Spatially Enabling Government – an International Challenge

The popular use of spatial technologies involves showing images and tracking assets and inventory in an increasing array of instruments, the most common being the ubiquitous mobile phone. These technologies penetrate into even low income poor countries, but their take-up and development concentrates in highly developed countries. This high-end use of these technologies will determine their future. Remarkable as these popular applications are, spatial technologies can also be used in even more dynamic, transformational ways. Transformational use of spatial technologies occurs when they are used to improve business processes of government, and assist delivery of policies for equitable taxation, conservation of natural resources and planning for rational growth. Use of this transformational capacity of spatial technologies in government creates a spatially enabled government (SEG). The major impediment to take-up of spatial information is counter-intuitive. We all use the new technology in our daily lives, but our capacity to understand the power of spatial information is remarkably small. In fact only about 1% of people in any society really understand spatial information with about 5% of people knowing something about the special technology. For 95% of people, spatial information and its supporting technologies is a mystery. Teaching people about spatial information and its technologies is therefore the first task in painting a vision of what is possible. The attractions of spatial technologies lie in how they present information, whether users rely on computers and the Internet, or on communications technologies. The adage of a “picture tells a thousand words” is now out of date. New digital pictures tell many stories, and, if the enabling platform is built, the pictures will become management tools of government. Spatial technologies are moving quickly. In Australia, since October 2006, Google Maps and Google Earth, combined with a geocoded national address12 June 200