A BeSpatial'23 Workshop:  - GIS Funding, Budgeting & Budgeting & Financial Management for GIS Managers

Register - Select Registration including workshop option. Registration closes Midnight on April 28, 2023

Date: May 2, 2023 Time: 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Goals and objectives of this workshop

This workshop introduces the fundamentals of GIS funding, budgeting, and financial planning and management for GIS managers. It is intended for GIS managers of public agencies, non-profits, and private companies. Every GIS operation competes for financial resources from the agency or business that it serves. Just as the technical aspects of GIS may be mysterious to the uninformed, understanding and navigating financial processes may be a challenge for GIS managers and leaders.

Enterprise GIS is expensive to develop, maintain, and operate. Even small-to-medium-sized cities, counties, and regional agencies have invested millions of dollars to develop their GIS capabilities, and they can have large annual operating budgets. The good news is that many recent third-party studies have proven that GIS delivers significant financial return on investment (ROI) to organizations that deploy it as an enterprise business-support tool. But competing for financial resources and managing them well is a key responsibility of any manager, including GIS.

This workshop will enable GIS managers to navigate the financial aspects related to GIS confidently, to understand weekly, monthly, and annual financial processes, and to compete effectively for the financial resources needed to achieve their business goals.

The information provided in this workshop aligns with related processes and competencies found in the GIS Capability Maturity Model and the Geospatial Management Competency Model.

Audience

IT directors/managers, GIS managers, decision makers, and finance managers who want to understand the funding, budgeting, and financial aspects of GIS operations.

Topics Covered

• The finites of GIS and the agencies that they serve: space, time, and money
• Budget process overview - who are the players and who are the referees?
• Understanding formal budgets and virtual budgets
• Funding GIS - where does the money come from?
• GIS funding models
• GIS expenditures - what is the money used for?
• Your GIS financial plan
• Creating effective budget proposals - written and verbal
• Accounting essentials for GIS managers
• Grants and grant funds management
• Exercise: Attendee discussion and feedback

Prerequisites and Recommendations

No prerequisite. Recommended for GIS managers, consultants, academics, and agency finance officers interested in understanding the financial aspects of GIS management.

What You Will Receive

• 2 hours of instruction from Greg Babinski, who is a subject-matter expert and workshop author.
• A copy of the workshop presentation and exercises.

A BeSpatial'23 Workshop:  - GIS Return on Investment (ROI) Fundamentals

Register - Select Registration including workshop option - Registration closes Midnight on April 28, 2023

Date: May 3, 2023 Time: 2:45 - 4:45 PM

Goals and objectives of this workshop

Show me the money! A geographic information system in any government agency, non-profit, or private company competes for financial resources. GIS managers must be able to articulate the many qualitative and quantitative benefits that GIS provides. But ultimately GIS needs to show the financial benefits that it provides to decision makers. How does a highly competent GIS manager accomplish this?

GIS management is a challenging profession. Effective GIS management is a critical success factor for an agency to leverage the potential of its investment in geospatial data and technology and to maximize GIS ROI. Adequate financial support is a key factor for a successful GIS. This is a key GIS management responsibility.

This GIS Management Academy™ workshop introduces the use of return on investment (ROI) analysis methods to document the net financial benefits that an agency might achieve from its GIS. In this workshop we will review the types of benefits that GIS provides. We will focus on recent (non-GIS industry) literature that documents the significant ROI from GIS at various social and institutional levels.

A major portion of the workshop will demonstrate a simple, objective methodology that has been used to quantify and report GIS performance metrics and ROI. This demonstration will include the use of a custom Excel Spreadsheet template that will be provided to all students who complete the workshop. After the workshop each attendee will have the tools and framework to input data to document their GIS ROI.

Enterprise GIS is expensive to develop, maintain, and operate. Even small-to-medium-sized cities, counties, and regional agencies have invested millions of dollars to develop their GIS capabilities, and they can have large annual operating budgets. Many recent third-party studies have proven that GIS delivers significant financial return on investment (ROI) to organizations that deploy it as an enterprise business-support tool.

Audience

Current GIS managers, supervisors, and coordinators, and those who aspire to a successful career in GIS management. Also, agency budget and finance managers and senior agency stakeholders interested in understanding the quantifiable financial benefits from geographic information science and technology.

