Google Earth provides a way to model reality on earth… past, present, and future. Google Earth provides governments, advocacy groups, and businesses a means for sharing cohesive information with their customers – giving viewers a clear, comprehensive understanding of opportunities and issues from a multi-dimensional perspective – improving communication and decision making. A picture is worth a thousand words… a 3-D picture is worth several thousand words… and adding time to give a 4-D picture is worth, maybe, a million words.

Today’s speaker, Roger Rayle has used Google Earth for years to plot information about the Pall/Gelman groundwater contamination affecting water supplies in Scio Township and the City of Ann Arbor. Google Earth allows Roger to combine data, images, and charts from multiple sources onto a single unified mash-up. He developed a technique for adding tens of thousands of data points to show the contamination plumes’ magnitude and movement over time. Roger will present some of his mash-ups as examples of what can be done with Google Earth. He’ll briefly show how to add some features and discuss with the audience how they might use Google Earth to further their own objectives.

Roger grew up on a farm just outside Traverse City, Michigan. While an undergrad studying Industrial Engineering at the University of Michigan, he began working at the UM Libraries Operations Research Office, staffed by IE students in a joint arrangement with the non-profit Community Systems Foundation. Roger traces his career through a continuous series of spinoffs and mergers helping develop and manage non-profit and for-profit companies — providing consulting and software solutions to mostly public sector organizations. Now, while deliberating how to avoid an early retirement, he recently came full circle, having been named a research associate back at CSF. He still has time, however to help selected clients with their information infrastructure needs.

Look for Roger on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rmrayle

Link to Roger’s Video: http://www.blip.tv/file/2206638/

Link to Roger’s Slidedeck: http://www.slideshare.net/wguru/la2m-ge-20090603c