GeoWeb: Day 1/2

I’ve really enjoyed my GeoWeb experience. The official program has been mediocre (I say that and, hey, I’m on it) but the networking has been sublime. Ron Lake has managed to assemble a great cross section of movers and shakers in the next wave of geospatial in one place, so GeoWeb is the place to schmooze. Of course, being in one of the most lovely cities in North America is an added bonus, so the settings for schmoozing have been great too: the Wosk Center and last night a boat cruise during the summer Vancouver fireworks festival held on the harbour.

Schmoozing highlights: Ed Katibah, Microsoft SQL Server Spatial eminence (apparently, he likes chocolate) and repository of the complete history of all spatial databases, ever; blogging celebritarian James Fee, who is far less opinionated in person than one might expect; Alex Miller, head of ESRI Canada, auto racer, polymath, business tycoon; and Mike Springer who, apparently, was a professional fire-eater in Vegas a mere 10 years ago. He has since written Sketchup (that piddling little thing) and now heads Google’s whole 3D program but somehow the whole fire-eating thing keeps distracting me. Fire eating!