The Age of New Economics ... Based on a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure
Discussion Paper Prepared For the "GSDI Conference, North Carolina October 1997"

By:
Fritz Petersohn, Chair, United States of America
Kenneth Primozic, United States of America
Nelson Osborne, United States of America
Contributions by:
Bill Robertson, New Zealand
Alex McDonald,Canada

Key concepts and ideas were taken from the book:
Strategic Choices: Supremacy, Survival or Sayonara
written by Edward Primozic, Kenneth Primozic, Joe Leben
Published by McGraw-Hill Inc

CONTENTS:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE AGE OF NEW ECONOMICS
3. PROVIDING FOR A "HIGHER QUALITY OF LIFE"
4. NEW LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
5. NEW ROLE: THE GEO-ENGINEER
6. WHERE TO START?
7. A TIME FOR ACTION
8. CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION
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Continuing the dialog from the September 2-4, 1996 conference in Bonn, Germany, which focused on the EMERGING GLOBAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE, a second meeting of leading thinkers and leaders in the area of global spatial data infrastructure was scheduled. The WORLD CONGRESS ON GLOBAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE (WCGSDI) as it has been recently referred to, held its second world conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA on October 19-21. The conference was hosted by the Governor of the State of North Carolina, the Honorable James B Hunt, Jr and under the patronage of Dr Martin Bangemenn, Commissioner European Union, and Mr Bruce Babbitt, Secretary, US Department of the Interior. Because of the success of the Bonn conference, participation of key organisations from around the world attended. This conference was the result of a global partnership consisting of organisations like; European Umbrella Organisation for Geographical Information (EUROGI). Open GIS Consortium, Atlantic Institute, Germany's DDGI and Federal Geographic Data Commission.

The theme of the conference and the vision of the World congress on GSDI was:

"Global Spatial Data Infrastructure providing for Substantial and Sustainable Economic Development in the Developed and Developing Countries of the World."

Based on the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure being defined as "a co-ordinated approach to technology, policies, standards, and human resources necessary for the effective acquisition, management, storage, distribution, and improved utilisation of geospatial data in the development of the global community.", the goals for this white paper are to:

2. THE AGE OF NEW ECONOMICS
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At certain times in history, there comes a sharp transformation. During these transformation periods which lasts a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its world view, its basic values, its social and political structure; its economies, and its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. The people born in this new age cannot even image the world their grandparents lived and into which their parents were born. We are currently living through just such a transformation. We are witnessing the beginning of the knowledge creation age. By the year 2000 there will be no developed country where the traditional workers making and moving products will account for more than one sixth or one eighth of the work force. Peter Drucker states: "The basic economic resource- 'the means of production' is no longer capital, nor labor. It is and will be knowledge. The central wealth-creating activities will be neither the allocation of capital to productive uses, nor labor- the two poles of nineteenth- and twentieth- century economic theory. Value is now created by 'productivity' and 'innovation', both applications of knowledge to work. The leading social groups of the knowledge society will be 'knowledge workers' - knowledge executives who know how to allocate knowledge to productive use, just as capitalists knew how to allocate capital to productive use, knowledge professionals, and knowledge employees... The economic challenge of the post-capitalist society will therefore be the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker." The basic economic resource, "the means of production" will no longer be capital, nor natural resources. It will be knowledge and the services and new products derived from knowledge.

The challenge of this knowledge creation age will be to enable the new work force and to develop and grow new businesses and industries. Service workers, process managers and information providers, as a rule, will lack the necessary education and skills to be the productive, knowledge workers of the next millennium. Today, in every country these workers constitute a majority of the work force.

At first glance, the economy and structure of most countries appear hardly to have been affected by the shift to the knowledge creation age. But initial looks are deceptive. We already know that knowledge does not come cheap. All the developed countries spend approximately one fifth of their GNP on production and dissemination of just information today. Formal schooling of the young people before they enter the work force takes up about one tenth of a country's GNP. Organisations spend another five percent of the GNP on continuing education of their employees. Another three to five percent is spent on research and development of new information and knowledge. The investment in developing information today is the largest investment made by any developed country. As we move further into the knowledge creation age, the investment in knowledge will be even larger. Because of this, the return which a country or a company receives on its investment in knowledge becomes increasingly related to its competitiveness in the global markets. Increasing the productivity of knowledge investment and knowledge will be decisive in the nation's economic and social success. Today there are tremendous differences in the productivity of knowledge between countries, between industries, and between organisations.