Topics Covered

How organizations achieve their goals and objectives

Budgets as tools to allocate resources within organizations

The societal benefits of GIS

• Non-financial
• Financial benefits across society
• Financial benefits within organizations

Fundamentals of estimating future GIS benefit-cost analysis

Return on investment basic concepts

Fundamentals of calculating actual return on investment (with demonstration)

• Quantifying GIS costs
•  Quantifying GIS financial benefits

Practical considerations of using GIS ROI as a decision support tool

Methods of displaying and comparing results

Exercise: Attendee discussion and feedback

Prerequisites and Recommendations

No prerequisites. Recommended for GIS managers, consultants, and academics, as well as budget and financial managers interested in assessing the financial benefits from their GIS operations.

What You Will Receive

• Two (2) hours of instruction from Greg Babinski, who is a subject-matter expert and workshop author. 
•  A copy of the workshop presentation and exercises.
•  A copy of the GIS ROI Excel spreadsheet template.

GIS MANAGEMENT ACADEMY

Workshops from the Academy will be offered in the afternoons of Tuesday, May 2nd 1:00 pm to 4:30pm and Wednesday, May 3rd – 1:30 pm to 5:00pm

Register - Select Registration including workshop option

Presenter:  Workshops will be led by Greg Babinski.

Greg Babinski is a GIS management consultant and founder of GIS Management Consulting Services LLC, located in the greater Seattle area.

Between 1998 and the end of 2021 he served as GIS Manager, GIS Finance Manager and GIS Marketing& Business Development Manager for the King County GIS Center in Seattle. Previously he worked for nine years as GIS Mapping Supervisor for the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland.

He holds an MA in geography from Wayne State University. Greg is a GISP – Certified GIS Professional.

Greg is Past-President of URISA and founder and Past-Chair of URISA’s GIS Management Institute. In 2005 he founded The Summit – the Washington State GIS Newsletter. In 2019 Greg was awarded an EthicalGEO Fellowship by the American Geographical Society. In addition to GIS consulting, he is a GIS researcher, author, and instructor. He has spoken about GIS management across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Greg has taught GIS for Public Policy as an instructor with the University of Washington Evans Graduate School of Public Administration.

In his spare time Greg likes ‘hiking steep, narrow and dangerous trails that lead high above the clouds to awesome views’.

Three (3) workshops will be held each afternoon of BeSpatial’23 (2 days):

•  Promote and Grow your GIS for Successful Geospatial Managers
•  GIS Funding, Budgeting and Financial Management for GIS Managers
•  GIS Return on Investment (ROI) Fundamentals

These workshops are being offered as part of your BeSpatial'23 registration!  Choose the BeSpatial including workshop registration option 

Registration closes on April 28, 2023 at midnight

Register today

Municipal GIS Leaders take part in a discussion to give you the opportunity to ask questions and learn from their experiences. We will discuss the variety of Municipal GIS Service Delivery Platforms that their GIS teams maintain, internally and externally, as well as, GIS related initiatives and innovations that are happening in their Municipalities.

• Nicole Schleifer, Geomatics/Mapping Manager at City of Peterborough

• Rob Halko, Information Management Lead at Town of East Gwillimbury

• Jordan Rogers, Manager, Enterprise GIS, Information Systems & Technology at City of Kingston

• Randal Rodger, Program Manager, Geospatial Analytics, Technology & Solutions at City of Ottawa

•  Adam Commeford, Team Lead, Location Intelligence & Data Visualization, Digital Innovation & Information Technology at City of Brampton

Nicole Schleifer - Panelist

Nicole is currently the Geomatics/Mapping Manager at the City of Peterborough. She is responsible for leading the ongoing development and delivery of the City’s corporate GIS. Nicole has spent almost 2 decades working with municipal governments in everything GIS, she enjoys challenging her organization to think spatially and ensuring her team has the appropriate resources and tools to accommodate.  Her education includes a GIS Applications Specialist post graduate certificate from Fleming College.

Rob Halko - Panelist

at the Town of East Gwillimbury. He is passionate about utilizing technology in creative and effective ways, to simplify workflows and produce cost-effective results for the municipal sector. People are at the heart of it all - Rob likes to see everyone be successful and find joy in the day to day. His education includes a GIS Applications Specialist post graduate certificate from Fleming College.

