Jack Dangermond, President, ESRI September 29, 2003
World Standards Day Presentation: The Importance of Global Standards: A Personal Perspective
WORLD STANDARDS DAY
Jack Dangermond, President
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)
September 29, 2003
The Importance of Global Standards: A Personal Perspective
I was honored to accept the Honorary Chairmanship of this event recognizing World Standard Day 2003, both because of the importance of standards work to the world and because of the importance of ongoing standards setting work to my own company.
From the time that I founded ESRI to the present day, we have been involved in almost continuous negotiations with our clients, various government agencies, standards committees, and with our competitors and associates, to set standards related to our technology and its application. As we and our industry have grown from a small beginning to our present state, these negotiations have widened and deepened and become more complex.
In the early days of GIS technology individual suppliers could go it alone because the GIS systems and most of the GIS projects were single use efforts and there was no intention to be able to interface these with other systems or carry the data forward. In those early days we often did every aspect of the projects ourselves.
But within about a decade of the founding of my company our technology was powerful enough that users could see the usefulness of maintaining their systems over time and reusing their information. As soon as this occurred we had to deal with standards.
Many of the standards flowed from our work with the federal government or with clients who worked with the federal government. But also very early on the organizations that used our technology wanted to be able to buy turnkey systems and wanted to be able to scale up their use of the technology by networking their systems together; updating, reusing, and sharing their data; and buying larger hardware systems that would seamlessly work with all of their existing system components. Soon after this, users wanted to be able to share information with people outside of their own organization; sometimes these others might be part of the same city government, but very quickly we saw sharing of information between private organizations and government organizations and between different levels of government. And very soon all these users wanted to be able to make their own choices about hardware, communications, data storage, and a whole range of technology that supports the GIS. So we were driven to make our products work across many computer platforms, we were driven to make it possible to convert data among virtually all the data formats and then in existence, we were driven to conform to all these different standards if we were going to successfully compete in a rapidly widening marketplace.
I believe that our experience parallels that of many other organizations. Very quickly one learns the importance of adhering to standards in order to satisfy the needs of clients and grow the business.
It is also interesting to note that the very act of attempting to bring together so much information and so many organizations very often revealed for the first time just how inconsistent previous standards had been. So long as different data and different organizations did not have to work with one another, so long as each was a separate island, they could be inconsistent and no one was the wiser. But very often we saw that the act of cooperating revealed long-standing inconsistencies, errors, incompatibilities, and many other kinds of flaws that no one up to that time had been aware of. Very often the process of ironing out these problems was the most difficult part of a project.
As we consider global security, I remember vividly these kinds of experiences: as we attempt to cooperate with one another across the globe we will almost certainly uncover the weaknesses and the flaws in systems that we have previously believed were entirely sound.
I was also fortunate, even in the early years at ESRI, to have clients overseas. As a result I very quickly became aware of the special difficulties involved in supplying technology and products to other countries. We had to find ways to overcome the obstacles of language, different attitudes, different cultures, different business practices, different government regulations, and, sometimes, different standards. We have been fortunate in being able to overcome these obstacles successfully: more than one million users in more than 90 countries have bought our products. Along the way I have received an education far more valuable than I could have imagined more than 30 years ago.
Other companies, both American and foreign, as they attempted to participate in international trade, have been less fortunate than we have been. I think it is important that we do everything we can to change that.
I believe that it is important that international trade be successful; I believe it is important that businesses with new products and new technologies be able to offer these as widely as possible. Solving many of the world's problems will require innovation and it is very often the case that these innovations come from new businesses formed by entrepreneurs with a vision of how to improve the world.
I believe in the importance of a global marketplace of ideas and products; just as science advances by publishing new results so that these results can be examined and verified, I believe it is important for us all to share our knowledge, skills, technology, and products across the world. In this global marketplace people will soon discover the successes and failures among what is offered. In doing so, they advance civilization.
It should be the mission of business and government alike to make available in this way the best practices and the best products to the widest possible range of customers and countries; this is one important way in which we can make the lives of people throughout the world better and richer. If we can make the necessities of life less expensive to buy; if new medical technology can help save more lives; if better methods of farming can relieve hunger; if a family can have a home of their own sooner because of materials, methods, and skills that are imported from abroad; then we have the opportunity through international trade to bring, not just better goods, but a better way of life and increased happiness to the people of the world. I believe that this is one of the important ways that individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments, should be of service: to the people who make up these organizations, to the people who use what they produce, and to all the rest of the people of the world. It seems to me that is what international trade is all about.
To the extent that people throughout the world do not have access to those goods and services they need because of artificial barriers, we still have work to do.