For the last fifty years or so the financial/econometric approach has dominated the expert thinking for the development of nations' economy. Financial constraints and models based on econometric forecast have been applied to every developed country and used as the benchmark for most developing countries. The data shows that in most cases this approach fails both in their forecast of major turning points in the economy and in their ability to provide a strategy to mobilise the economies and infrastructures of the country. Since these mathematical models are Financial in nature, they lack the ability to provide a proactive, futuristic direction or strategy for a country. They are only reactive, measurement tools.

There now exists an opportunity to demonstrate new leadership by developing a new economic planning model based on the GSDI initiative. This opportunity provides a new challenge to the Geomatics profession. In support of this position, the following has been stated:

"Global Spatial Data Infrastructure providing for Substantial and Sustainable Economic Development in the Developed and Developing Countries of the World." North Carolina, 1997 Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference

"There is no doubt that the development of the global information society will bring many benefits to mankind in the form of improved quality of life, better management of scarce living space, sustainable utilisation of natural resources as well as better protection of the environment. The prerequisite is that relevant basic geographic information must be readily available in digital form and compatible at the global level. This is one of the main objectives of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure." Dr. Martin Bangemenn, Commissioner of the European Union

"The challenges of balancing economic, environmental and social needs in order to provide for both current and future generations demands that we work across the boundaries of government units as well as across the boundaries of nations. Geographic Information Systems technology is a powerful tool that can help decision makers understand the complexities of natural resource management and to better understand ways in which they can 'think globally and act locally'." Mr Bruce Babbitt, Secretary, United States Department of the Interior

"The first GSDI meeting in Bonn, Germany heralded the beginning of a process to identify the advantages that a Geographic Information Infrastructure can bring to some of the more intractable problems that we face at the global level- the solutions of which are vital if we are to succeed in producing sustainable development worldwide." Mr Michael Brand, President, EUROGI

3. PROVIDING FOR A "HIGHER QUALITY OF LIFE"
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In the past few years the world has seen two profoundly significant events occur. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and the rebirth and spread of market economies in the developing countries. The first, a historic event with immediate implications for the security of the world and the huge military costs associated with protecting the security, has been more than adequately reported and analysed. The second, the emergence of economic reform and market economies, has not been really understood or defined; yet it may change the world even more over the coming decades than will the revolutions in Eastern Europe. The two events are closely related. Although economic reform and the development of free markets has been under way in parts of the third world since the late 1970's and early 1980's the collapse of communism has now provided a period in time in which the major powers can focus on building nations rather than dividing countries. The first few years into this new paradigm in history has demonstrated how ill prepared the leaders of the developed world are for this new role of leadership. The leadership was good at managing the urgent crises; but can't seem to understand how to manage and lead for growth and economic development. Henry Kissinger noted, "As a leader one must always guard against taking care of the urgent, but not seeing the important".

The initial responses to the Eastern European countries request for assistance has been the same advice provided to Central and South America and the developing nations in Africa. For each of these countries the answer has always been financial loans and financial responsibility and accountability. Unemployment, price controls and econometric models were deemed more important than developing the labor force, creating new jobs or development of the infrastructures and the land. The problems of turning developing countries into effective industrial democracies will require:

There needs to be a shift toward economic development policy; rather than efforts which primarily focus only on financial and macro economic policies. Because the recent history of Europe, North America and Japan has not been focused on the creation and development of national market economies, few leaders in the developed nations have seemed to make the connection between the property ownership rights and the development of vision and strategies for the creation of the country's physical and societal infrastructures, skilled workforce, and conservation of the country's available resources with the development of the national market economies.

Frederick the Great played a major role in this process with "LEIBEIGENSCHAFTEN". This royal act eliminated serfdom, people working solely for reigning nobility without land ownership, by providing individual property rights through means of land reform. But it should be noted, Frederick the Great lived three hundred years ago.

