ISO/TC 211 remembers 2016-11-29

From the travel diary perspective of Mats Åhlin.

It is a sunny day in Redlands California. I just arrived at the Esri Campus. The ride from the hotel was only a few minutes. It is the second day of the plenary week. In front of me I have the schedule of 6 parallel tracks.

This is an important meeting week for Sweden. It is the last meeting run by the Norwegian Secretariat and Chair. And Christina and Therese are busy all week, shadowing Olaf and Bjørnhild around to see how things are done.

This being my first international meeting with ISO/TC 211, I am not only confused in my role as a national delegate, but I am also new in my position with the national standards body. A fleeting thought runs through my mind, “I am glad I am not responsible for organizing this meeting”, little did I know that day what would land on my desk a couple of years later.

My first meeting of the day is around Addressing and the part 4 in series, International postal
address components and template language. Already suggested in the Addressing workshop in Copenhagen in 2008 the work started in 2013. We have had a successful DIS already last year, so the standard is moving for publication. But the meeting is asking the important questions of what happens now when the standard will be published. Are there any value-added services? There is no clear picture of what the next step would be so after a short coffee break, the meeting continues but now focusing on the question of if there are any new parts needed in the Addressing series.

Esri is doing a marvelous job as hosts for the meeting, but still little amazed that Jack Dangermond is running around and attending meeting and even stops me in a hallway asking me about what I think about the meeting and what I am most looking forward to.

My day continues with an Editing Committee on ISO 19126 Feature concept dictionaries and registers and ends with a GIS-BIM meeting where except for me there are only three people attending.

After a 15 minute long losing battle SangKi Hong decided, a conversation is perhaps a better use of the time than trying to get the projector working. Conceptual model, mapping model, conceptual mapping, BIM model, GIS model, general feature model, BIM is IFC, IFC model, CityGML. I cannot even keep up with trying to note down everything I feel is something I need to go home and look up. Maybe I was not the best person to attend this meeting.

Well, it is already end of day. Well perhaps not for everyone. Lena joins the Head of Delegation meeting. Perhaps I am a little glad not that important in this group, my head is spinning and trying to sort out all the new things from today into different compartments of my mind; I may need to ask for a memory upgrade or external hard drive when I come home. 

This was only the second day out of five. I better hurry back to the hotel and get these notes in order before it is time for day three.