When a person asks me for a word-of-mouth (WOM) referral for a Geographic Information System (GIS) company, I say I know the work of one particular GIS company well.  I’ve seen it “server-side” since it’s a client of our social media PR services, and “client-side” since it’s creating the GIS-based RRx prescriptive system for my father’s land management company, Rural System, and the GIS framework for Handshake 2.0’s “killer app.”

To a person in search of a GIS company, I recommend David Bradshaw and InteractiveGIS without reservation.  Unless the person wants:

• No-can-do-until-we-run-it-by-management corporate bureaucracy instead of agile, decisive leadership based on possibilities, not limits.
• A GIS company that insists on use of its product instead of on creating adaptive, customized GIS to meet the client's needs.
• A GIS company that sees GIS as only of use to cities, agencies and organizations instead of to those entities and businesses, corporations and entrepreneurs.
• A tiny, one-person consulting shop instead of a team of multi-skilled professionals who not only talk GIS but do GIS.
• A company manager who thinks of GIS as a desktop application instead of a company leader who foresees a future for GIS of fundamental ubiquity akin to that of binary code.
• A company that uses GIS as a holy, sacred body of absolute, immutable truth (How many GIS layers can you fit on the head of a pin anyway?) instead of as a creative means to multiple ends of service, value, even a greater good.
• A GIS company that manipulates spatial data instead of breathes and lives GIS.
• A company that does GIS the way it’s always been done and would never, ever offer a Web-based GIS at auction on eBay.

InteractiveGIS's auction on eBay of a Web-based GIS is live!

 
Here are directions on how to try GIS before you buy.  Here's how to bid on the GIS auction on eBay.

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You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0, visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook, and follow InteractiveGIS on Twitter.

InteractiveGIS, an open source GIS company, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

The next auction of a Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) by our client InteractiveGIS will go live on eBay today, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. 

Added 5/18: The eBay GIS auction is live! 

Why is InteractiveGIS auctioning a GIS on eBay?  David Bradshaw, president of Interactive GIS said, "GIS offers possibilities to create the new and solve the old in inspired ways. The more access creative people have to GIS, the sooner...possibilities can be explored, discovered and realized.  InteractiveGIS wants to be part of making that access happen."

We've been pretty candid about our desire to create a killer app at Handshake 2.0.  We've shared the evolution of our thinking about GIS and we've been pretty open that we have our idea for a killer app. 

Add to that David Bradshaw's thinking:

What we invited to happen for other companies with GIS has happened to us.

Yep, our company's first killer app includes GIS.

We played around with GIS before the idea came.  Several clients of InteractiveGIS offer guest access to their Web-based Geographic Information Systems and we did some GIS shopping.  Ah, those map layers.  They're not just about maps...

 
If you'd like to do some GIS shopping before you bid on the GIS auction on eBay, here are directions on how to try before you buy.  And here's how to bid on the GIS auction on eBay.

The next auction of a Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) on eBay goes live today.  Oh, those possibilities for map layers, exploration, discovery...

***

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0, visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook, and follow InteractiveGIS on Twitter.

InteractiveGIS, an open source GIS company, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

From InteractiveGIS:

Our next auction of a Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) will go live on eBay on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.  We explain why:  "GIS offers possibilities to create the new and solve the old in inspired ways. The more access creative people have to GIS, the sooner...possibilities can be explored, discovered and realized.  InteractiveGIS wants to be part of making that access happen."

If you're uncertain about what a GIS is, or what creative role it can play in your company or organization, we invite you to "shop" using our Web-based Geographic Information Systems.  Our client, Rogers County, Oklahoma, offers guest access to its GIS. 

On the Rogers County, Oklahoma GIS LogIn page, please read and agree to the Terms by clicking the check box, then click Guest Access.

The Map Layers tab (top left in red below) shows selected features differentiated by color. If you click the Zoom In tool button on the tool bar (far right in red), you can then draw a box around an area of interest and it will zoom in to the extents of the box.

We're inspired by GIS and hope you will be, too.  We invite you bid on your own Web-based GIS in our eBay auction on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

***

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0, visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook, and follow InteractiveGIS on Twitter.

InteractiveGIS, an open source GIS company, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

From InteractiveGIS:

We believe our company, InteractiveGIS, providers of Web-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS), sold the world’s first GIS at auction on eBay.  The auction closed on April 6, 2010, for a purchase price of $5.50.

We are delighted.  The purchaser plans to make an announcement so we’ll let you know who bought the GIS when they make it public.  In the meantime, it’s time for another auction.

Why sell a web-based GIS at auction on eBay?  Especially if the purchase price is well below its value?

GIS is no longer limited to a desktop application to purchase and install.  Now accessible to any user, anywhere in the world through a Web-based interface - expanded through the power of cloud computing to handle data in capacities previously unimaginable - GIS offers possibilities to create the new and solve the old in inspired ways.

The more access creative people have to GIS, the sooner those possibilities can be explored, discovered and realized.  InteractiveGIS wants to be part of making that access happen.

