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•Examples of current “policy drivers” – (add others you believe appropriate).

• Federal agency briefings may want to consider replacing “managing growth” with “insuring national defense” or some other ‘federal’ issue.

•What do high level managers/policy makers need in order to make wise decisions in conducting the business of government?

•Focus here is on integration of data - breaking down the stove pipes.

•Most complex issues require information from several sources, often crossing multiple agencies. Many times information is needed that crosses organizational levels as well (local, state, federal for instance).

•Policy makers need to access relevant information quickly, and in a manner that is intuitive and easy to understand.

· Expand…. – Brings information together in new ways – the ability to integrate various layers of data from multiple sources & visualize the data into one or more comprehensive views. · Enhance…. – Look at multiple possible solutions – improves ones ability to understand various options, visualize/analyze key relationships among the data, and explore implications of decisions/tradeoffs. It enables analysis that would otherwise not be done. · Streamline…. – Helps affected managers and stakeholders readily understand key issues – having a better understanding of the options enables one to take more informed steps in the process and as a result facilitates (in many cases shortens) the process of building consensus. · Dramatically…. - comprehensive views of data + better analysis of options + reaching consensus more effectively = a more informed decision.

• Policy-level officials are empowered to make decisions, and GIS improves the ability of the policymaker to make a more informed decision. • GIS is about helping you make good decisions. It’s about putting tools and easy to understand analyses in front of decision makers. GIS is as much a way of thinking or rethinking the way we go about our business, as it is a technology. • The prevalent use of GIS is evolving into a core technology that is included in most information technology programs today.

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- Computers and the Internet are providing us with an unprecedented means for finding and sharing geographic information.

- Information can come in many forms.

- For decades, school bus routes were generated using paper maps, pushpins, plastic transparencies, and colored pens – a virtual busload of information. Addresses for every student had to be located on a paper map and marked by hand. - All of our routers had to look at a map and try to figure out the best routes; using their best judgment, routers grouped the closest students, marked pickup points, and created the bus routes.

- Today the process is automated and streamlined and allows us to look at the problems in a new way. - Can quickly create routes that are more accurately based on distance and provide the best driver routes. - GIS also aids in planning routes for the future; by looking at student grade and census demographic information. - And, GIS has facilitated accident-tracking enabling the router to more easily assess if there is a dangerous stretch of road along a school bus route. - In addition, the same GIS is used for fleet inventory management, where the number of busses, equipment, engines, and other equipment data can be maintained and analyzed.

- Computers and the Internet are providing us with an unprecedented means for finding and sharing geographic information.

- Information can come in many forms.

- With today’s emphasis on digital spatial data, new products are created with greater frequency. There continues to be, however, some institutional resistance to putting data into a form such that it can be widely used. With this increased production comes the potential for substantial duplication of effort, as virtually identical digital products appear from different agencies to satisfy their often very specific needs. - The costs of creating and maintaining digital spatial data are high, so it is particularly important that data created at considerable cost and effort be collected to standards and shareable to ensure that the collected data be fully utilized to realize all of its potential benefits.

•Click once to draw the NSDI 7 Framework spatial data categories (layers or themes). Applications of geospatial data vary greatly, but users have a recurring need for a few common themes of data. These 7 themes of data form a foundation for many applications of geographic data and provide a framework of reference for most other applications. These are ‘Framework’ data that all GIS users require, and the Framework needs to be developed for the Nation. •Click again to draw the “thematic data layers”. These represent any other spatial, or non-spatial data that can be referenced, or overlaid, on the Framework data. •Once these data sets are created to standards and documented, they can be shared across user organizations and used many times to support different decisions. This results in cost savings, organizational efficiencies, and better decision-making.

The FGDC identified some basic components of the US NSDI, they are Standards; geographic data; Metadata; Clearinghouses, and partnerships. I’ll cover our progress with each of these components now.