Seminar announcement: Popular GIS

I will be delivering a seminar for the USP School of Geography later this month. All are welcome. Here are the particulars:

Title: Popular GIS: expressing identity through spatial information
Date & Time: Friday 30 March 2007, 1:00-2:00pm
Venue: M10 (Media Centre), Laucala Campus

With the advent of Google Maps, and other similar services, GIS became part of main stream digital culture. Now millions of Internet users, all with no formal GIS training, interact with spatial information on a daily basis. Sharing and collaboration involving spatial data has become a key feature of "social networking" and the "Web 2.0" movement. This presentation explores examples of how Internet users have colonized digital representations of physical space in order to express their identities online. Marshall Mcluhan said that people gave greater focus to their visual faculty, at the expense of our other senses, following the advent of the printing press. Understanding popular GIS holds part of the answer to the question: How is humanity changing as our attention is increasingly focused on imaginary spaces - even if the imaginary spaces are loosely based on real space?

Photo: ekai

Fiji blogger's meet

Attetion all Fiji bloggers or wannabe bloggers! How about a face-to-face meet-up in Suva in the next few weeks? If there is enough interest, we could try to have another event somewhere in the West. What do you think? I know I am interested in meeting all of you.

photo by yandle