Keeping Up With Cloudpoint
“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” - Scott Belsky
Our team at Cloudpoint Geospatial has been busy planning a record year for our company in attending, exhibiting, lecturing at, and even hosting GIS events. “It’s expected to be a breakout year for us in multiple ways”, says company founder and CEO, Jonathan Hodel. “Our business development team has gone above and beyond with their strategic planning efforts this year, having over fifty…
Cloudpoint was thrilled to not only sponsor this great conference and organization once again, but we were also ecstatic to see everyone in-person again! After a trying past year of virtual conferences, getting together again (even with the continued safety of masks) and reconnecting was a wonderful experience…
Its clear to see that after attending the 2020 Esri Midwest User Conference in Chicago, Esri knows how to put on a good show. Cloudpoint was pleased to be a part of this year’s program by being one of just seven sponsors. As expected, the event attracted GIS users, analysts, IT professionals, department managers, local and state officials from across the Midwest. The technical sessions were loaded with new content from Esri including talks about Enterprise Implementation Best Practices, Mobile & Field Collection tools like ArcGIS QuickCapture, Parcel Fabric in ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS, Public Works Solutions for Local Governments, and a slew of others.
If you were not one of the hundreds of attendees at this year’s event, you should definitely mark your calendar for next year. It appears that this one will continue to grow in attendance and continue to attract folks from many different states. As one of our booth visitors put it, “The food here is fantastic. Much better than my last conference where all I got was 2 free drink tickets”. Of course it helps that the historic Hilton hotel in Chicago has such a knack for delivering an amazing conference atmosphere. Here are some photos from Jon, Micah, Erin, and Bill, our four team members who attended the event…
If you missed out this year, contact us or call 877-377-8124 and we’ll make sure you receive a personal invite for next year.
Here’s a collection of photos from my trip to Austin, TX for the CFTA 2019 (Campus FM Technology Association). Great conference ran by outstanding people. Lots of campus facilities leaders who are extremely talented at integrating data solutions, BIM, and GIS. And it was a beautiful city filled with music, culture, electric scooters, history, and a whole lot more.
1. The bat colony
This is a must see, Austin has the largest urban bat colony in the world. 1.5 million bats emerge from under the Congress St Bridge every night. Its a continuous stream for about 45 minutes.
2. Scooter rides
I found that this is the best way to get around the city. Faster than a car during heavy traffic times. Just pickup a scooter, scan the barcode, and take off. Once your done, you can leave it anywhere and just scan the code to “lock” it. This saved me lots of walking. OK, so the cool app with a tracking map might also have had some influence over me…
3. LBJ library & museum
Learned a lot of history and details on the life of LBJ. You’ll definitely need at least half of a day to cover the whole thing. It’s well worth the visit.
Cloudpoint Geographics will be exhibiting at the WLIA Annual Conference Feb 20-22, 2019 at Red Lion Hotel Paper Valley in Appleton, WI.
Look for Cloudpoint’s Micah Williamson and Matt Junker at the upcoming conference. Stop by with any questions regarding our services including:
Wisconsin Land Information Association has been an excellent organization to be a part of. Every conference is filled with learning opportunities as well as great social activities. Don’t miss out on your chance to be part of the latest GIS news in Wisconsin during this upcoming event.
Contact us for more information or to setup a time to meet at WLIA.
So recently I made my first trip to Duluth, MN for the GIS/LIS conference which consisted of well over 500 people from across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and many other states throughout the country. Micah Williamson and I were able to make the trek Northward all the way from central Illinois. One of the highlights of the trip up was the stop at Micah’s sister’s house in Eau Claire, WI where our timing was perfect as she was making burritos and kind enough to share with us, Thanks Amy!
The three days in Duluth at the conference were very enjoyable as we were able to meet many new faces and give out some wonderful gift bags of specialty coffee beans from the Blue Heron Trading Co located in Duluth’s popular DeWitt Seitz Marketplace which is the same building that houses our northern partner company, North Point Geographic Solutions.
While there, we were able to sample the amazing smoked salmon at a local favoritet, Northen Waters Smokehaus. A little free time the first night allowed us to squeeze in visits to my new favorite stores, Duluth Trading Company, where I picked up a much-needed pair of jeans, as well as the Duluth Pack Store which I highly recommend if you are visiting the area. However all of the luster of the tasty food and outfitter stores were both topped by the magnificent Aerial Lift Bridge which is an absolutely spectacular site, especially when lit up at night.
My second trip was to Door County, WI for the Fall regional meeting for the Wisconsin Land Information Association which was highlighted by the fish boil at the social night held at Waterfront Mary’s. If you’ve never been to a fish boil this is also a must see traditional event where they boil the fish in a big black kettle and boil it for 30 minutes or so over an open fire with all the right mix-in’s added in. For other highlights of our latest ventures at Cloudpoint Geographics please subscribe to our newsletter at cloudpointgeo.com/newsletter.
Esri has their mammoth User's Conference every year in San Diego. See Joe's review of that. In an attempt to accommodate specific industries, they also hosts a few much smaller events across the country throughout the year.
This year the gas, electric & telecom conference, named GeoConX (pronounced geo-connects) was hosted in Chicago. With our client base and perfectly aligned conference in our backyard. both Micah and Paul attended.
Here are some highlights:
There were over 700 attenders learning about GIS and the Esri Platform.
Specific to the Electric, Gas and Telecommunications industries
overtime we see it we are more and more impressed with the capabilities and tools available to us.
There are now several tools available for you to install and configure ArcGIS Enterprise.
Esri has taken a few years to build the next rendition of the geometric network and they plan on it being around for 15 years.
Beautiful but Also site of the 1968 DNC that ended in riots.
There should be much thought given to how you will implement your GIS.
Paul had never seen The Bean. This is the obligatory Selfie.
We were happy to attend at the behalf of our gas, electric and telecommunication clients. There is much to look forward to in the upcoming technology. Notably an entirely new Utility Networking system built to last, Attribute Validation Rules, Survey123 working with Collector & Workforce, ArcGIS Enterprise Builder, Web-based Dashboards, Hexagon Bins ... Well lets just say it was all notable.
Ask us more!
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 2016 ESRI Water Conference in Austin, TX (not a bad place to be in February). This was the second annual iteration of the conference, and this year they included not only utilities, but also water resources. And I think that was an interesting move, to expand the scope to a broader look at the water cycle.
Naturally there were a plenty of interesting GIS uses and technologies showcased from streamflow and flood prediction to a growing number of mobile applications. Primarily interested in the keeping up with the latest ESRI has to offer, I got the most excitement out of the upcoming releases of applications like Collector and Survey123, and the news of development for a new Utility Network Model. It was also pretty awesome to hear what other organizations like the City of Philadelphia are doing with the technology and water management.
Austin was a great venue and the downtown scene had plenty of great food and music. And for those dealing with water and GIS, I'd recommend this conference if you get the chance. It's a nice, more focused alternative to the UC, or early addition / sneak peak.