The challenge at hand is to craft a national vision of the role in which countries, communities and organisations can pursue for the future. As we have seen, over the last fifty years or so, the financial econometric model approaches have dominated the expert thinking for the development of a nation's economy or for addressing major structural changes in a country's economy. Financial/Monetary programs and models based on econometric forecast have been applied to every developed country and used as a benchmark for most developing countries. Because these mathematical models are financial in nature, they lack the ability to provide proactive, futuristic direction which can be developed into specific national programs (retaining of the work force, enhancing the infrastructures, development of high tech centers of competency, etc). These financial programs are one dimensional and therefore reactive, measurement tools. The data shows that in many cases this financial or macro economic approaches fail in their ability to provide a strategy to mobilise the economies, work force, and infrastructures of the country. In recent years the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have started to recognise this failure of relying on monetary programs and economic austerity to position developing countries for growth. This was driven by the IMF and World Bank realising the need to reduce or restructure the debt of many nations. The rationale is that poor countries can never get on their feet because of being too heavily in debt to lenders. The nations are plagued by environments hostile to business-creating entrepreneurs.

This failure in the performance of the monetary and GNP econometric models approach has provided an opportunity for the GEO-SCIENCES to champion new and exciting models for economic development in the next millennium. The GEO-SCIENCES can provide an alternative view which blends the best from the traditional financial community to the new programs, models, and tools which are starting to be developed based on the spatial sciences. The Atlantic Institute states:

"The complexities of managing human natural resources from the local to the global scale are increasing. A Spatial component is implicit in many of our most urgent local, national, international, and global problems. Problems requiring spatial information and spatial analysis capabilities include managing the infrastructures of utilities and transportation agencies, monitoring critical habitats and environmentally sensitive areas, implementing equitable tax assessments, inventory mineral resources and agricultural crops, locating optimal sites for industrial, commercial, and residential development, tracking the dispersion of pollutants and infectious diseases, operating land titling systems, planning emergency response routes, keeping track of hazardous waste sites, and addressing almost any other problem where there is a need to relate some form of information to its spatial location."

There is an urgent need to develop new leaders at the national, state, community, and global level who can:

"Apply scientific, technological, economic and social principles to skilfully manoeuvre or direct global, national or community outcomes."

This will require the traditional world of finance and the sciences of geomatics and surveying engineering to move beyond their industry specific separation to collaboratively foster the development of "Community Knowledge Systems". With the development of new technologies like Global Positional Sensing (GPS), Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Digital Mapping, Digital Orthophoto, the technology is no longer as critical as the pervasive need for fostering of concerted research on the development of software, management tools, and techniques for the integrating of economic policy and programs with the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure. This integration will provide the beginning of the "Community Knowledge Systems". Based on this new foundation of learning will come visions and solutions for identification of the new industries, requirements for the work force and infrastructure, and the roles government, business and the community must play in the future.

Providing the vision of the future and the management leadership on how to get there will be critical for survival in the knowledge age. It will be leaders who can bridge to the future by understanding the complexity of the today's world; but also possesses the insight of what is needed in the future to develop new economies whether the country is developed or is in the developing stage.

To continue to collect more economic data, more historical information about the land, and to develop more and better maps will not provide substantial and sustainable improvement or strategic advantage to the community or nation. The "Community Knowledge System" will be management information system for governments in the next millennium. It will address the complex problems of economic development at a global, country, and community level. Community Economic Development will be directly tied to the development of the nation's "Community Knowledge System".

4. NEW LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
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GEOTHE, 1801

The next decade will require the development of effective strategies and tactics that nations and communities will require to exploit the changes that are occurring in the global environment. Many of these changes are dynamic in nature and are restructuring entire economies and organisations. These major changes are being driven by a world where technology and globalisation are reshaping and changing the rules of competition. The transition to the information highway is both opening up and shrinking the world. The population of the developed countries are aging, and at the same time the population of the underdeveloped countries are becoming increasingly better educated and more aggressive in the pursuit of success and acceptance in the global business community. In this environment, time, unless it can be effectively exploited may become one of the most formidable enemies. The ways in which the nation journeys into the future will be important to all its citizens. The rapidly accelerating rate of change driven by the estimated doubling of the world's knowledge every 18 months requires new and innovative leadership. The competitiveness of countries, communities, and the organisations which make it up are being severely tested.

