Day 19
Another GIS day
Today was another day primarily spent on tasks related to GIS. Several of us discussed the structure and vision of GIS for the city. This has been important not only because our city is working on a succession plan, but also because GIS is changing so much as it evolves and is integrated with new technologies. (By the way, if you're interested in the evolution of GIS, you can read a recent article of mine on Acronym Online related to this topic: When Tools Converge to Help Cities Monitor their Entire Water System)
A couple of us spent our afternoon at the fire department meeting with the person there who will be handling all their GIS work. It was very interesting to learn more about the software they use to interface with the city's GIS data. And we talked a lot about how we can work together to make our datasets better, not only in accuracy but in how they help us do our jobs better. We also looked at a Flex application they would like to see developed to view some of the data.
The never-ending email challenge
Other than that, I did spend more time than normal trying to minimize the e-mails in my inbox. With us being so busy over the last few months, I had way too many in there and really needed to file them. So I made great progress today, and now only have just a little more to go before it is down to an acceptable level.
Internships
At the end of the day, I also met with someone who will begin an internship with us next week. He will be working part-time as part of his curriculum to learn more about engineering and what an engineer does throughout the day. Our city is a strong supporter of internship programs. Our department has had four this year so this will be our fifth, and there are about four other departments with interns working this year.
