{"id":354891,"date":"2020-07-16T07:18:33","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T14:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=354891"},"modified":"2025-05-08T16:53:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T23:53:00","slug":"how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Inside Look at the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, Keeping Tabs on the Virus"},"author":6192,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[731],"tags":[430851,195422,160522,467061,467071],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[491702],"esri_blog_department":[478192],"class_list":["post-354891","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-covid-19","tag-dashboard","tag-health","tag-johns-hopkins","tag-profile","esri-blog-category-health","esri_blog_department-gis-for-good"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Ensheng Dong combines GIS and systems engineering expertise to provide both an objective and subjective understanding of the coronavirus crisis.\r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>A PhD student from the Johns Hopkins civil and systems engineering program created the dashboard visualization the world uses to gauge the spread of COVID-19.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Ensheng Dong knew a dashboard was the ideal means to display data about and geographic visualization of the outbreak.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>As the world took notice, Dong and his team were driven to provide up-to-date and authoritative data.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Less than a month into 2020, Ensheng Dong heard the news. A new viral contagion, SARS-CoV-2, had begun to spread in Wuhan, the capital of China\u2019s Hubei Province. Dong, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was thousands of miles away from the outbreak\u2019s epicenter, but he had studied epidemics and knew how fast they can spread.\r\n\r\nTaiyuan, another provincial capital and Dong\u2019s hometown, is 600 miles from Wuhan. That\u2019s not exactly next door\u2014it\u2019s the same distance that separates New York City and Detroit\u2014but Dong felt concerned for his family\u2019s safety.\r\n\r\nOn January 20, the first case of COVID-19 in the United States was confirmed in Washington state. Suddenly, the coronavirus\u2014for Dong\u2014seemed that much closer.\r\n\r\nThe following day, Dong met with his faculty adviser, Lauren Gardner, co-director of the school\u2019s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. They discussed the emerging epidemic and decided it was worth a closer look.\r\n\r\nGardner suggested that Dong use a geographic information system (GIS) to construct an online dashboard, a visualization tool that uses maps and data to monitor unfolding events.\r\n\r\nDong nodded. \u201cThat\u2019s my plan.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Civilization Engineering<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nDong, 30, studies systems engineering, a modernized approach to civil engineering for the complex, interconnected world.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe emphasis is on civilization engineering,\u201d Dong said. \u201cIt\u2019s basically about the interaction of people with the built environment.\u201d For Dong, the discipline allows him to explore ways to combine the objectivity of numeric data with the subjectivity of data visualization."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":354921,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"After completing his undergraduate work in China, Dong earned a master\u2019s degree in geography and statistics at the University of Idaho. While interning at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, he helped the agency use GIS to collect health-related data.\r\n\r\nWhen Dong first contacted Gardner about the possibility of pursuing a PhD at Johns Hopkins, she was particularly intrigued by his facility with GIS, a skill Dong had honed during an internship at Esri. He arrived on campus at Johns Hopkins a few months before his program was to start, to assist in a study Gardner was coauthoring on measles vulnerability in the US.\r\n\r\n\u201cI immediately jumped into the project and helped her visualize measles risk in a dashboard,\u201d he said. Media outlets, including <em>The<\/em> <em>New York Times<\/em> and CNN, featured Dong\u2019s handiwork, a prelude to work that would focus on a much larger health crisis on the horizon.\r\n<h3><strong>The Data Problem<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nDashboards are typically oriented around a map, with accompanying charts, graphs, or other visuals to contextualize map imagery. But first, a dashboard requires data.\r\n\r\nSoon after his meeting with Gardner, Dong gathered the data he needed to launch the <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/map.html\">Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard<\/a>. For the rest of January, he worked mostly by himself, driven by a desire to map the outbreak on Taiyuan. \u201cI wanted to see how large the dot was in my hometown and compare it to the dot in the epicenter of the breakout,\u201d he said."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":355881,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cEnsheng and I were basically the two that started the dashboard, but he was really the mastermind behind it,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/podcast\/the-science-and-scientist-behind-the-johns-hopkins-coronavirus-dashboard\/\">Gardner said in a podcast about the science behind the now-famous dashboard<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s a total whiz with Esri technology and dashboard development.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs cases began to multiply around the world, Dong struggled to keep up. He scoured the internet for reliable data, often consulting <em>BNO News<\/em>, a Dutch website publishing COVID-19 data from several nations in <a href=\"https:\/\/bnonews.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/the-latest-coronavirus-cases\/\">table form<\/a>. In addition to gathering data, Dong had to synchronize it, accounting for the different ways governments classified cases as \u201cconfirmed\u201d or \u201crecovering.\u201d\r\n\r\nTwice a day, he would update the dashboard. \u201cFor a month, I barely slept\u2014five hours a day or less,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nOne reason the work was so labor-intensive was that Dong was inputting all the data manually. In February, Esri\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/livingatlas.arcgis.com\/en\/home\/\">Living Atlas of the World<\/a> team helped the team with \u201cdata scraping,\u201d automating the process of importing the data from China. A team of volunteers was assembled from Johns Hopkins to help update and maintain the site.\r\n<h3><strong>Whither the Dot?