The new leadership which will develop the community visions for the next millennium must come from business, education, and government. These leaders must act as catalysts in forming, as well as effectively communicating and implementing, this new community shared vision. They must discuss, debate, and discuss what the community or country vision will be, for this vision must take into account the needs of business, but also take into account the needs of democratic society to have an educated, well trained citizenry, and quality environment. The success of this community shared vision will depend on the quality of partnerships developed. Once the shared vision is developed, the question then turns to how the partnership achieves it. The success of this shared vision will depend on:

- Development and implementation of a vision which will provide for "substantial and sustainable" development

- Understanding of environmental and strategic forces

- Establishment of senior level partnerships at all levels of the country or community

- Effective deployment of the resources within the nation or community

- Development of the physical and societal; infrastructures (Defining and implementing the "infrastructure for the infrastructure of the infrastructures")

- Continued creation of future leaders and strategies

- Effective communications at all levels

Behind every successful venture lies a vision that drives the process. Nations with visions are powerfully enabled. Nations without visions are at risk. The vision starts with the realisation that a country must have a strategy to enhance the infrastructure and provide services, incentives, and leadership which supports an environment which stimulates growth, progress, freedom, human development and quality of life.

The key objective of this vision and strategy is to be an outline for the comprehensive plan that sets the direction of the country and ensures that the required investments will be there to achieve substantial and sustainable advantage and improvement. This new Community Knowledge System will become an integral tool in the creation of and continual updating of the community or country vision as well as a model to evaluate and measure the success in achieving the vision of continual economic development:

When studying the different planes or levels of the Community Knowledge System model, it becomes apparent that Land Management Systems have not progressed significantly from a functional view point. Significant technology like GPS, Digital Mapping, GIS and Digital Orthophoto have been implemented; but the real impact on society has not yet been realised. The traditional Geomatics profession will have to reinvent itself and begin to view its profession and responsibilities as occurring at the top of the Community Knowledge Innovation Arrow.

The profession will have to assume a dual role in being a catalyst to work for the development of the community or country vision as well as being the architect to build the Community Knowledge System which will enable the country or community to define and manage its resources to achieve the shared vision.

Referring back to Geothe's quote of 1801:

it becomes apparent that the insights and challenges of the past apply today. Fritz Petersohn in Bonn, Germany in 1996 rephrased Geothe's statement to say:

"The modern age must provide for both the societal and economic well being of its members. Today, our path to success depends largely on our ability to master the materials at our command through the use of spatial knowledge and experience."

5. NEW ROLE: THE GEO-ENGINEER
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"The creation of a multipurpose land records and resources information system cannot come about without the availability of highly trained surveyors who can function as land data specialist ... The failure of the surveying profession to recognise the philosophy of the land parcel cadastre and to demand an academic course of study based upon it (teaching of man's relationship with the land from the standpoint of legal rights, necessary land control and meaningful land use) is perhaps the root cause of government's inability to cope positively with the environmental, economic, energy and social problems of today".

How can business, education, and government successfully compete and survive in this increasingly challenging world? What can countries, communities and organisations do to regain the initiative and to successfully compete in a world where yesterday's rules do not apply? What are the new leadership tools that will help to plot the successful course in the future? The realities of this new environment will test every leader and profession. The surveying engineering profession is at a point in time where the profession has matured. The scientific and mathematical concepts, principles and practices have been mastered. The historical evolution of surveying engineering has developed over hundreds of years; yet the world has the ability to replicate the cadastral work of 200 years in less than 10 years ... and do it more precisely, maintaining greater data integrity and generating more useful information with significant value. The reason for this change is the tremendous impact that technology has had in the evolution of data, information and knowledge.

These technological changes have provided a totally new environment and opportunity for the surveying engineering profession. This will require a new definition of its vision and the role it will play. The new profession will become the "GSDI PROFESSION". In the next century community economic development will be directly tied to the development of the GSDI Community Knowledge Systems. Because of the failure in the performance of the GNP and monetary economic models to provide visions and strategies for economic development, the opportunity exists for the GSDI Profession to demonstrate leadership by developing new economic planning models based on the GSDI initiative. This will provide a totally new environment and opportunity for the GSDI Profession. The leaders and thinkers for the GSDI Profession must define and then evaluate the impact that GSDI can have on a community, national, and global level. The challenge for the profession will be to act strategically to meet the expanding needs of its customers, the communities it services, and the profession it represents. This will also require a new definition of the role and responsibilities for the individuals who participate in this profession. The GEO-ENGINEER function will evolve and become critical in development of GSDI Profession:

GEO-ENGINEER:
Someone who applies scientific, mathematical, and economic principles to skilfully manoeuvre or direct global, national or community out comes.

