Tallahassee, FL – GlobalMind and EarthSTEPS, LLC will provide the Florida Department of Health (Division of Environmental Health – Bureau of Onsite Sewage Programs) a statewide inventory of onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems in Florida.

Even though the work title may not be appealing, the results of the work have great benefits since it will help the Department of Health to determine the environmental impacts of the septic systems throughout Florida.  The team will use Geographic Information Systems and modeling to identify the systems throughout Florida.

GlobalMind provides information to support land and real estate decisions.  Its clients include land developers, real estate investors and government.  GlobalMind operates from offices in Palm Beach Gardens, Tallahassee and Ft. Pierce, Florida.  More about the firm can be found on its website: www.1globalmind.com

EarthSTEPS, LLC  is dedicated to helping companies and homeowners that want to reduce their use of the planet’s natural resources and thus reduce the operating expenses.  EarthSteps is focused on reducing energy and water consumption, as well as promoting the use of green technologies.  More about the firm can be found on its website www.earthsteps.org.

In a recent article about Dunkin’ Donuts versus Starbucks I read an interesting piece of information. The customers who were in Dunkin’ Donuts told the reporter the reason they stick with Dunkin Donuts is because they are from the North East and Dunkin’ Donuts is what they are used to. The same is true for West Coast residents they tend to turn to Starbucks. How can this information help your business?

If you can pinpoint potential customers and market to them more efficiently, you will see better returns on your marketing investment. A tool that can help business owners better utilize their marketing dollars is GIS (Geographic Information Systems). In fact, you may have used Google Earth - a basic version of GIS technology.

GIS tools, such as Google Earth, use location information to help users make decisions. So, how could Google Earth help you understand your customer better and make more money?

First, map all your current customers to see where they are located. Next, use demographic data to find what households have roots in the North East. Data can be obtained from moving stats, relocation stats from State or County, or internaly collected data. Using color coding, the more intense red has a higher concentration of the target market, it is easy to identify high concentrations of the target market. So based on the high concentration of red and existing cutomers east of I-95, you can target a direct mail campaign to the area you identify.

Why would using Google Earth help direct mail? Couldn’t I just guess the area and send postards to those homes, sorta like trial and error? You could, but what if you guess wrong, how much would the mailings cost? A friend of mine decided to send postcard mailers to all the households within a 10 mile radius of her store.

The cost was an astounding $5,800 for the postcard and postage. I am not sure about you, but as a manager in a small business, $5,800 is quite a bit of money for one direct mail compaign. The large dollar amount also increases the break-even point, meaning more sales to cover the cost of the direct mail.

Instead, I offered to map her existing customer’s versus the county population. Then we tied in the female population under 30 years old. The ending result was the above illustration (blue and red). The darker red areas identify areas with higher concentrations of females under 30. Once we download the information and saw the total households, the total households were roughly 2,000. Instead of her direct mail costs totaling $5,800, the costs dropped to $1,160.

Now to turn on my marketing hat for a minute, direct mail typically has a return of less than 1%, which means of the 10,000 mailed, only 100 will respond. On the other hand, more targeted direct mail can have up to a 6% return or even higher. With a 6% return, on 2,000 households you could expect to see 120 people at the store. So, with 8,000 fewer households receiving the mailer we still managed to get a higher response! Also, since the mailer is targeted to the store’s target market, the customers tend to have a higher average sale per transaction.

You are probably thinking, that is all well and good for a store but my business is not based on a store front, how would GIS benefit me? GIS has been used by many different businesses for over 20 years. Companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-mart have been using the technology to count customer cars and determine new store locations. Insurance companies use GIS to measure their risk and market to areas with lower risk. A land developer uses the information to find their next project site. Land conservation groups use GIS to rank the land they want to buy. Shipping companies use GIS to route where their vehicles will travel each day. The possibilities are endless. If you have a question on location, GIS can help you answer it.

Taking information off a spreadsheet and putting it in a picture gives business owners the ability to make decisions within minutes instead of hours.

Checkout how you can implement Google Earth in your business: http://1globalmind.com/2008/02/13/google_earth_for_business/ 

Once you try it, post your results here. Have fun!

