Continuing our series to introduce you to the individuals within OS and share the variety of work we do, meet Dean Paulley. As an Product Manager, he gives us a glimpse into his very diverse role…
I have been working for OS for 5 ½ years. I joined in August 2014 after spending just over 4 years working in a Local Authority GIS team.
I joined OS as a Technical Product Manager, working within the Location Portfolio mainly responsible for providing technical advice and guidance to the business when developing product enhancements and propositions. I was lucky enough to be able to help design the second iterations of the AddressBase products as well as help launch AddressBase Islands (an address product for Northern Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man).
In April 2018, I took on the role of Product Manager principally responsible for the in-life management of the AddressBase products; one of the most used product portfolios in OS. This is a product set used by Government and commercial customers and is fundamental in supporting activities such as insurance, energy supply and risk mapping.
Using OS datasets, the Mammal Society has recently published research on when, where and why hedgehog roadkill is most likely to occur.
Funded by the Mammal Society, People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS), the research analysed more than 12,500 hedgehog roadkill records.
Did you know, we currently have multiple vacancies in our engineering team? Adding to our series introducing you to the talented people within OS, meet Karen Connell. As a Senior Software Engineer, here she tells us more about her team and life at OS…
It’s been a bit of a journey to bring me to OS. After finishing my Communications, Culture & Media degree at Coventry University, I went to teach English in rural Japan for 3 years. When I returned to the UK, I turned my hand to public relations. As the years went on, I was increasingly focusing on more technical tasks like website management and app creation. Realising I might be more of a technically minded person, I applied for the IT Trainee scheme here at OS and it was the break I needed – I have now been here for 5 years!
How long have you worked as a surveyor at OS?I have worked for OS for 15 years. The time has flown by and it would be fair to say I’ve surveyed most of the new topographic features in places like St Albans and Watford. My area of responsibility stretches across west Hertfordshire into Buckinghamshire. This includes The Chilterns, which is always a pleasure to work within.
By surveying the countryside and the built environment, I get to survey and visit interesting places. Updating the large-scale OS map of Great Britain has taken me to places such as Vicarage Road, the home of Watford FC, Arsenal FC’s training ground and the Warner Bros Studio Tour.
A few years ago, when planning a route between Salisbury and Winchester, I started to wonder…
There are over 200,000 km of public rights of way, but there isn’t a comprehensive network designed to help people walk off-road between Britain’s towns and cities.
On 1 February 100 people are taking part in a hack day to change this – and you are invited to help.
Created by The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London, Colouring London is a free online platform set up to crowdsource information and share expertise on London’s buildings to make the city more sustainable. We’ve supported this project from day one and are delighted to be part of it.
Using OS data for the building outlines, this project is designed to collect, collate and visualise around 50 types of statistical data for every building in London. These are grouped into 12 core categories: location, land use, building type, community assets, age and history, size and shape, construction, team, sustainability, street context and environment, planning and protection and “like me?”.
Mappy New Year! 2019 was a great year for cartography, especially geo data visualisation. We loved seeing such amazing maps and visuals being produced by some very talented people, and the standard just seems to be getting better and better. Inspired by all the brilliant work we’ve seen, we thought we’d pull together some of our favourites. There are too many to include so this list is by no means exhaustive, but we hope you enjoy our picks.
Created by independent cartographer Margot Carpenter, this stunning map depicts Maine’s Saco Bay. The detail is incredible, and we love how the map focuses on the bay’s underwater topography and wave dynamics and how they fuel the bays amazing surfing conditions. There is also a beautiful compass rose that illustrates wave height and a visualisation depicting how bathymetry and waves create surf!
At our last update in July, we had raised over £1800 for Southampton Children’s Hospital Charity. We’re delighted to announce we have now reached a total of over £22000!
From an employee quiz to pumpkin carving, we’ve been busy over the past few months raising vital funds for our corporate charity. Featuring the OS choir Off the Scale, we held our annual gala which alone brought in £700+. Not only that but as well as an internal competition, we even had a whole department turn up to work in onesies.
OS is Britain's mapping agency. We make the most up-to-date and accurate maps of the country. But we're also a digital business, and we use our content to help governments, companies and individuals to be more effective both here and around the world.