The Geo-engineering profession will include the following new disciplines which will evolve over time to include definitive concepts principles and curriculum:

The breakthroughs in technology and the application of technology will provide the Geo-Engineer with the tools and models to be proactive in addressing national and global issues. Spatial analysis which was defined as a mathematical, three dimensional description of land (x,y,z) will now take on a new meaning with the application of technologies like Global Positional Sensing (GPS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). These types of new technologies will both expand the ability to measure and define the land, but also provide the opportunity to organise the data and information associated with the ownership, use and development of the social and economic infrastructures to create knowledge about the land and visions for its future development. This will provide the opportunity for the Geo-Engineering Profession to demonstrate leadership by developing new economic development models and Global Community Knowledge Systems based on the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure.

The major difference in focus between the traditional surveying and geographer role and the GEO-Engineering Profession role is that the surveying and geographer profession are directed at defining boundaries and documentation of yesterday's and today's environment. the GEO-Engineer Profession will be surveying today and mapping the future through the defining of the local and national spatial data base and the subsequent development of the Community Knowledge base. This will be achieved by integrating the Land Information System (LIS), the Management Information System (MIS), and the Geographical Information System (GIS) with economical, social, and political information in order to foster economic development on a local, national and global level. "Documenting yesterday and today" will be enhanced to include "planning for tomorrow".

The real challenge of the GEO-engineer, while being important at the local, the regional and state level, will take place on the national and global level. The change from the industrial age and service/information age to the global knowledge age will bring people and countries closer together in recognising and understanding common worldwide problems relating to economic, societal, environmental and political development. The significant breakthroughs in the technology and the application of technology will provide government with the tools and models to be proactive in addressing the global concerns. Spatial analysis which was defined as a mathematical, three dimensional description of land will now take on a new meaning with the application of technologies like GEO Positional Sensing (GPS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The combined use of these two technologies will both expand the ability to measure land and organise all the data, information and knowledge associated with the land. This will provide the opportunity for the GEO-Engineer to provide leadership by developing new economic development models based on the National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI) and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI).

The GEO-Engineer profession must define and then evaluate the impact it can have on the national and global level. The challenge for the GEO-Engineering profession will be to act strategically to set goals for the profession which are directed to providing "Substantial and Sustainable Advantage" for its customers, the communities it services, and the profession it represents. GEO-Engineering and GSDI must move beyond the limited understanding and application of knowledge that they have today. The Atlantic Institute states that the goal of GSDI should be:

"Substantial development in both rich and poor countries is the highest goal of GSDI"

Return on investment (ROI) for the dollars and resources applied to the development and use of GSDI will be measured in the terms of the degree of "Substantial and Sustainable Economic Development" achieved. Success for the GEO-engineer and the use of GSDI will be measured by assessing how important a role they play at the local, regional, state, national, and global level. The change from the industrial age and service/information age to the global knowledge age of the next century will bring people and countries closer together in recognising and understanding common worldwide problems relating to economic, societal, environmental and political development. The significant breakthroughs in the GSDI technology and the application of this technology will provide government with the tools and models to be proactive in addressing the global concerns.

There is an urgent need to develop new leaders at the national, state, community, and global level who can:

"Apply scientific, technological, economic and social principles to skilfully manoeuvre or direct global, national or community outcomes."

This will require the traditional world of finance and the sciences of geomatics and surveying engineering to move beyond their industry specific separation to collaboratively foster the development of "Community Knowledge Systems". The need for the development of new technologies or enhancements to Global Positional Sensing (GPS), Geographical Information systems (GIS), Digital Mapping, Digital Orthophoto and the science of surveying is not as critical as the pervasive need for fostering of concerted research on the development of management tools and techniques for the integrating of economic development policy with the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI). This integration will provide the beginning for the development of "Community Knowledge Systems". Based on this new foundation of learning will come visions and solutions for identification of the new industries, requirements for the work force and infrastructure, and the roles government, business and the community must play in the future.

To continue to collect more economic data, more historical information about the land, and to develop more and better maps will not provide substantial and sustainable improvement or strategic advantage to the community or nation. The "Community Knowledge System" will be management information system for governments in the next millennium. It will address the complex problems of economic development at a global, country, and community level. Community Economic Development will be directly tied to the development of the nation's "Community Knowledge System".

