Google announced Google Earth Outreach yesterday (announcement). I’ve often tried to think of how technology can be used in an effective manner for non-profit applications, but keep drawing blanks. (”He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.” - Abraham Maslow) Actually, I come up with a bunch of ideas but they’re usually “that would be cool or fun, but it wouldn’t really make a tangible difference” ideas. Obviously the web has fundamentally changed so much about life, both personal and business. (Okay, that is a huge understatement.) And I think it’s clear that establishing a web presence is the most significant technological undertaking a non-profit organization can do that will have tangible benefit.
For many non-profits, geospatial visualization is also a key technology that can help them better understand what it is they want to do, are doing, or have done, as well as effectively communicate that to supporters and other interested parties. Google Earth Outreach’s website says it very well:
As a non-profit or public benefit group, you can use Google Earth to capture the work you’re doing, the people you’re helping, the challenges you face and the change you’re helping to enable - all in the visual context of the environment in which these stories take place.
Back in college I took a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) class in which we used ArcView to do a lot of visualizations. Most of our examples were a little esoteric, but the potential that GIS held didn’t escape us. Even though it’s an age-old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, I think many people still don’t really understand the power of visualization. Consider Jane Goodall Institute’s Gombe Chimp Blog. It’s a wonderful use of technology that the observations researchers make (even if they’re “distilled” observations that are “end-user friendly”) are posted to the Internet and automatically integrated with Google Earth to add context that changes the way we understand what’s being said. For example, consider the image above. Seeing the locations of where blog entries were made significantly alters my perception of what’s being said. I don’t know about you, but when I see two entries in a journal I automatically tend to assume that they occurred in the same or a similar location. Visualization adds context and depth to the presentation, which promotes a deeper connection between the person presenting and the viewer. That’s critical for non-profit organizations.
It’s good to see that Google understands the importance of visualization.
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