Talking to Users: Word on the Street

A few weeks back, the WhiteStar Spring Tour took us to Denver, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Wichita. These events are a highlight of our year – it’s not often that we have to opportunity to sit down with such a focused group of GIS pros whose work depends on the right grid data as a foundation for a multitude of business decisions. And you always have a lot to tell us.

Trends in the Industry

Here are a few of the highlights.

- There is still a clear need to produce better, more accurate land maps. You want better acreage calculations to verify royalty positions, and for that, the underlying grid has to be as good as it can be.

- You want those maps faster. Good automapping wins hands-down over traditional by-hand methods for time and cost savings – and that is crucial in these times.

- Lots and Tracts data is contributor to making automapping better by leaps and bounds.

- Much of the increased push for efficiency and accuracy is driven by oil prices – and you told us clearly that we all need to do more with less. This also means that you’re looking closer than ever at your supplier agreements, examining pricing, update frequency and processes, and future products enhancing your chosen land database. Simply signing to renew expensive old agreements out of habit is not happening.

Product Feedback and Announcements

Of course the Tour is also an opportunity for us to show you what we’re working on – and WhiteStar Cloud as a delivery platform is maturing nicely. Well and culture data will be supported soon, and it’s becoming ever more fully featured.

And in exciting coming-soon news – the WhiteStar Grid Wizard is in alpha! This mobile app gives you access to WhiteStar Grid data on the go – identifying grid information in the field from your tablet or phone, with handy features for finding corners and distances. The app will be free – look for more announcements on this in the near future and put WhiteStar in your pocket!

Thanks to all of you who took the time to join us and share your opinions, experiences, and wish lists. As always, we continue our mission to bring you the best data we can – and the best value for your dollar. We will continue to improve accuracy with added GPS data and private data submissions.

And if you’re considering switching to WhiteStar but haven’t yet made the leap, we encourage you to get competitive bids and compare accuracy and value. We’re confident that you’ll see why so many are choosing to go the WhiteStar way.