Providing the vision of the future and the management leadership on how to get there will be critical for survival in the knowledge age. It will be leaders who can bridge to the future by understanding the complexity of the today's world; but also possesses the insight of what is needed in the future to develop new economies whether the country is developed or is in the developing stage.

6. WHERE TO START?
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It is important to realise that the starting point for beginning the journey to the global knowledge community of the future will vary by country. The responsibility of the GEO-Engineer is to accurately assess the position of the country and then work with the nations leaders to chart the steps to the future.

The following is a brief description of the different phases of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure development in "Providing for Substantial and Sustainable Development in both rich and poor countries".

BUILDING THE INFORMAL INFRASTRUCTURE

This is the initial phase in which the beginning of land ownership occurs. A formal, legal land policy may not exist or if it does, a significant informal ownership of land occurs outside the formal system. The country of Peru would be an example of the informal infrastructure.

FIXED BOUNDARIES - TITLES LAND

In this phase, a formal land ownership program in most instances exists at the national, state and local level. The surveying profession plays a significant role in the development of the formal land ownership process. Countries in Europe and North America would be representative of this phase.

LAND MANAGEMENT

The Land Management Phase builds on the systems of titling land and incorporates the concept of Land Management and development. Germany has developed one of the best approaches for this phase.

CO-ORDINATION OF URBAN PLANNING

As a country develops the Land Management phase, it is positioned to leverage these efforts and focus on urban planning. This phase would include:

- commercial land development

- financial capital allocation

- planned infrastructure development

- environment planning

Key to this phase is the partnership between government and the community members. Community would represent business, government, citizens, education and public groups. The partnership's primary objective is to provide substantial and sustainable improvement through the creation of land use policies and the development of the land.

COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

The Community Knowledge System develops in this phase by integrating the information from both the public and private sector. Government should provide the leadership along with the newly established GEO-Engineer Profession in development of the strategy and architecture to create these knowledge systems. The global requirements should be designed into the system. All aspects of planning would now include a global focus. These knowledge systems will be critical to the current and future development of a country. They will be an integrated and timely source of knowledge for the community and its members. It will be an integral part of the Community Information Highway.

COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Community Economic Development phase will not occur unless the community leaders come together and develop a shared vision of what the community should be today and in the future. The GEO-Engineer can play a major role in providing direction to enable this to happen. The difference between this phase and the previous phases is that the community economic development phase collaboratively provides for the creation of a vision and development of the strategies to achieve it. The land manage, urban planning and common knowledge systems become major components of this phase. Community economic development phase will provide the opportunity for all governments to differentiate themselves or create new areas for economic and social development.

Each country and every community within is entering a new period in time in which global focus, technology, time compression, demographics and social issues are changing. As community leaders, we have a responsibility to lead; not follow into this new era. To lead, we will need ideas, concepts, and new management tools. For Leaders we need the opportunity to rethink and redefine the role of the community. The community can no longer be viewed simply as a :

Tool to build roads, provide laws, health/education and public safety services

Manager of information systems to analyse historical data.

The role of the community must be expanded. The role of the information about the community must also be expanded, enhanced, and redefined to become the "Community Knowledge Systems" which will:

Foster Community Economic Development which provides for substantial and sustainable advantage in a global world.

Play a critical role in being the "vehicle" by which community leaders can create, implement and monitor the vision of our future and our children's future.

As the GEO-Engineer Profession enters this new period in time, the challenge for the profession is to seize this opportunity and in doing so recognise that the surveying and GEO-Engineering Profession must undertake a comprehensive review and assessment of:

The future environment in which the global GEO-Engineer will function.

The evolution of the new technologies and applications associated with it.

The role, the GEO-Engineer Profession should play in helping the country studying, define and redefine the necessary requirements to provide the environment and infrastructures to sustain economic development.

The increasing need to identify the changes required in the education, training and continual updating of the profession and its members.

The requirement to develop integrated partnerships within the private and public sector to enhance economic development.

Provide increased entrepreneurship and innovation in the profession by actively playing a major role in starting new national, regional and community initiatives.

The GEO-Engineer Profession must move beyond the limited application of knowledge and technology. The use of technology is not the issue. The lack of identification of the new functions, requirements and roles provided by the technology is the issue. To continue to develop better maps in color and digital format will not provide substantial and sustainable improvement or strategic advantage. Knowing what the vision of the future is and how to get there will.