Randal Rodger - Panelist

Randal has been innovating all things geospatial at the City of Ottawa for over 25 years. He is currently Program Manager of the Geospatial Analytics, Technology and Solutions (GATS) team and oversees the development of the Digital Twin and Reality Capture programs. His portfolio also includes the Geo-Information Centre and Geospatial Projects and Operations Units. Early in his career he shared his geospatial knowledge teaching at Algonquin College, as part of the MAP development team and during his years working on enterprise systems (ESRI, Sun Microsystems, Vision, Oracle).  He then left the server room behind and headed over to Planning and Growth Management to manage Mapping & Graphics and to develop a strong geospatial culture within the Planning department and beyond.   If he is not at work he is likely out cycling somewhere.

Jordan Rogers, GISP - Panelist 

Jordan is a senior GIS professional who is currently the Manager of Enterprise GIS at City of Kingston.  Jordan’s agricultural background and interest in land stewardship led him to discover his passion for geography and GIS at the University of Ottawa.  He has been working in the GIS field since 2011 and obtained his GISP designation in 2016.  He has had the opportunity to work with several municipalities as well as in conservation, and utilities.

Adam Commeford, GISP - Panelist

Adam is the Team Lead for the Location Intelligence & Data Visualization Team at the City of Brampton. With 15 years of experience in municipal GIS, he specializes in user experience, solution development and open data analysis. Along with an Honours Degree in Geomatics and GIS Applications Specialist Certificate, Adam is an active ESRI GIS Ambassador and Certified GIS Professional (GISP) who enjoys promoting geospatial awareness through the building and sharing of useful web apps and solutions.

Marikka Williams, GISP - Panel Moderator

Marikka is a graduate of the University of North Texas and has been GISP certified by GISCI since 2008. Marikka is a GIS Professor for the GIS Post Diploma, Common First Semester and Environmental Technician programs at Fleming College, Eastern section board member for BeSpatial Ontario, and Mapping and Technologies Spatial Data Strategies Chair for Canadian Cartographic Association (CCA).

She has 20+ years of experience providing GIS services to support Municipal Operations, Engineering Consulting, and Higher Education. She joined Fleming College, as GIS Professor in 2014, and teaches Spatial Analysis, Geovisualization, Municipal Mapping, Geomatics in Surveying, Remote Sensing and Fundamentals of Geomatics. As Mapping Technologies and Spatial Data Interest Group Chair for the CCA, she seeks to build awareness around mapping technologies to deliver spatial information that supports business practices in both public and private sectors. As the manager for the BeSpatial Eastern section, she volunteers to bring GIS education, career development and networking opportunities to students and GIS Professionals. 

SKE Inc. is an information solutions company and the team behind the award-winning GeoPortal cloud solution. Since 1994, we have been providing project management, systems design, development, and implementation services and software solutions to governments and large corporate clients.

By leveraging our GeoPortal technologies, our team can quickly design, build, and implement trusted and effective enterprise-wide information management solutions that help organizations publish, integrate, and give access to data and information.

Angus GeoSolutions Inc. (AGSI), since 1993 as a Canadian corporation, has been solving business problems with strategic technology and information solutions, empowering government, electrical utility, telecommunication, oil and gas, agriculture, and public safety industries to make better, more informed decisions. AGSI is headquartered in Halton Hills, Ontario with data collection and verification field staff across Canada.

Go360™ - Integrated Business Applications & Communication

Go360™ Business Centre is designed around the specific needs of departments, functions, and roles. Integrated applications connect departments, breaking down silos, increasing efficiencies, and communication. Work and data flows effectively from one area to another.

This means work is assessed and gets assigned quickly. Your employees and teams are more productive. Data and reports are analyzed in real-time, for faster, safer, and more reliable decision making.

Learn more… 

Location Warehouse™ - A Comprehensive Database of North American Location & Spatial Information

Developed over 30 years by collecting, verifying, and managing the highest quality of land-based location information needed to support mission-critical functions for both private and public sector operations.

AGSI offers many Municipal Government Services including:

• Address Management - consolidation of address silos, accuracy, and sustainability
• Permit Tracking - management of contractor and public activities within the community
• Postal Boundaries - Validate residents’ calls, department mail outs, data analyses - lower tiers.

