Peter Parslow
Principal Geographic Information Architect
Ordnance Survey
United Kingdom

Biography
Based on twenty years working in software and data development, Peter leads the Ordnance Survey's geographic data product design, including the information architecture of their production systems. He also coordinates OS’s involvement in standards development, and the selection of which open standards to use. Peter has been involved in developing geographic information standards for over ten years. He currently chairs the UK technical committee which shadows ISO TC211 and has set up over the past year a broader ‘UK open geo-standards forum’. Peter has presented on data modelling and open standards at several international conferences.

Abstract
Finding the Right Needles in the Standards Haystack

There is an alphabet soup of standards development organisations whose work is more or less relevant to the geospatial industry, such as OGC, ISO, W3C, IETF, and the communities of interest around whatever specific domain you target: INSPIRE, UN GGIM, WMO, IHO, BIM, Smart everything. How does a medium sized organisation decide what to use, and where to invest its effort? This paper will present the way we at Ordnance Survey have developed our thinking during this year. Moving from selecting appropriate standards for each solution, such as national mapping or smart cities, to a structured approach in which we seek to maximise the value to us and our customers of the effort we put into using and developing standards, and to ensure that we never recommend others use a solution that we wouldn't be happy to use ourselves. On the way we'll reveal what we've learned about becoming principal members of the Open Geospatial Consortium whilst chairing the national committee shadowing ISO TC211, using our place on the Advisory Committee of the World Wide Web Consortium, and working closely with UN GGIM. We'll comment on the first year of the "UK open geo standards forum", set up to encourage wider uptake and participation. And discuss the role professional bodies can take, from our work with the Association for Geographic Information and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.