Instead of limiting the role to surveying the land, the GEO-Engineer will now "survey communities and countries". The GEO-Engineer will provide two key functions in community planning:

Community Planning is the ability to provide leadership in planning for complex community or country issues Because of:

7. A TIME FOR ACTION
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The transition to the information highway is both opening up and shrinking the world. The population of the developed countries are aging, and at the same time the population of the underdeveloped countries are becoming increasingly better educated and more aggressive in the pursuit of success and acceptance in the global business community. In this environment, time, unless it can be effectively exploited may become one of the most formidable enemies.

New levels of country, community, and organisational effectiveness and team work in all sectors of the economy will have to be achieved in order to raise the standard of living. It is critical that every citizen understand and buy in to the new changes that are occurring. The responsibilities and roles of country leaders will change. New leadership approaches that are essential to survival in to orrow's world will have to be developed. If a nation is to achieve and sustain success in the global marketplace a "national collaborative vision" followed by strategic thinking and action must be developed. A "national collaborative vision" is a visionwaround which all institutions, in both the public and private sectors of the economy, work effectively together in networking the country into the global markets of 2000 and beyond. The ways in which the nation journeys into the future will be important to all its citizens.

The first step in creating the "national collaborative vision" is to build a national extended community consisting of all the organisations and groups that are critical to the nation's success. The test of whether such a natienal extended community is successful will be to see if the value of the entire national extended community is greater than the sum of all the individual parts of business, government, education, and the communities or regions. In parts of Eastern Europe and Russia, various regions or parts of a country have decided that there is no synergism or value to being united. In some of these countries, national or ethnic beliefs have been greater than the perceived economic value of working together. The lack of a real "national collaborative vision" can be a significant factor in the decline of a country.

Creating the "National Collaborative Vision"

Behind every successful venture lies a vision that drives the process. Nations with visions are powerfully enabled. Nations without visions are at risk. The vision starts with the realisation that a country must have a strategy to enhance the infrastructure and provide services, incentives, and leadership which supports an environment which stimulates growth, progress, freedom, human development and quality of life. The key objective of this vision and strategy is to be an outline for the comprehensive plan that sets the direction of the country and ensures that the required investments will be there to achieve substantial and sustainable advantage and improvement. As noted earlier in this paper, the vision must be a shared vision which comes from a partnership between business, education, and government. As this partnership is formed, each member will have to understand the role they can play in affecting the growth and economic development of the community or country:

Government

Fundamentally, the role of government is to provide the necessary infrastructures, services, incentives, and shared leadership that supports an environment which stimulates economic development, growth, progress, freedom, human development, safe environment, and quality of life. Government is a key partner in the nations or community investments in the future.

Education

Education contributes the knowledge capital for the future development. It is the engine of human growth and the key factor of economic growth. Education ensures the growth and development of the society's most valuable resource, the real producers, the citizens of tomorrow.

Business

Business role is to create new economic wealth by employing the people, resources and capital of society. This new economic wealth provides the funds for a nation to continue to grow and prosper.

The three partners must join together with the remaining elements of the community or country to build a partnership that defines a new vision, strategies, as well as the necessary investments and trade offs that must be made to step into the future. Creating this National Collaborative Vision is not a one time event, but rather a process that continually assesses the needs, competitiveness, and commitment to substantial and sustainable development. Achieving this shared community vision will not be easy. No one partner has a definite amount of capital, time, resources, and insight into the future.

Once the National Collaborative Vision is formed, the challenge becomes one of sustaining the substantial investments and improvements that have been made. The idea of a "Holding Company" or foundation is an excellent vehicle for continuing the development of the comprehensive plan, performing the trade off analysis and identification of the winning projects, authorisation of resources investments, and executive goal setting, inspection, review, and performance measurement and evaluation of the projects, programs, and key activities. The Holding Company provides the structure that enables the community to develop and implement the strategies required to achieve the shared vision. The Holding Company is comprised of four groups or levels of participation.

Advisory Committee

is at the top level of the Holding Company and is composed of leaders from all parts of the country or community. It is the responsibility of the advisory committee in collaboration with the operating committee to define the vision, strategies, communicate them to the community, promote buy in and ownership of the vision and strategies, and to define and allocate the funding for the required resources.