Dear members: Thank you for you support during the past year. We deeply appreciate your ongoing commitment to BeSpatial, your geospatial and information community in Ontario.

We are looking forward to an interesting program year with monthly webinars that are available to view,  post event, with access in our members' area.

Our annual BeSpatial event and EXPO is planned for May1-2 and  is a virtual event once again!   This decision to remain virtual is based on your feedback to continue to offer an event that provides broad and inclusive access for those who come from across levels and carry out many diverse roles in organizations that makeup our geospatial and information community, 

Many organizations registered over 10, 20, even 30 staff and enjoyed the range of presentations offered from leaders and shakers across the technical, business and management streams.

In addition to our popular and informative monthly webinars, we plan to hold onsite events on a regional basis, so that those important face to face opportunities will also be available to our members.

Renew today to ensure that you will continue to receive program highlights as they are released in our eNews and on our social media platforms!

If you have already paid your annual dues, thanks very much for your ongoing support of your community!

We are counting down the days to May !

  This once a year geospatial and information community event has something for everyone! 

The Final program  is now in place. Click the  Schedule where you can view the exciting sessions topics.  There are an array of industry experts and colleagues who are waiting to share their presentations and answer your questions . If you haven't registered already, please do so now.  

A range of topics will be covered including asset management, geospatial data apps, geospatial technology platforms, LiDAR, GIS tools, analytics, 3D, AI and so much more. We are also featuring a session on GISP certification with Todd Kent, Certification Coordinator of the GISCI certification institute.  

Dear BeSpatial Members,

Well, another year is in the books. And while it feels good to slowly be returning to normal (post-CoVID), the operative word is “slowly”. We’re not quite out of the woods yet, as I can attest as I recover from a bout of CoVID in late November. Fortunately, it wasn’t severe, and other than a loss of smell and taste, it felt more like a mild cold. I’m therefore grateful for the vaccines I received and the continued watchfulness of our Public Health authorities.

It definitely felt good to have our first in-person Board meeting in late August since I joined BeSpatial. Many of my colleagues on the board were only known to me virtually. We convened to have a strategy meeting to review our mission and strategic objectives, and set some priorities for the organization.

One of those priorities was to continue to provide meaningful content to our members. Since our AGM, we staged 4 different webinars, including one on Airborne LiDAR, Addressing the Housing Affordability Crisis with Geospatial Data in September, Hamilton’s Enterprise GIS Roadmap in early November, and how the Broadband One Window online map-based platform supports the Province of Ontario’s Accelerated High-Speed Internet Program in late November.

I’m also thrilled to report that we have filled a vacancy in our team. The Board has welcomed James Dorland, OLS, CLS as Northern Director. James is based in Sudbury, and is actively working towards staging a BeSpatial event in the area in 2023.

As we look forward to the year ahead, the BeSpatial Board of Directors are already hard at work planning our 2023 AGM, on May 2-3. The theme we have selected is “BeCreative”. Creativity is intelligence having fun!

• Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way
• Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought

Our Geospatial Professional members are creating new insights every day with the work they perform, so this theme should provide a wealth of material. We are deeply appreciative of the sponsors that have already announced their support.

 An initial “Save The Date” e-mail was sent out in late September, and we have recently issued a call for presentations. We’ll once again have different streams, centered around Technical, Business Apps and Strategy, and reflecting the diverse roles our members occupy. In short, we’ll have something for everyone. Please send us your expression of interest to present and a brief abstract, as soon as possible.

Based on the feedback we received from our last Annual General Meeting, we took the decision to once again host the event virtually. While this may be disappointing to those that were looking forward to some real, face-to-face interaction (including myself), the fact is that we are able to reach a far greater number of our members this way. Many organizations, whether public or private, typically limit how many employees can attend such a live event. Those limitations don’t come into play for a virtual event. But we also recognize that many folks yearn for some in-person networking opportunities, and we have committed to holding a 1 day event in each of our three regions (Eastern, Western & Northern) in 2023.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to acknowledge and thank all of the stakeholders that contribute to bringing value to this community of like-minded geo-professionals, from our executive director and board to our volunteers, members, sponsors and other supporting organizations. May this new year hold much health, happiness and prosperity for you and yours.

Sincerely,

Peter Hettstedt
President, BeSpatial