A new way to search for land is here - Tycoon

With Tycoon you can:

1. Get an overview of the regulatory environment in each covered county with links to local land development code, regulatory agencies and general statistics.
2. Search for land based on criteria such as size, percent wetland coverage, zoning and current & future land use. We are not a listing service. We allow you to find land that meets your criteria—listed or not. You can save your favorite properties.
3. Locate local development experts from engineers and planners to attorneys, lenders and contractors. Tycoon will help you find the team you need to do the deal.

All of this is available to you for free(1). We’d love to hear your thoughts on the struggles you face in getting solid land and regulatory information.

(1) internet charges may apply

One of America’s most popular sports, football, and GIS work together.  To further illustrate just how important GIS is to everyone, the blog from Florida GIS Data posted about a GIS workshop in Texas.  The workshop will show how GIS can help analyze the number of hotels rooms and occupancy rates for Super Bowl XLV.

The analysis will then be used to determine how many new hotels need to be built and where to construct them.  Amazing right?  The workshop is put on by the University of Texas at Arlington, check it out.

Where do you begin? If you are new to development or new to a geographic area it can be a daunting task to find property.

In the past, developers or investors have found property through brokers, colleagues or by driving.  Advancements in technology, GIS (geographic information systems) combined with aerial photography, allow developers to search for land from their computer. 

How is this possible?  To make a long story short, many government agencies have moved their information on-line.  Everything from court records to property records.  The information is great, but searching the information can be difficult.  The only available search options are by parcel number, owner name or address.  Most often, when looking for a property, I would only know the characteristics I am looking for in a property: size (acres); general location (city) and zoning.

So, how can GIS help me find land?  GIS is an excellent tool for inputting criteria and obtaining results.  I could do the same thing in a spreadsheet document, but viewing data on a map is much easier.  To find the land I need, I would enter my search criteria in the area I want to search, say Polk County, and view my results either in tabular format or on a map. The map is important because now I can see what other buildings, subdivisions or roads are near the parcel.  Before GIS and aerial photography this was only accomplished by taking a trip to the location.  Think of the time saving potential!

I am sure you have heard or read about Hurricane Dean hitting the Yucatan Peninsula and then heading for Mexico. As a Florida native, this time of year is especially concerning for me with the possibility of hurricanes like Dean heading our way. Another interesting thing that happens during this time of year is the volatility in the markets, especially when a storm gets close.

How are the two related? Some of you might know that the Gulf of Mexico has many oil drilling platforms. Hurricane Katrina caused millions in damage and caused gas prices to peak to over $3.00 a gallon two summers ago. To put it into perspective, I found a really cool blog, The Oil Drum, that has posted some Google Earth images that have mash-ups (see previous post about mash-ups) of the weather.

Scroll to the second picture, and you can really get a sense of why the market is so volatile when a storm comes through the Gulf.

Images like the one on The Oil Drum are perfect examples of how GIS benefits everyone. As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I think the map showing all the oil platforms along the Gulf coast speaks for itself.

GIS is also being used in the recovery effort for victims of Hurricane Dean. An organization called Map Action has already sent people to Jamaica. The organization has created maps of affected parishes and potential flood areas. In the days to come, they will have more maps.

Feel free to leave your comments on the storm or other sites showing GIS data.

Over the last several months, I have received alto of feedback about our blog. The first thing everyone said to me was, “Yes I read it, but it did not make much sense to me.” While we all really love GIS here at GlobalMind and use it everyday, most people have not heard the term “GIS”. So, I thought I would give everyone some Internet sites that would provide good examples and descriptions about what GIS is and what it can do.

• Spatial Thoughts has put together a great post about the different areas that GIS is used. Areas such as emergency response, urban planning, marketing, insurance, health care and disaster relief are some of the areas he talks about. He also links some of the topics to other posts or sites with more information. This is a good blog post about how people are using GIS to make decisions each day.
• ESRI.com ESRI is the pioneer behind GIS technology. They wrote the GIS software that the majority of the GIS world uses.
• GIS.com is a site by ESRI that works to educate people about GIS.