<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nSoon after Dong began to amass data, he had to confront the questions about how to present it. To emphasize the alarming nature of the pandemic, Dong chose to display bright red dots over a stark black background. The larger the dot, the greater the number of COVID-19 cases in that region.\r\n\r\nBehind each red dot lurks a plethora of choices. A major decision involved how to break down the data for presentation.\r\n\r\nAs Dong\u2019s team adapted the map to provide worldwide data by state and province\u2014and, in some countries, such as the United States, by county\u2014these choices multiply. The county-level perspective means the United States is blanketed in red dots while other countries may have one large red dot and a lot of blank space.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs we get down to the state level, for large countries like Russia, we can spread out that one large dot so you\u2019ll see more distributed dots that aren\u2019t as large,\u201d Dong said. \u201cThat\u2019s a tricky thing for geographers\u2014what\u2019s the best size for the dot?\u201d\r\n\r\nA map like this needs to inform and empower people to take action, but it also runs the danger of making people lose hope so they see no way out of the crisis.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re constantly adjusting the dot,\u201d Dong said. \u201cWe added a few other maps besides the cumulative and confirmed cases, such as active cases,\u00a0to clearly communicate the data we were collecting and sharing.\u00a0If more people in your country are recovering, you refer to that map\u2014the dots are smaller and you feel better.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":354931,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/map.html"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3><strong>Directing Increasing Traffic<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nIncreases in dashboard visitor traffic indicated the disease's progress. \u201cWe had at least three crashes,\u201d he said. \u201cEach time, it was because of a surge of cases in new locations. I remember that at the end of February, as Italy and other European countries had more cases, we could see that a lot of Italians were jumping on the site to see what was going on.\u201d\r\n\r\nBy mid-March, around the time the World Health Organization officially classified COVID-19 as a pandemic, Dong\u2019s team was able to automate updates from all US counties.\r\n\r\nWhat began as an attempt to monitor the outbreak in China has evolved into one of the world\u2019s most trusted sources of information on the pandemic.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think we\u2019re now getting somewhere between 3 and 4.5 billion requests a day,\u201d Gardner said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re coming from everywhere. Most of it is just individuals clicking around on the dashboard, but there are definitely lots of requests for the data that we make available, which other groups are pulling directly into their own internal dashboards and using for policy making.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith the data gathering mostly automated, Dong can step back a bit from the site and begin to study the epidemic itself, using mobility models as the basis for his doctoral dissertation. But with his adopted country now the pandemic epicenter, he still keeps an eye on the map.\r\n\r\n\u201cInitially, dots were mainly located in China and East Asia, and I worried about my family,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now, my hometown has zero new cases, but today there is a large dot near where I live in the US.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"<h2><strong>Smart Government Approaches Continue to Pay Dividends<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nAs the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world over the last several months, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard expanded its scope. What began as a modest effort by graduate student Ensheng Dong to map the disease in China has become a multilayered resource that includes supplementary graphics and expert analyses.\r\n\r\nWith the epicenter now firmly established in the United States, the most significant addition to the Johns Hopkins dashboard is an embedded <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/us-map\">US map<\/a>. This part of the project was the brainchild of Beth Blauer, the executive director of the Centers for Civic Impact, a Johns Hopkins organization that works with local governments to use data to address problems. Blauer was one of the key architects of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcuser\/map-it-believe-it-see-it\/\">CitiStat<\/a>, a program launched by Martin O\u2019Malley during his tenure as Baltimore\u2019s mayor to gather data as part of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Smarter-Government-Govern-Results-Information\/dp\/1589485246\">smarter government<\/a> approach. Blauer also ran a similar statewide program after O\u2019Malley was elected governor of Maryland.\r\n\r\nWhen Dong first launched the dashboard, the coronavirus was the story. What Blauer recognized, as the pandemic touched the lives of millions of people, was there was a story within the story\u2014many stories, actually. Especially in a country like the US\u2014which has stark extremes of socioeconomic inequality\u2014data associated with the pandemic could reveal the uneven nature of its impact.\r\n\r\nThe US map, which went live in April, displays county data relating to hospital capacity; health insurance availability; and demographic breakdowns, including statistics relating to age, ethnicity, and unemployment. The map also includes comparisons with statewide data. The map has proved to be a powerful illustrator of the inequities associated with COVID-19 and the disproportionate vulnerability of communities of color.\r\n\r\nThe overall effect of the US map is a reminder that behind all those red dots are lives in peril. \u201cWhen you actually start looking at the affected populations,\u201d Dr. Lauren Gardner, engineering professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, \u00a0recently told the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/johns-hopkins-tracker\/2020\/06\/29\/daea7eea-a03f-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html#click=https:\/\/t.co\/hmsgN6fbcN\"><em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, \u201cit becomes so much more human.\u201d","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Researchers Built the Johns Hopkins Dashboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COVID-19: Inside Look at the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, Keeping Tabs on the Virus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Esri\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/esrigis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-08T23:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Ensheng_coffee_826.