not the same thing when you're getting those, those emails and calls.

Yes.

And when very spatial people got run, we were outside and people ran into us, like with sunburn.

'cause we didn't think, Hey San Diego, it's super sunny out here.

Maybe some sunscreen or a hat.

Those are practical things.

That was more, see, I was gonna suggest that, but thought, no, that's really old.

That's like, you know, yeah.

That is lesson learned, you know, kind of thing.

So go to conferences.

Whether it's this one or other ones, talk to people, enjoy yourselves, that we're an awesome industry, that has awesome people in it.

Get to know more of them.

That's kind of it, I think.

Does that mm-hmm.

Kinda summarize it, Frank?

I think so.

I, I think so.

And you know, if you have anything interesting to share, you know, always send us an email.

' cause of course, after talking about one event the whole time, we don't have any events in the events corner.

So if you do have events, send us an email at podcast@veryspatial.com.

If you'd like to reach us individually, I can be reached at sue@veryspatial.com.

I'm barb@veryspatial.com.

You can reach me atFrank@veryspatial.com.

I'm available at jesse@variousspatial.com.

And of course, you can find all of our contact information over at various spatial.com/contacts.

As always, we're the folks from very spatial.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in a couple weeks dark here.

Inside my heart.

Distance from the start feels like we.

Stars feels like we apart, and even though you had to go away, I still, and even if I still.

Well, maybe these words will never you.

Maybe that's so right.

We'll just keep hoping things will get better in time.

Maybe these words won't mean, and it was you inside.

To act like I'm just fighting, but really deep inside feels like I'm just getting by.

And even though you had to go away, I you, I.

Maybe these words will never reach you.

Maybe that's all right.

We'll just keep hoping things will get better in time.

Maybe these words won't mean and.

It was you instead of my guitar holding you inside my.

Wish it was you instead of my guitar holding you inside.