The Esri User Conference was held in San Diego from July 9-13, and in the crowd of nearly 18,000 attendees were staff from the City’s Administrative Services, Public Works, and Community Development Departments to better learn how geographic information systems (GIS) can use emerging technologies to best communicate information to the City’s residents, as well as improve and automate internal procedures. The conference offered an opportunity to collaborate with GIS industry experts and learn best practices from other public sector agencies. Staff attended workshops and demonstrations that addressed topics such as: interactive story map visualization tools, pending solutions for land use planning and analysis, and mobile solutions for the field that include the collection of assets and paperless inspection forms. 

Staff believes that the conference experiences will help in the creation of more resident/customer-focused tools, like the existing public GIS portal and interactive street sweeping schedule map, as well as the City Council District lookup tool that is expected to launch next month. The GIS experiences will also help with the land management system upgrade, which was authorized by the City Council in June 2018.