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Esri\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"WebPage\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard\",\n\t            \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard\",\n\t            \"name\": \"How Researchers Built the Johns Hopkins Dashboard\",\n\t            \"isPartOf\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#website\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"datePublished\": \"2020-07-16T14:18:33+00:00\",\n\t            \"dateModified\": \"2025-05-08T23:53:00+00:00\",\n\t            \"description\": \"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.\",\n\t            \"breadcrumb\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard#breadcrumb\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"inLanguage\": \"en-US\",\n\t            \"potentialAction\": [\n\t                {\n\t                    \"@type\": \"ReadAction\",\n\t                    \"target\": [\n\t                        \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard\"\n\t                    ]\n\t                }\n\t            ]\n\t        },\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"BreadcrumbList\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard#breadcrumb\",\n\t            \"itemListElement\": [\n\t                {\n\t                    \"@type\": \"ListItem\",\n\t                    \"position\": 1,\n\t                    \"name\": \"Home\",\n\t                    \"item\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\"\n\t                },\n\t                {\n\t                    \"@type\": \"ListItem\",\n\t                    \"position\": 2,\n\t                    \"name\": \"COVID-19: Inside Look at the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, Keeping Tabs on the Virus\"\n\t                }\n\t            ]\n\t        },\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"WebSite\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#website\",\n\t            \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/\",\n\t            \"name\": \"Esri\",\n\t            \"description\": \"Esri Newsroom\",\n\t            \"potentialAction\": [\n\t                {\n\t                    \"@type\": \"SearchAction\",\n\t                    \"target\": {\n\t                        \"@type\": \"EntryPoint\",\n\t                        \"urlTemplate\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?s={search_term_string}\"\n\t                    },\n\t                    \"query-input\": {\n\t                        \"@type\": \"PropertyValueSpecification\",\n\t                        \"valueRequired\": true,\n\t                        \"valueName\": \"search_term_string\"\n\t                    }\n\t                }\n\t            ],\n\t            \"inLanguage\": \"en-US\"\n\t        },\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"Person\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#\/schema\/person\/8819ae910056026640010a18be550d5b\",\n\t            \"name\": \"Greg Milner\",\n\t            \"image\": {\n\t                \"@type\": \"ImageObject\",\n\t                \"inLanguage\": \"en-US\",\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\n\t                \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Esri-Greg_Milner_Use_280x280-200x200.jpg\",\n\t                \"contentUrl\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Esri-Greg_Milner_Use_280x280-200x200.jpg\",\n\t                \"caption\": \"Greg Milner\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"description\": \"Greg Milner is a writer in the strategic content group at Esri, where he tells stories about how location intelligence is transforming our world and how we perceive it. A former magazine editor and political speechwriter, he is the author of the books \\\"Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music\\\" (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and \\\"Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds.\\\"\",\n\t            \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/author\/gmilner\"\n\t        }\n\t    ]\n\t}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Researchers Built the Johns Hopkins Dashboard","description":"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"COVID-19: Inside Look at the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, Keeping Tabs on the Virus","og_description":"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","og_site_name":"Esri","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/esrigis\/","article_modified_time":"2025-05-08T23:53:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Ensheng_coffee_826.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@Esri","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard","name":"How Researchers Built the Johns Hopkins Dashboard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-07-16T14:18:33+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-08T23:53:00+00:00","description":"Ensheng Dong, the architect of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, applied his knowledge of GIS to map and track the spread of the disease.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/how-researchers-built-johns-hopkins-dashboard#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"COVID-19: Inside Look at the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, Keeping Tabs on the Virus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/","name":"Esri","description":"Esri Newsroom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#\/schema\/person\/8819ae910056026640010a18be550d5b","name":"Greg Milner","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Esri-Greg_Milner_Use_280x280-200x200.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/app\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Esri-Greg_Milner_Use_280x280-200x200.jpg","caption":"Greg Milner"},"description":"Greg Milner is a writer in the strategic content group at Esri, where he tells stories about how location intelligence is transforming our world and how we perceive it. A former magazine editor and political speechwriter, he is the author of the books \"Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music\" (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and \"Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/author\/gmilner"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/354891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/354891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354891"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=354891"},{"taxonomy":"esri-blog-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/esri-blog-category?post=354891"},{"taxonomy":"esri_blog_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/esri_blog_department?post=354891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}