Our next auction of a Web-based GIS will go live on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

How to Bid on the GIS Auction on eBay

***

InteractiveGIS, a custom, Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions provider, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0 and to visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook.

As a result of joining Foursquare and working with our client InteractiveGIS on GIS applications for business, I posited a formula for a Killer App.  According to Wikipedia, a Killer App is a "computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology."  Here's my current thinking on Killer Apps:

Game Mechanics + Social Networking + GIS + Business Data
+ Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + Mobile = Killer App 

When the NewVa Corridor Technology Council newsletter arrived in my email inbox, as about one billion email newsletters do, I expected to scan, click a link or two, and delete.

I had an experience with the Tech Council's newsletter.

The newsletter arrived looking like this, but it opened with what writers labor over - a hook or lead that compels action - by Cory Donovan, Executive Director of the NCTC:  "If you were at last year's TechNite, you may still have an image in your head of me in baby clothes..."  The phrase "me in baby clothes" was highlighted as a link.  I found it  Killer App-necessary and desirable to click.

My click took me to this page.  It was all over after that.  I had to click.

Did I really want to see Cory in baby clothes?  I didn't know!  I wasn't conscious of choosing any more!  I was clicking!

Reeeaaally!  Yes!

Ha!  I laughed so hard!

My guess is that few readers made it this far down in this post.  The images above link to Cory's baby clothes pages on the NCTC site.  If anyone clicked on the images, they're on the NCTC site finding it "necessary" and "desirable" to have a Cory Killer App experience of their own!

I have data to back that up.  I asked Cory for the traffic numbers and he kindly supplied them.  A full 78% of those who clicked on the first page clicked all the way through to the dancing baby.

As to Cory's killer app proving the "core value of some larger technology," what it proved to me, again, is the large capacity for creativity of the mind of Mr. Cory B. Donovan.

I'm thinking of sending Cory a non-disclosure agreement.  I want that mind working on my Killer App.

***

*GIS stands for Geographic Information System, or Geospatial Information System.  For more ways to think about GIS, you're invited to read our series of posts featuring our client InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0.

Bet you gotta click!  I remember that dancing baby!  When when was that anyway?

Think you've got a mind for a GIS killer app?  Try out GIS out for yourself.

Handshake Media, Incorporated, parent company of Handshake 2.0, and InteractiveGIS, Inc. are both member companies of the NewVa Corridor Technology Council (NCTC).

InteractivGIS and the NewVa Corridor Technology Council, NCTC, are clients of Handshake Media, Incorporated, parent company of Handshake 2.0.

I felt "show and tell" school day amazement when I learned that several clients of InteractiveGIS offer guest access to portions of their InteractiveGIS-created Web-based GIS systems.  ("GIS" stands for Geographic Information System or Geospatial Information System.)

I've written that when I tell the story of InteractiveGIS making what we believe is the world’s first GIS sale on eBay, I'm asked, “What’s GIS?”

For a way to answer that question, you're invited to put on your own "GIS Show and Tell."

The Web-GIS InteractiveGIS created for New Market, Virginia was featured in the March 2010 issue of Virginia Town & City.  For more information about the article with links and images, feel free to visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook.

We'll use the Town of New Market GIS for our GIS Show and Tell.  When you go to the LogIn page, please read and agree to the Terms by clicking the check box, then click Guest Access.

I like the Map Layers tab (top left in red below) with the Details radio button selected (in red below tabs) so I can see differentiated features by color. If I click the Zoom In tool button on the tool bar (far right in red), I can then draw a box around an area of interest and it will zoom in to the extents of the box I drew.

As we've discussed in many of our posts about GIS on Handshake 2.0, GIS is about way more than maps.  It's about unimagined ways to synergistically relate data.  We're particularly interested in business data. And killer apps.  Our latest formulation looks like this:

Game Mechanics + Social Networking + GIS + Business Data
+ Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + Mobile = Killer App

We're hoping your "show and tell" experience with this GIS from InteractiveGIS will show and tell you new ideas about your own business data - maybe even a killer app!

***

Another reason we're interested in GIS at Handshake 2.0 relates to geolocation marketing.  Here's an interesting post from VaynerMedia thanks to Allen J. Fuller, III.

***

InteractiveGIS, a custom, Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions provider, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0 and to visit InteractiveGIS on Facebook.

According to Mashable, as "The Mayor" of a location in Foursquare, I'm one of one million users connected to a company currently valued at $100 million.  Further, I'm hot!  "Foursquare has been on fire in a way that no startup since Twitter has come close to achieving."  Better:  "[Foursquare] is changing the world..."

What is Foursquare?  According to its help page, Foursquare is "a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things."

Jeremy Hart (hands down Foursquare Mayor of Blacksburg, Virginia!) was the first person I knew to use Foursquare, and Patsy Stewart used it in a way I found gave personality to places.  Knowing I had a cross country plane flight ahead to do a beta test, I joined last week.

For me, Foursquare is a way to use the GPS function in my BlackBerry to connect me in new ways to people I follow on Twitter. 

