Posted by
Tracey P. Lauriault-2 on
Jan 15, 2006; 5:57pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/slightly-OT-Free-snail-mail-to-your-MP-well-you-need-to-buy-an-envelope-tp161p163.html
Patrick! A nice sagueway for me to go on about Postal Code Data,
Geomatics and Access! My favorite!
**************
Canada Post also manages and SELLS important datasets that
geodemographers, researchers, and companies use to manage mailing lists.
These are unfortunately FOR SALE on a 12 month subscription basis and
priced for internal end-user and those who resell value added products
to a third party!
(
http://www.canadapost.ca/business/offerings/address_management/can/other_data-e.asp).
There is also a cute little find a postal code tool -
http://www.canadapost.ca/business/tools/pcl/bin/quick-e.asp.
Statistics Canada Geography Division in cooperation with Canada Post
also produce 3 digit (K1R) and 6 digit (K1R 7J4) postal code framework
data files (base maps)
(
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=92F0153U). Each postal
code is represented on the base map as a point, and you can georeference
(link) other data sets to those points and map them (e.g. see where my
natural gas customers in Ottawa are). These data sets are also
aggregated into areas (polygons) called Forward Sortation Areas (FSA).
The area is defined by the geographic area of the first three digits of
a postal code and these can be mapped with census data and work with the
3 and 6 digit point files (e.g. i know where my customers are, and I
overlay that (points) onto an average income or language spoken at home
map (polygons/ares) to glean more information about who my customers are
and the nature of the neighbourhoods they live in). These data sets are
also aligned with road network, hydrography (rivers, lakes, etc.),
electoral boundaries to name a few.
So when you buy something and you are asked you for your postal code -
guess what they are doing with that info! Then again, you can also map
the distance traveled by the customers of an organic food store, the
characteristics of their hoods and then decide the best place to build
another! Conduct spatial location analysis.
These Base Map data sets are also FOR SALE, by Data resellers such as
DMTI or directly from Statistics Canada with all kinds of special data
licensing agreements . These data are only available for free if you
are a professor or a student conducting research for non-for-profit
purposes through the Data Liberation Initiative
(
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/dli.htm)
These data sets are very powerful as you can, with the right GIS
software & knowledge & financial resources, map these to other data
sets such as Census of Population, Census of Agriculture or other
Statistics Canada, federal ridings results or private sector data and
conduct some excellent analysis. Much important analysis such as
demographics, profiling, risk assessment, spatial location analysis,
territory management, target market, delivery routes etc. can be done
with these.
Few NGOs, neighbourhood associations or individual citizen have access
to these data as they are too costly.
Patrick Dinnen wrote:
>First, I'd like to say I'm really pleased to see this mailing list get
>started. There seems to be a lot going on in the sphere of civic data
>access in Canada and I'm really excited to see where this goes.
>
>Here's the (not exactly on topic bit). I was looking for something
>unrelated on the Canada Post site and came across the fact that you can
>send letters to your MP without needing to attach a stamp, which seems
>cool to me. Maybe everyone in the world but me knew that already.
>(
http://tinyurl.com/car9p).
>
>Could be quite relevant in terms of being able to get your voice heard.
>I've heard that letters tend to have more weight with MPs than emails
>so, I suppose because of the perception of the extra effort needed
>writing a letter, finding an envelope and actually remembering to drop
>it in the mail.
>
>Patrick Dinnen
>
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