GIS Day 1999 Monthly News Letter
Welcome to the first edition of the GIS Day 1999 monthly newsletter!
The GIS Day 1999 newsletter is a monthly update to assist GIS professionals in hosting a GIS Day™ event. In this newsletter you will find updates on GIS Day materials along with ideas for GIS Day events and activities.
In This Issue:
-Update on GIS Day CD
-GIS Day Event Ideas
-Web Sites with Interactive Activity
Ideas for GIS Day
-GIS Day at the ESRI User Conference
-Tip of the Month
GIS Day CD
A CD filled with materials and information to jump-start your GIS Day events is
in development. On this CD you will find an invitation template, sample agendas, a
PowerPointŪ presentation, a T-shirt template, posters, screen shots, various documents
outlining different event types and activities to do at those events, and even a screen
saver for you to use at your GIS Day event. In July, the first of these CDs will
automatically be distributed to all organizations who have registered as GIS Day
participants at the www.gisday.com Web site.
GIS Day Event Ideas
1. Open House
This is a great way to get people to actually see GIS in action in your own organization.
Some activities you may present at your open house:
a. Provide a short introduction about GIS Day and an explanation of
GIS.
b. Demonstrate how your organization uses GIS and how it impacts your
open house visitors and the world around them.
c. Conduct a tour of your facility; introduce employees actually using
GIS.
d. Display maps created with your GIS.
e. Present GIS materials including poster/brochure or materials from
your company.
2. School Presentation/Demonstration
The goal of this event is to educate school children how geography through the technology
of GIS affects their everyday lives.
a. Submit a proposal describing your classroom presentation to the
school for approval.
b. Demonstrate how your organization uses GIS and how it impacts the
students. Refer to the How to Create Your Own "A Day in Your Life with Geography and
GIS" document on this CD for assistance.
c. Short lecture/demonstration of how to create a map using GIS.
d. Career Day-Talk about and demonstrate what you do and how it affects
the world around us.
e. For grades 5-12, work with the teacher to teach a
lesson or more from "Explore Your World with a Geographic Information System"
teaching supplement. To request this teaching supplement, please visit the
www.gisday.com Web site, click on the
"Comments/Suggestions" button, and enter your request. (Please remember to
include your name, address, and phone number.)
f. If computers are accessible to the students, you can conduct a
hands-on demonstration using a Schools and Libraries software program such as
ArcVoyager™. ArcVoyager is a group of interactive demonstrations and lessons
using ArcView GIS or ArcExplorer software. The ArcVoyager exercises are available on the
GIS for Schools and Libraries CD. To request this teaching supplement, please visit the
www.gisday.com Web site, click on the "Comments/ Suggestions" button, and enter
your request. (Please remember to include your name, address, and phone number.)
3. Map Gallery
a. Team up with other companies and organizations in your area and
invite the public to a map gallery, displaying maps created with each
company/organization's GIS. This event would be very similar to an art exhibit.
b. A map gallery could be held at your organization, local library,
school, or other public facility.
c. Have software demonstrations running next to each map display,
demonstrating how each map was constructed.
d. Ask attendees to explain what analysis or problem is being answered
with your map. Give small prizes like buttons and T-shirts made from the templates in the
GIS Day Kit/CD to those who answer correctly.
e. Have attendees vote for their favorite map (most informative, most
artistic, most relevant to our community, etc.).
4. User Group Meeting
a. Hold your next user group meeting on GIS Day.
b. Ask each user group member to bring at least one nonuser/member to
the meeting.
c. Dedicate the meeting to educating newcomers about GIS and how the
group uses it.
d. Display your maps.
e. Demonstrate how your organization uses GIS and how it impacts the
participants in the room.
5. Organizational Meeting
a. An organizational meeting could be a town, chamber of commerce,
Junior Achievement, scout, Lions Club, or Kiwanis meeting, etc.
b. Make "GIS/Geography and How it Makes a Difference" a topic
on the meeting agenda.
c. Display your maps.
d. Demonstrate how your organization uses GIS and how it impacts the
participants in the room.
6. Media Event
a. Web page spotlight-Spotlight your GIS application on your company's
Web site. This can be a story describing how your company uses GIS or even an interactive
demonstration using an Internet Map Server product. Be sure to
link to the GIS Day Web site or a sponsor's affiliated site for your audience to learn
more about GIS and how it affects their world around them.
b. Radio station or local TV station remote from your event-Many radio
stations will broadcast from your site for a small fee, and some will even do it for free
if they think there is enough public interest to warrant it. Local cable stations are
always looking for local interest stories for their broadcasts, so be sure to invite them
to your event as well.
c. Local Press-Local newspapers also like to showcase local events, so
an invitation should be extended to your local newspapers. Contact the news, business, or
human interest editors and "pitch" your event to them.
Web Sites with Interactive
Activity Ideas for GIS Day
Hands-On Resources
There are many sites that provide resources for fun activities that might integrate well
into your GIS Day event. Many state Geographic Alliance Web pages have outlines for
hands-on activities that can be tied into discussions and demonstrations of GIS.
Visit www.mapping.com/alliances.html for a list of all the Geographic Alliance sites.
Another Site to See
The GIS Day site has a fun animation that shows how GIS plays a role in everyday life.
This might help you identify to your visitor's real-life events that use GIS. Visit www.esri.com/geography/gis_touches/start.html.
If you know of other GIS or geography-based Web sites that contain interactive
activities or other ideas for GIS Day events, please submit them to us by visiting the GIS
Day Web site (www.gisday.com) and clicking on the
"Comments/Suggestions" button.
Going to the ESRI User Conference?
We have been informed that members from the GIS Day sponsor organizations
will be featured at a session during the ESRI user conference. Hear the team present their
goals, ideas, and tips for a successful event. The session is entitled "How to Host a
Successful GIS Day Event" and will be held Wednesday, July 28, at 12:20 p.m. in the
Marina, Salon D, of the San Diego Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the San Diego Convention
Center.If you know of other conferences or meetings where GIS Day activities or sessions
will be presented, please submit them to us by visiting the GIS Day
Web site (www.gisday.com) and clicking on the "Comments/Suggestions" button, and
we will feature them in our future issues of this newsletter.
Tip of the Month
To generate interest in your GIS Day event, an Auto Signature mentioning your
GIS Day event can be created in Microsoft Outlook that will automatically appear at the
bottom of every E-mail you create. To create an AutoSignature in Microsoft Outlook, simply
begin creating a new E-mail on a blank page, type the information as you want it to
appear, highlight it, go to "Tools AutoSignature," and select "Yes"
when asked if you would like to "save the current selection as your default
AutoSignature."
An example would be: The first annual worldwide GIS Day is November 19, 1999!
Learn about it at www.gisday.com.
The goal of this newsletter is to provide you with information and ideas to use at your GIS Day events. To change your E-mail address, please send an E-mail to gisdayinfo@gisday.com.
Other comments and questions regarding GIS Day can be directed via E-mail to gisdayinfo@gisday.com
X-From_: gisday_watch@esri.com Thu Jul 1 15:09:06 1999
Return-Path: <gisday_watch@esri.com>
From: gisday_watch@esri.com
Subject: GIS Day Watch 01-Jul-99
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 12:53:06 -0700
Last Edited: 11/02/99