2007 - a personal retrospective

For me it has been a strange year. Indeed a strange, and exciting, three years.

There I was three years ago in my 19th year of employment at the Royal Festival Hall, managing the finances and overseeing budgets on performing and visual arts. I was dealing with orchestras, dance troupes, foyer musicians. I was oblivious to the world of GIS and geospatial issues.

Then the RFH closed for renovation. I was offered redundancy. I was keen to go, and took it as a means to look for a more interesting challenge. I found that challenge, by accident, when I saw a job vacancy at the AGI.

At the start of 2007, I was the Finance guy at the AGI. So although I was interested in finding our more about GIS, hence the setting-up of this blog, my function was primarily in improving the financial situation. Knowledge of GIS was not key to this.

Then in March, our Chief Operating Office moved on to pastures new. With my Finance hat on, I had been banging on about the need to save costs on overheads, and salary costs were our biggest overhead. So I tentatively suggested that she should not be directly replaced, but that her work could be shared among the existing team. As a direct result, my role expanded. I took on the title of Chief Operating Officer and suddently I was going to meetings where participants were not interested in my financial background but instead expected me to at least make sensible comments about issues in the world of GIS. At first it was scary, but then it became quite interesting, almost exciting.

And so over the past 9 months, I have attended meetings of (apologies for the acronyms) JISC-GWG, SpLinT, IGGI, UK Geoforum and well as Scottish and Welsh regional AGI groups. I've been to meetings in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicester, Cardiff and Llandrindod Wells. And it has been fun.

I hope I have represented AGI well at these meetings. I feel I have made a generally positive contibution and where I haven't understood the nuances of an argument, I have been able to consult someone who has.

I am certainly now aware of the exciting developments in the world of GI. I am aware of the increasingly important role technology is playing. I am aware of the hugely dispirate group within this world, from corporate suppliers to local and central government including health authorities, police forces, insurance companies etc.

I have had a great year. And I am looking forward to learning more, and hopefully contributing more, in 2008.