Location based services - first for the military, now for business

From airplanes to astronaut ice cream, there is a long history of the government developing a technology that later becomes adapted to civilian or commercial use. I remember using a location-based services app ten years ago when I was moving through the Iraqi desert in a tank.

That’s right, the government was the first adopter of the type of technology that Badger now offers to business customers. The system was called FBCB2 (short for “Force-Twenty-One Battle Command Brigade and Below” – geez the Army comes up with some doozies for acronyms).

In fact, that’s me right there using FBCB2:

The system was designed to give the user near-real-time awareness of his surroundings by putting friendly vehicles on a digital map and providing certain information about each of those points. This was a huge leap forward over the compass and map I had learned on a few years before. It was one of the only things the Army ever gave soldiers that they didn’t moan and grumble about. It was an instant hit. No longer was I buried in paper maps, squinting at a compass, and frantically looking around me to try to figure out where I was and what was close to me. With the location based services app in hand, I now had all the data I needed in one easily digestible form and place and could make faster, better decisions as a result.

A decade later, admittedly by sheer coincidence, I find myself helping to adapt this technology for business use that proved so valuable for the military. This time, the user is not a tank platoon leader. It’s a salesperson or a service worker. And the technology doesn’t cost millions of dollars. It costs less per user than their monthly gas money. But at Badger, we believe it will have a similar impact on the user – it will help them make faster, better decisions. And this will drop to the bottom line in the form of either more sales or more efficient use of resources. Is that awesome or what?  Thanks, U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Tactical Command, Control, and Communications!  You’re the best!

Aaron Tolson

Co-Founder | Badger Mapping

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