Ha!  And it's fun!  Look at my stats!  I want to be Mayor of The Weight Club!  Who is Bluto H.?!

Ahem.

Anyway, Foursquare has also inspired some new formulations.

I first heard the term game mechanics used by Frederick Cook, founder of Actifity.

I offered this GIS R.O.I. formula in a post about client InteractiveGIS

Business Data + Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + GIS = New R.O.I.

and this Killer App formula

Business Data + Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + GIS + SaaS = Killer App

and saw a demo of NewCity's Nomad mobile app.

Then I joined Foursquare.

Now I'm thinking:

Game Mechanics + Social Networking + GPS GIS + Business Data
+ Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + Mobile = Killer App

Now I'm off to The Weight Club to do some more thinking.  And to Check In with Foursquare!  Watch out, Bluto H.!

When I tell the story of our client, InteractiveGIS, making what we believe is the world’s first GIS sale on eBay, I hear more often than not, “What’s GIS?”

Just as “World Wide Web,” “iPhone” and “Twitter” were once unfamiliar but now ubiquitous terms, so will Geographic Information System, or “GIS” be.  Here’s one way to answer, “What is GIS?”

Imagine you could push a key on your laptop or touch a finger to your iPad and be shown where every one of your tools was located in your garage.  What if out of all those tools, you just wanted to find your wrenches?  But what if out of all your wrenches, you wanted to find the open-ended wrenches?  What if you did some work and found you needed the 10mm instead of the 12mm?  What if you could use your laptop or mobile device to find the 10mm instantly?

That’s one way GIS works.  It looks at information and finds what’s important to you at that moment.

That one way GIS works can be added to other ways.  GIS creates synergy from location (geography), information (databases), and systems.  No part alone is as powerful as all the parts working together as a GIS.

So what if your garage were your company’s warehouse?  What if you could not only find the location or geography of every inventory item in your warehouse, but could find it based on price (your company’s databases), and demand (your company’s customer relationship management system software, CRM)?

And what if the examples we’ve provided here caused you to think about your company in a new way?

Maybe something like:

Business Data + Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + GIS = New R.O.I.

Your innovation and the resultant R.O.I. will be the reason the question won't be "What's GIS?" but will become "What's your company doing with GIS?"

***

InteractiveGIS, a custom, Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions provider, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0 and to fan InteractiveGIS on Facebook.

The clock is ticking. The eBay auction for a Geographic Information System from InteractiveGIS ends on April 06, 2010 at precisely 04:59:55 PDT.

As far as we know, the sale of a GIS system on eBay will be a first in the history of e-commerce. For the curious and the seriously interested, bidding and buying on eBay may also be a first.

Here's what first-time eBayers need to do:

Create an account
The process of registering as an eBay user is very simple. You need only to provide your name, address, account name and password. Click here for the registration form.

Login to eBay
Once you've created an account, login whenever you open eBay. In addition to being able to bid on auctions or make a purchase from an eBay store or via the “Buy-it-Now” option, being a registered user also allows you to flag items for “watching,” conduct advanced searches, and submit questions to the seller.

Prepare to Bid
Bidding is not for the faint of heart and the end of any auction is guaranteed to get a heart racing. It takes a combination of intelligence and luck to become the winning bidder. As the close of the auction approaches, determine the final amount you are willing to pay. About 10–15 minutes before the auction closes, log in and go to the listing page. Click on “Bid History” to see how bidding has progressed. Refresh your screen every few minutes (and later every few seconds) to monitor the bidding.

Submit Your Bid
The winner is the person with the highest the bid. The longer you can stand to wait to submit your bid, the more likely you are to enter the winning bid. Ebay recommends these steps:

Note that clicking “Confirm” submits your bid. Ebay will let you know immediately if you're the winner (or not).

What started as a way to sell used or unwanted items has turned into a global marketplace for almost any type of product. From top clothing designers with exclusive eBay lines to experts in geographic information systems, eBay represents a new way to reach a broad and diverse audience where the buyer determines how much to pay.

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Z. Kelly Queijo is the founder of SmartCollegeVisit and a frequent contributor to Handshake 2.0. You're invited to follow SmartCollegeVisit on Twitter, @collegevisit.

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Smart College Visit and InteractiveGIS are clients of Handshake Media, Inc. of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.

For the very reason that a Geographic Information System - a GIS - makes meaning from spatial data, is why we think GIS is a killer app maker.

Especially if it's web-based.

Our client, InteractiveGIS, experts in GIS technology, offered what we named the world's first GIS at auction on eBay.

InteractiveGIS will sell the first GIS on eBay. That's because the starting bid is $1.

And it's a Web GIS.

The world's second GIS at auction on eBay is live. 

Of course if a town or government agency is the winning bidder, that would be a good and standard use of GIS.

Honestly, though, we hope an entrepreneur is the winning bidder.  We want to see a killer app with GIS.

***

You're invited to read more about InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0, to fan InteractiveGIS on Facebook, and to follow InteractiveGIS on Twitter.

InteractiveGIS, a custom, Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions provider, is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, of which Handshake 2.0 is an enterprise.