Tuesday, June 19, 2012

MIDAS Update and Implications

The "Midas Press blog" was posted about 3 weeks ago--just catching up to it.  Posts on several different subjects.  I note with some regret SCIMS is being replaced.  The march of progress kills old attachments.  This has been true since the beginning of time.

Interesting discussion of how GIS will finally drive farm records and reconstitutions here, including a comment on implications:
For a typical county FSA office, this integration means that there will no longer be separate individuals handling GIS, Farm Records, and reconstitutions. To move forward with the new system, there will need to be a greater understanding of these processes and how each one affects the other.
 One of the things which bothered me back in the Infoshare days: selling the Infoshare plans meant claiming big savings in order to justify the procurement of hardware and software.  But the reality was that big savings could only come by reduced employment, which should have raised all sorts of issues, none of which were being addressed at that time.  I guess over the 20 years since Infoshare employment has been reduced.

The second sentence of the quote also raises issues: what sort of training and implementation sequence will be possible?

I like the idea of a MIDAS blog--I wonder if it's been publicized, certainly not to the public.

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