The draft of the Geospatial Management Competency Model is just six pages. It documents both 17 areas of competency and 74 specific skills managers in our profession should have. Do you or your manager have them? Are some missing? You should be curious enough to have a look and fill out URISA's brief questionnaire on this document. It may well impact your future working life!

There have been a handful of organizations that have switched from using the Google Maps API to using OpenStreetMap data in their Web applications over the past few months. This week, one of the biggest location-based services players in the world, Foursquare announced why and how it did so. Is this a huge coup for OpenStreetMap? For Foursquare? For open source?

Analytics and big data are becoming areas that are truly leveraging geospatial technology, and new and not-so-new players are entering the geo arena. We'll look at companies like SpaceCurve, Teradata, Rhiza and Tableau and examine what they are bringing to the table.

This week we go looking for geo innovation in recent product announcements. Do we find any? Yes!

What's ahead for geospatial organizations like GITA and URISA? Are they serving the community? Do they need to change? What do you expect for your membership fee? And, have social networks supplanted one of the biggest benefits of professional societies ... networking?

This past week Spatial Energy and the IEEE became two of the latest organizations to announce competitions aimed at students and users of geospatial technology. Why do these keep popping up? Are they good for the geospatial industry?

The Supreme Court ruled that police must have warrants to attach GPS trackers to suspects' cars. Nokia closed its NAVTEQ developer program. What do these actions say about the state of location-based services in 2012?

Three items in the news in early January are teachable moments in geotechnology, for students and citizens and for the geospatial community. They include satellite imagery from the cruise ship Costa Concordia, Google tangling with OSM and World Bank, and an outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease explained by geography.

Dr. Frank Kelly was recently appointed director of the USGS's EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Editor in Chief Joe Francica spoke with Dr. Kelly on the mission of EROS especially in light of impending budget cuts. Kelly also provided his insights on the relationship with the commercial earth observation satellite providers, and expectations for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission and Landsat 8.

Geotechnology appeared in cars, social media "cockpits" and nearfield communication (NFC)-enabled phones at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Is it evolution or revolution?