Operating Committee

is charged with implementing strategies, allocating resources, and measuring performance and results. The operating committee ensures that the investments that Holding Company makes lead to substantial and sustainable advantage for the nation or community. The operating committee should be made up of leaders from government, education, and business, the community and professional organisations.

Project Office

has the responsibility for the day to day operations of the Holding Company. The key objectives of the project office are to develop detailed plans within assigned areas and to manage all aspects of specific projects. The project office staff maintains program and project responsibility.

Community Members

Various individuals, groups, and professional organisations in the community serve as resources that the project staff calls upon to implement the programs and activities. To a very great extent, the success or failure of the Holding Company concept is dependent on the participation and the support of the citizens of the country.

As community or country leaders become familiar with the strategic planning process and better understand the concept of a National Collaborative Vision, they will focus not only on developing the vision and strategies, but also focus attention on managing the links between the various segments of the nation. Understanding the near term changes and predicting the long term changes to the external and internal linkage will enable nations to become proactive in determining their future. The Community Knowledge System based on the GSDI will be the most important management tool for the Holding Company as the trade offs and decision process unfolds. The very survival of many nations will be determined by their ability to build the Community Knowledge Systems, use the information and knowledge provided by them to manage the critical links between the segments both inside and outside the country. The interdependence of global and domestic organisations will only increase.

Community Knowledge System based on GSDI and a National Collaborative Vision will provide a vehicle through which communities and nations can co-operate to build the future. The overall goal of providing for "substantial and sustainable economic development" can only be breached by realising that success is deemed as raising the overall level of effectiveness of the nation and all of its citizens.

8. CONCLUSION
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The challenge for the remainder of the 1990s and the first part of the next millennium is to continually evolve and share effective strategies and programs that nations and communities will require to exploit the changes that are occurring in the global environment. Many of these changes are dynamic in nature and are restructuring entire economies and industries. New levels of country, community, and organisational effectiveness and team work in all sectors of the nation's economy will have to be achieved in order to sustain or enhance a country's standard of living. Knowledge based upon understanding of spatial components is critical to addressing many of our most urgent local, national, international and global concerns. Concerns requiring spatial knowledge and spatial analysis capabilities include planning for economic development, managing the infrastructures of communities, locating optimal sites for industrial, commercial and residential development, understanding the needs of the work force, planning for utilities and transportation networks, monitoring habitats and environmentally sensitive areas, implementing equitable tax assessments, inventorying mineral resources and agricultural crops, tracking the dispersion of pollutants and infectious diseases, operating and titling systems, planning emergency response routes, keeping track of hazardous waste sites, and addressing almost any other problem where there is a need to relate some form of information to its geographic location.

The pervasiveness of the need for accurate and timely spatial information calls for the fostering of concerted research on the techniques and tools which address this need, the dissemination of research developments, and an expansion of the numbers of trained people in this area. The Geo-Engineering PROFESSION must define and then evaluate the impact it can have on the national and global level through the use of knowledge systems based on the GSDI. The challenge for the profession will be to act strategically to gain substantial and sustainable advantage for its customers, the communities it services, and the countries it represents.

The Geo-Engineering Profession should address the role that GSDI can play in the developed and in the newly developing economies of the next century. The profession must move beyond the limited understanding of the meaning and application of GSDI data and tools today to defining how it can be applied to developing the future. The application of technology and the defining of terms is not the issue. The lack of identification of the new functions, requirements and roles provided by the GSDI is the issue. To continue to develop maps and to collect more information about the description of the land will not provide substantial and sustainable improvement or strategic advantage to communities or nations. Providing the vision of the future and the management tools on how to get there will be critical for survival in the new millennium. In the next century community economic development will be directly tied to the development of the GSDI Community Knowledge Systems. Because of the failure in the performance of the GNP and monetary economic models to provide visions and strategies for economic development, the opportunity exists for the GSDI Profession to demonstrate leadership by developing new economic planning models based on the GSDI initiative. This will provide a totally new environment and opportunity for the Geo-Engineering Profession. To achieve this goal, the leaders and thinkers for the GDI Profession must define and then evaluate the impact that GSDI can have on a community, national, and global level. The challenge for the profession will be to act strategically to meet the expanding needs of its customers, the communities it services, and the profession it represents. This will also require a new definition of the role and responsibilities for the individuals who participate in this profession.

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