What are some of the areas to watch to determine how things are going and what groups will get there first with respective to innovative multimodal data integration and visualization systems. vsia gin s ar

1. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE:
An Introduction

2. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Defining Terms
• Competitive Intelligence
• Tracking news regarding industry* related themes
that are of interest to our goals
• *(we also want government and academic coverage too)
• Business Intelligence
• Awareness of software, tools, and systems that
help our situational awareness within the
company.
Official Industry Vocab Words
Ours are some
what mushed,
For example: point
cloud viewers fall in
both categories
It doesn’t
actually mean
we’re “competing”
with anyone—it
means we know
what we’re doing

3. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Why do we want to know these things?
• Business value!
• Knowing the lay of the land = first step in any scientific
discovery process---what is the shape of the current thing and
how can it be improved upon/navigated successfully
• In academia = “book reviews”
• In government = “feasibility study”/”general intel”
• In industry= ongoing “competitive intelligence”
• Knowing who does what, where --so we know
whom to collaborate with, who to avoid,
and how they all fit together in the
larger ecosystem
• = Ability to analyze patterns of pain points
and refine feature sets and client needs
• = Ability to Project innovation directions
and shift accordingly

4. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
What should we be tracking?
Well, what is X?
X is a new way for understanding information in context.
What is information?
Where does that information come from (-
>data)
How do we understand things?What are the old
ways for
understanding
information?
What contexts really, really need better ways to understand
information & context?

5. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
What are the old ways for
understanding information?
100,000ish BCE
Speech
30,000ish BCE
Symbols
3,000ish BCE
Writing
The History of Communication
Looking for a good intro text on this? Try: James Gleick’s “The Information: A
History, A Theory, A Flood. Also planning a future lunch & learn ;)
15th c. CE
Printing
Press
19th c CE
Telegraph
20th c. CE
Film
20th c CE
TelephoneDebatable BCE
Cartography
(MAPS!)
19th c CE
Photography
20th c. CE
Television
20th c. CE
Internet
20th c. CE
Social
Media
20th c. CE
Smart
Phones

6. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
• Anthropology & Cognitive Science study our
ability to ‘understand things’
• Pepe is tackling this!! 
• Ex. -> Visual Languages & Semiotics
• Ex. Industry & Academic surveys & user studies
How do we understand things?

7. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
What is information?

8. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Where
does that
information come
from?
-> DATA!!!

9. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
What contexts really, really need
better ways to understand
information?

10. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Can prioritize our coverage by determining adoption of technology
First adopters would most likely be:
Military Intelligence &
Situational Awareness
Exploration Categories
-> Those Collecting Base Layers of All Data &
Science Communication
• Aerospace
• Geosciences (inc. gas/oil industry)
• Archaeology
Government + Exploration
(=groups engaged in science communication)
• Park services
• Government Museums

11. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Second wave of adopters:
Building Information Modelling
• Engineering
• Construction, etc
Commerce
• Fashion industry
• Grocery stores, etc…
Agriculture
• Agtech

12. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Commercial Use leads to ubiquity…
#AllTheThings
Public Sector
Navigation Education
Tourism
And so much more….

13. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Academia vs. Industry vs. Government
To look at all
those things,
it means we’re
looking not just at
interdisciplinary
topics but across
interdisciplinary
silos
ACADEMIA
GOVERNMENT INDUSTRY
Basic
Research
Basic
Research
Basic
Research
Mapping
Mapping
Mapping
Sensors
Sensors
Sensors
Communication
Communication
Communication

14. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
What are we looking at in all
of these categories?
Academia
• What labs are
researching these
topics?
• Who are the current
experts, who is the
next generation of
experts?
• What’s happening to
that research?
• Where are they
presenting their
research?
• Why does their
research stay basic
vs. applied?
Government
• What government labs are
working on it?
• Who are the government
experts?
• What use do they apply
this research towards?
• What government policies
are forming in reference
to these topics?
• Who is the government
consulting to form those
policies/standards?
• What does the government
want/need?
Industry
• What companies are
building relevant
products?
• Who are they
recruiting to build
them?
• How are they
communicating their
products and brands
to customers?

15. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Soooo—how do we go about tracking and putting
together the pieces of all of the related stuff?
How do we build a bigger picture of our ecosystem?

16. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
CI Primary Resource #1:
By the powers vested in social media and
the entangled fourth estate (the press)
Facebook
• Company Pages
• Company Branding
• Latest News
• Projects & Stories
• Discipline Societies &
Organizations
Twitter
• Latest News
• Company Gossip
• Expert Community
Other
• Tumblr (artists!)
• Pinterest
• Instagram
(museums!)
• Reddit
• Network of Contacts
• Credible news sites
• Themed Aggregate
sites
LinkedIn
• Who’s Who
• What are they doing
• What’s their
background to be
doing it?
• Who’s Hiring for
what? (indicator of
what they’re
working on)
New tech for stalking people
(vs. Glass Lewis)

17. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
The Power of Company & Individual
Accounts & Feeds
• Company Brand Ambassadors often
more important for the company
than the official company
account
• Tracking back individuals is more likely to
reveal insight than the official frontward
facing branding of the company/government
streams (academia is ALL individuals)

18. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Recent(ish) Examples…
• Industry Collaboration: Esri & Harris Geospatial New agreement
• Policy: Kushner & new “Office of American Innovation” -> Vannevar Bush
• Emerging Companies: Musk invests in Neuralink
• Access to Tech: NASA Tech releases & Data Preservation Hackathons
• New Tech: V&A Museum launched Breadcrumbs
• Outreach Mechanisms: American Gods Branding
• Hiring Indicators: Magic Leap stopped hiring CRM
• Business Gossip: DAQRI laid off a huge chunk of its workforce

19. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
CI Primary Resource #2: Industry & Government
Periodicals & Newsletters
• Latest tech evolutions
• Recent test projects
• Industry & Government
pain points & projections
• Policy & Collaboration
• +
This manifesto might be the most
important thing you read all year!
(there’s a copy in the lunch room for
your perusing pleasure)

20. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Periodicals Content Examples
• Awareness of government & Industry projects that
relate to our work
• Examples covered in recent stories:
• The Goddard Bio Indicator LiDAR Instrument (BILI)
• The multichannel spectrometer at Washington State University
• The Command Post of the Future (CPOF)
• The Joint Battle Command Post (JBC-P_
• The Advanced Artillery Targeting (AFATDS)
• The Direction System & Command Post Computing Environment
• The Electrical Field Quantitative Measurement System @ Langley Research Center
• The Scintillating Quantum Dots stuff for Imaging X-Rays (SQDIX)
• The Imagery Exxhange project for scalable meta raster format (MRF) within the NASA GIBS (Global
Imagery Browser Services)
• Josh Kinne’s work on VR for NASA at Langley
• DigitalLife—non profit working on database of digital scans of every animal on earth

21. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
CI Primary Resource #3: Conferences
Industry ConferencesGovernment ConferencesAcademic Conferences
New data = New
Ideas = New tools
How can we organize
all of this data
and all of these
new ideas?
How can we,
theoretically, make
best use out of
tools?
What can/should we
do with it? Ethics
& Long duree
consideration
How can we apply
research and make
tools?
What tools do we
need?
How can we get
multiple groups to
work together on
things?
What are the best
practices of use in
society?
Our Tools Are
Better Than Your
Tools
What can we do
with old,
established
research to make
something to sell?
How can we sell
our tools to
everybody?

22. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Academic Conference Example:
• Quick Partial Highlights
• International UNESCO Standards for Data Quality on debate
• Countries comparing archives and storage processes (cloud computing
arguments)
• Best practices for photogrammetry collection
• Latest research into entangled 3D visualization, VR, AR, & 3D printing
in aforementioned Exploration categories
• Including robot scanners with data quality verification systems
• Mobile Computerized tomography (CT) scanners for
• Open Access to digital information (that was us!)
• Increased industry presence this time round-> Autodesk on fringes
“Digital Heritage” is an
umbrella term for all
data related to
scientific or cultural
endeavors

23. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
• Biggest gathering of scientists and government funded
science groups in the world
• Biggest event for exploration societies and government
‘digital heritage’ departments
• Discussions and updates on how governments & scientists
are working together to structure and share the world’s
information resources
• Policy conversations with world leaders in science &
innovation, including Al Gore, Elon Musk, US Secretary of
the Interior Sally Jewell, National Science Foundation
Director Frances A. Cordova, CA Governor Jerry Brown,
underwater & arctic explorer Prince Albert of Monaco,
National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt, etc
• Partial Highlight examples:
• Conversations with Google Earth Engine director Rebecca Moore re: how
they’re not going to/can’t add LiDAR to their data sets
• Presentations & Chats with NOAA’s Jeff de la Beaujardinere—the lead
on the government’s cross-agency data standards project
• Anything and everything by Esri’s lead researcher Dawn Wright
• NASA and NGA town hall debates re: using commercial imaging groups to
collect and visualize data vs. doing it all internally
Government/Academic Mixed Conference Example:
Here’s Al Gore talking about
temporal data collection
From satellite systems
This is Elon Musk talking
about the importance of
critical thinking skills

24. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Industry Conference Example:
The Virtual Reality Developer’s Conference at the
Game Developer’s Conference
• Palpable divide between academic IEEE VR/AR research
and industry work
• Cognitive Psychology VR work of Thomas Bedenk at
Exozet Berlin GmbH
• Jesse Schell predictors for industry future
• Widespread lack of awareness of imaging to visualization
pipeline of collected data (at 2015), looked like it might
have changed for 2016---influx of case samples to be
studied (but we didn’t go, so we don’t know)
• Expo salience
• National tech recruiters

25. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Conferences we should be going to:
• IEEE Virtual Systems & Multimedia (VSMM)
• The Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum
• (Formerly known as the American Society for Photogrammetry and
Remote Sensing or ASPRS)
• The GEOINT Symposium (Golden Ticket one!)
• International Society for Optics and Photonics(SPIE) events
(esp their Scientific Sensing & Imaging ones)
• Other IEEEs like VR & AR
• SPAR & Hexagon (LiDAR heavies)
• International LiDAR Mapping Forum (ILMF)
• The Esri User Conference
• SIGGRAPH (computing graphic)
• Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAAs)
• And so many others in library science/archival practice,
museum technology, technology and ethics, cognitive science,
and more….
(AGU + DH + These are basically my priority conference list for doing my basic research)

26. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
One-Off Lectures, Experiential Events,
Exhibits, Showcases, Tedtalks, & Documentaries, etc
Experiencing Experts Talk About Their
Research or show off their research is
IMPORTANT
(especially if someone is already undertaking a chunk of
research relevant to us (that means we can build off lots of
things instead of always starting from scratch)
CI Primary Resource #3:

27. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
First Photon Imaging and Other
Imaging With Few Photons
-Professor Vivek Goyal of Boston University
Recent Lecture Example:
Primary Conclusion: Can redefine
earlier stage variables in imaging
process and use those change to keep
things cleaner the whole way through

28. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Breaking the Barriers of Augmented Reality @ Stanford
Latest research from Christian Sandor
Recent Lecture Example:
• Blurring essential—current Turing test, but more needed in
the future
• Bevy of interesting projects presented
• Including one reverse LiDAR object recognition

29. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Things to Ask Yourself when you go
someplace that is sharing, or could
be sharing, additional information
with you
• Are there Maps? Guides?
• Are they using Digital or Analog systems?
• What systems do they have in place to appease your
curiosity/answer questions?
• How are they using data for any of the above?
• What do they know about data that they could be using?
Facility Tours/All Situations
CI Primary Resource #4:

30. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Invited Facility Tour Example:
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute (MBARI)
With Mike McCann, lead
visualization software engineer
Discussion points:
• Viz paint points
• Data collection systems
• Metadata and paradata
standards
• Collaborative unities

31. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
National & State Park Survey
Casual Facility Tour Example:
• Data use in displays?
• little to no LiDAR
• Topographies NOT collected
data, all created artisticially
• Lack of LiDAR awareness—those
who had had a survey done
were adorably and alarmlingly
clueless
• Security discussions about
future data access---too much
exploration?

32. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Hike or Beach Walk or Library or Museum
or Movie Theater or Grocery Store or
are walking down the street
• Start asking yourself the same kind of questions---how are these
places letting me engage with layers of information? How are they
telling me things? How well are they making use of technology to
add to my experience? How do they let me feed into their knowledge
base?How could they be doing better? Etc…
• How could plant and animal identification improve the situational
awareness of your hike?
• How could having a map of the off-coast topography enhance your
beach walk?
• How could ingredient sensors improve your grocery store
experience?
• How could technology enhance your engagement with art and
artifacts?
• How could I know more about the world around me?

33. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
No single person can cover everything
or know everything or have all of the
experiences
• We need to all pull things in and build up our
collective thoughtbank
• The more we’re all on the same page/reading the
same book—the cooler, better things we’re
building
• Excited we’re taking such a lovely step in
encouraging presentations of Competitive
Intelligence and the individual events nearer
to where they’re happening---Don’t worry,
future CI presentations won’t be such an
overload/backlog (hopefully)

34. Competitive Intelligence: An Introduction
Mechanisms for Sharing this Content
• At the very least, jut out some notes on your
personal blog and cross ref it to the CI
section in Confluence
• Now we have a presentation mechanism!!
• Most of my stuff still only goes to David (who
prioritized it) and Robert (=not streamlined
communication system for sharing)