One of the most important ways of making sure that people throughout the world can obtain the best that is available at prices they can afford is through the creation of international standards so that workers and businesses have the widest possible opportunity to market the best products wherever they may be wanted.
What this requires is that countries throughout the world be willing to work together for the good of their people and of people throughout the world.
The setting of international standards is a test of their commitment, and a prototype of how agreements can be reached between those of widely differing cultures, political systems, and economic models: that we have international standards is a testament to our ability to overcome every obstacle to such agreements and our ability to achieve international agreements that survive over decades and centuries.
World Standard Setting in Times of Global Insecurity
International standards are a testament to all those who have gone before us and done the difficult work that is necessary if standards are to be achieved. What they have accomplished should give us hope that we may be able to do as well. In circumstances as difficult as those we face today, we need such examples of the ability of people, organizations, and governments to work together to achieve common ends.
Like every generation before us, we live in difficult times. Personal security has always been important to human beings; national security has been important as long as human recorded history. But, for more than a century now, we have all had the added burden of being concerned about the security of the earth as a whole. We, together with our parents and grandparents, have suffered through two world wars within the last century. Now we are also concerned about the future of our planet, its living systems, its natural resources, its ocean and its atmosphere. We, unlike our grandparents, believe it is possible that the fate of the earth may be in our hands. In these times then, global security has new and special meaning for us all.
Unfortunately, we are not dealing with this new reality as a united world. There are deep divisions among us. Worse yet, there are many in the world who are seeking anarchy, who desire the destruction of many human institutions, and who want to sow terror and despair among the people of the world.
If we are to get through these difficult times it is important that we find the means of working together. Among the ways of doing this, one of the most important is to see what we can agree upon and then build on that.
It is the recognition, that in good times and bad, during peace and during wartime, even those most closely engaged with one another in conflict can still find some things on which to agree that should give every leader, every diplomat, every negotiator, and every one of us, hope that we may win through our present trials. The creation of international standards, a process that has gone on through the centuries and goes on to day, is an example that can inspire us all.
Yes, there is self interest in the process; yes, some of the negotiators may be self seeking; but what is most important is that despite whatever human flaws are involved in the process, we have achieved agreement in the past, we are achieving it in today's difficult times, and there is good reason to believe we can achieve global agreements in the future.
The Importance of World Standards to Global Security
World standards are also of immediate and practical importance to global security.
The list of the standards that are important to one or another aspect of global security is very long; it would include at least tens of thousands of standards. Some are apparent to anyone, like communications standards that permit organizations to talk to one another during an emergency. But the vast majority of these are less obvious for mapping, standards that allow the sharing of equipments and facilities, transportation standards, reporting standards, standardized labeling of materials, and thousands of other standards, some obvious, others the importance of which only seemed to be recognized in times of crisis.
Common standards make it possible for the countries of the United Nations to cooperate in the security operations throughout the world. Multinational forces can work effectively together in maintaining peace and stability. National agencies can share information about threats to security.
National and international organizations can more effectively communicate, collect scientific data, meet, and exchange information about our earth because of common standards.
Increasingly, in the face of natural catastrophes like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, organizations and governments from throughout the world can come together to provide aid because of common standards in so many areas.
We are also approaching a time when it will be possible to collect information anyplace in the world and share it throughout the world in a matter of moments, and this too is possible because of global common standards.
If we are to create economic security for those billions of people who live in or near poverty, we shall need to build additional infrastructure, institutions, and means of production for them; all these will require attention to common standards.
The present threat of global terrorism is only one more reason why global standards are so important. If our homeland is to be secure it is essential that the agencies of government, at every level, be able to communicate with and work with one another effectively.
Recognition of the Efforts of Those Who Create the Standards
The Difficult and Rewarding Work of Setting Standards
Identifying the need for such standards, doing the necessary background research, proposing new standards, obtaining the necessary consensus, implementing and enforcing the standards, all require prolonged effort, considerable technical and political skills, and great patience. Moreover, the work is never done.
All too often the efforts of the men and women involved in this important work are unrecognized, unacknowledged, or unknown. Often, unfortunately, it is only in times of crisis that the value of these efforts is recognized outside of a small circle of experts.
However difficult and uncertain our own times are, they do not erase the past record of the important standards agreements that have already been reached. Today we also celebrate the work of thousands of men and women, carried out over recent decades and centuries past, that have brought us to our present quite remarkable state of agreement on so many standards, agreement that makes possible much of the interconnectedness of our world today. All our work is accomplished by standing on the shoulders of all of those who have gone before us.