Cercana Executive Briefing — Week of March 28–April 3, 2026 152 feeds monitored. Published April 3, 2026. Executive Summary The most consequential development this week was the publication of the CNG Geo-Embeddings Sprint report, which moved earth observati…

This week’s geospatial executive briefing points to something larger than product news. Standards work around EO embeddings, renewed national governance efforts, and growing defense-sector scrutiny all indicate a period of geospatial infrastructure evolution.

cercanasystems.com/2026/04/cerc...

Cercana Executive Briefing — Week of March 21–27, 2026 142 feeds monitored. Published March 27, 2026. Executive Summary The clearest story of this week is the merging of two narratives that have been running in parallel: sovereign AI and geospatial int…

Our latest geospatial executive briefing is up!

cercanasystems.com/2026/03/cerc...

Operational Readiness in a Geospatial World: How to Be Prepared in 2026 Executive Summary Geospatial operational readiness in 2026 requires more than reliable systems, it demands contextually aware operations that understand where work happens, under what conditions, a…

Terrain, water, and infrastructure shape human behavior. Human behavior reshapes risk, access, and demand.
That feedback loop is where many automations quietly break.

AI can help guide rules by interpreting spatial nuance. We unpack this in our latest post.

cercanasystems.com/2026/01/oper...

Variations of Open Introduction The word “open” gets used so often in tech that it starts to feel universal, like everyone must be talking about the same thing. But once you listen closely, it becomes obv…

“Open” can mean a lot of things. Here, we discuss its variations and their implications.

cercanasystems.com/2025/11/vari...

Screenshot of the new Cercana website.

Our website has a new look! It now has a cleaner design that more clearly presents our capabilities and value proposition. Check it out and contact us to learn more about how we can help you. #geospatial #AI #strategy

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Reflections on the Process of Planning FedGeoDay 2025 What is FedGeoDay? FedGeoDay is a single-track conference dedicated to federal use-cases of open geospatial ecosystems. The open ecosystems have a wide variety of uses and forms, but largely includ…

Company president Bill Dollins sat down to discuss joining the FedGeoDay Planning Committee, the process of planning FedGeoDay 2025, and what it has taught him about leadership. Check it out!
#gis #opensource #gisevents

cercanasystems.com/2025/04/refl...

Cercana At FedGeoDay Cercana Systems is excited to share that our entire team will be in attendance at FedGeoDay 2025! This is a great opportunity to meet with us face-to-face and learn more about our capabilities and the work we do. The event is happening April 22, 2025 at the Department of Interior’s Yates Auditorium in Washington, D.C.  Company President Bill Dollins…

Cercana At FedGeoDay

Cercana Systems is excited to share that our entire team will be in attendance at FedGeoDay 2025! This is a great opportunity to meet with us face-to-face and learn more about our capabilities and the work we do. The event is happening April 22, 2025 at the Department of…

The medallion architecture is often associated with data lake implementations, but its concepts are applicable across a number of technical architectures. Here, we discuss the use of traditional geospatial processing in a medallion architecture.

#geospatial #data #medallion

Three Ways to Use GeoPandas in Your ArcGIS Workflow Introduction When combining open-source GIS tools with the ArcGIS ecosystem, there are a handful of challenges one can encounter. The compatibility of data formats, issues with interoperability, tool chain fragmentation, and performance at scale come to mind quickly. However, the use of the open-source Python library GeoPandas can be an effective way of working around these problems. When working with GeoPandas, there’s a simple series of steps to follow - you start with the data in ArcGIS, process it with the GeoPandas library, and import it back into ArcGIS.

Using GeoPandas can be a great way to enhance your ArcGIS workflow. We take a look at three ways here.

#geospatial #gis #arcgis #geopandas

Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Open-Source Geospatial Introduction The geospatial industry has seen significant transformation with the rise of open-source solutions. Tools like QGIS, PostGIS, OpenLayers, and GDAL have provided alternatives to proprie…

It can use useful to think about open-source in market terms in order to help organizations better understand how they can introduce and integrate it into their operations. Here, we take a look at open-source geospatial through Porter's Five Forces model.

cercanasystems.com/2025/02/appl...

Developing a Geospatially-Aware Strategic Plan for Your Organization What is Strategic Planning and Why Does it Matter? Strategic planning is one of the most important things you can do for your organization. It helps you not only paint the picture of where you want…

Are your strategic plans and goals location-aware? Should they be? Learn more here.

cercanasystems.com/2025/01/deve...

The Importance of Metadata in Geospatial Data Portfolio Management Managing geospatial data effectively is an important challenge for organizations that use location information for decision-making. Portfolio management for geospatial data involves organizing, eva…

Here, we take a closer look at #metadata as an essential component of #geospatial portfolio management. As more organizations realize the importance of #location intelligence, it brings unique challenges. Metadata is one component to addressing those challenges.

cercanasystems.com/2025/01/the-...

Geospatial Portfolio Management and Rationalization Many organizations rely on geospatial technology to derive insights based on location and spatial relationship. Whether they are mapping infrastructure, analyzing environmental changes, or optimizi…

Optimize geospatial technology and data with portfolio management and rationalization strategies.

cercanasystems.com/2024/12/geos...

Hybrid Approaches to Geospatial Architectures At Cercana, we have worked with geospatial systems that have run the gamut—from all-in proprietary stacks to pure open-source toolchains. As the technology landscape evolves, many organizations are…

Considerations for strategically expanding your geospatial stack with either proprietary or open-source tools. cercanasystems.com/2024/12/hybr...