<p>In many of the old war movies I watch, mission planners crowd around a sand table in a smoke-filled room to map out an operation.</p><p>But it's not just the military that uses this collaborative strategy. Many government agencies that deal with emergencies and rapidly changing situations find that sand table collaboration leads to better, more informed decisions.</p><p>A high-tech decedent of the sand table is a GIS information table, like the TouchTable that can display very detailed maps with vital information overlaid on top as needed. But it also required collaborators to be in the same room. When dealing with a situation like the Boston Marathon bombing, such a gathering might not be possible for some time after the event. And real-time information from people in the field might not become part of the decision process until it's too late to make a difference.</p><p>For agencies that need the power of a TouchTable, but also the speed of real-time collaboration, the company is coming out with a product that runs on tablets, PC and mobile devices and even changing the company name to reflect this new focus. It's now called TouchShare.</p><p><a href="http://gcn.com/blogs/mobile/2013/10/mobile-gis-collaboration.aspx">Keep reading...</a></p>