The Growing Role of GPS in the Economy

For more and more industries, Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites provide something that until recently wasn't possible -- the precise location of a shipment, a truck, a customer, an emergency. This is incredibly powerful information. It enables everyone from farmers and archaeologists to global shippers and ambulance operators to work more efficiently and make more informed decisions. As FC writer Charles Fishman put it, the sky's the limit.

Today's Wall Street Journal explores the flipside of this transformational technology. Police officers who were unknowingly tracked using GPS and caught napping. Snow-plow drivers who protested having to carry cell phones equipped with GPS. Teamsters who feel their privacy is being violated by a tracking device in their tractor trailer.

How much GPS monitoring are you comfortable with? Would you agree to let your employer track your movements throughout the day using a GPS-enabled laptop, phone or car? If your company could operate more efficiently and save a bundle because of it -- and if that, in turn, helped your own bottom line -- would that change your mind?

And where is GPS in our business, economic development? Think about it.

More here.