Origins
Where did Floor Plan Mapper come from?

A way back in 2010, ESRI Inc. (The worlds leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Software), challenged its customers to develop something interesting, useful, and, cool using their software development tools. ESRI called the challenge “The 2010 Mashup Challenge.” Of course with any good challenge, there was prize money. As such, Mark Laudon, a Geographic Information Systems Architect took it upon himself to build a web mapping application, that shifted from the usual outdoor world (i.e. Google Maps) to the indoor world. This idea was dreamed up on his daily commute to the office.

Using ESRI’s JavaScript API, Mark was able to develop a web based app that added geographic content to office floor plans, namely employee locations. The result was an interactive office floor plan mapping application for the ESRI Redlands California Head office. And, fortunately, the app did win a prize.

“Mark Laudon of LaudonTech in Surrey, Ontario, Canada, took third prize and $2,500 for Floor Plan Mapping, an interactive building floor plan with employee search capabilities that allows retrieval of information such as a brief employee biography.”

In 2011, Floor Plan Mapper was originally launched. Floor Plan Mapper’s first customer, ZS Associates (a global management consulting and technology firm) helped shape the form of Floor Plan Mapper. After winning the mashup challenge, Mark decided to test the market to see if an app like this would be adopted. It turns out, many organizations were challenged with the problem of location things (employees, meeting rooms, printers) in their workplace.