Year end is here and many of you are home enjoying some well deserved down time and R&R. Naturally you take to your tablet or favorite E reading device and browse the web.
I love the year end because we get treated to all those wonderful, interesting Best of the year, Top stories, and Top 100 lists – I can’t get enough of them myself.
So with the news trickling in at a snail pace and relatively little activity coming our of the business World what else are we to read? I’ve been catching up a little bit over the past day or so and found some great material to satisfy my craving for geotech news and substance of interest. The following are just 10 things (no particular order) that I’ve read lately and would offer up to you as some suggested reading while you sip your coffee… enjoy!
year end reading
- What’s your content engagement 101 strategy? Marshall is the CEO of LittleBird and always has some great stuff to share including this latest feature on engagement in this social web era.
- KickStarter Campaign for QGIS – Randal offers up his take on QGIS and why you might want to support this project to enhance the functionality with the addition of a live layers effect
- SpatialTau Newsletter – You might miss James Fee’s blogging but fear not because you can get a weekly dose of James via his SpatialTau newsletter
- 3 “Lean Startup” Hacks to Build a Billion-Dollar Company – I’m one of those small business news junkies and love to read anything about starting a small business, in particular, a billion dollar business! This piece has some great tips and a few suggested hacks
- Android M – Here’s a meaty look at Android’s next iteration… Android M, and reports have it that the next major release will be all about the car – yay! I’m digging this and the connected car is THE big thing coming in 2015!
- Geohipster predictions for hotness in 2015 – Always fun, this annual survey from the GeoGeek community shares what the geeks feel will be hot in 2015. I sadly missed getting my list into the Hipsters but had I remembered to do so I would have noted how I feel the wearable hype is just that, Hype! I think the UAV market is like the wild west and hopefully 2015 will see some privacy issues worked out and things will settle down a bit. I see the drone/UAV market as huge for opportunity for geo professionals as the real world will wake up and realize that they should seek out highly skilled professionals for drone mapping projects rather than securing the help of a novice drone enthusiast. As mentioned above, i also see 2015 being huge for the connected car.
- Bill’s Retrospective – Bill Dollins looks back on 8 years of blogging (kudos) and his next challenge, teaching an online class for Salisbury University
- Flowingdata Best Data Visualization Projects of 2014 – Some amazing data visualizations including detailed election maps, reshaping of the economy, temperature anomalies and selfiecity.
- Salary Guide, Tips for Fastest Growing Industries & Top Technology Positions – Moving into 2015 the demand for .Net developers, Systems Administrators, Java Developers, and web developers continues to grow. A real treat with the latest research are the listing of the fastest growing industries in technology and the technology positions that are in demand. The following graphics from Robert Half reveal the top trends in tech for the workforces in the US and Canada moving into 2015.
- Socrata’s New 2014 Benchmark Report – The report reveals that an increasing number of public-sector organizations have embraced open data as a way to boost visibility into government decision-making and performance. The research confirms that open data is growing quickly; that governments throughout the country have already realized the benefits of open data; and that open data is, and will be, a primary tool for governments to interact with their many stakeholders.
For a little social planning help moving into 2015 see also details of this