Weblog owner: Lucas Lowe-Houghton Profile: Coming from Cornwall in the South West of the UK Lucas has obtained his education at the University of Plymouth, UK. He is now a key hydrographic surveyor at Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors.

In reading this blog you are subconsiousley exploiting social networks and the social media network. The social media vehicles avaiable today may play a highly influential role in developing the future of the hydrographic industry.

Influences are not only on a corporate level but down to the hydrographic surveyor himself. Social networking provides free advertisment to a mass audience and I can imagine for a freelance surveyor this can pay huge dividends. For larger companies in our field I see a lot of free advertisment campains being  exposed through posting links of current projects etc on social media sites. The large professional social network sites for example provide a open network, with many weak ties and social connections, but these loose connections (no personal connection) are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities for the individual in the future.

So how is the hydro community exploit such audiences? One good example is community sourcing and sharing of navigational data. TeamSurv in the UK is crowd sourcing such bathymetric data through advertisement and presence on social networks. The TeamSurv project is where mariners help create charts of coastal waters, by logging depth and position data whilst they are at sea, and uploading the data to the web for processing. These networks are providing TeamSurv with a perfect vehicle for sourcing the data that they need.

Another knock on effect of social media is the increasing availability of knowledgeable articles regarding current developments in equipment. In most cases; discussions on groups and forums include users’ real life accounts and experiences of equipment. Such user information can be exploited by companies looking to invest in new technologies.

I believe social media if exploited responsibly and in the correct manner will influence the hydrographic community in the coming years (if not already). However, I also believe it can be a double edged sword; so use wisely.  

Hydro International weblogs

	Lucas Lowe-Houghton
	OSL
	Raj Chakravorty

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