From eGovernment to eGovernance: Spatial Data Infrastructure and Human Sensor Web as contrastive cases

Electronic government has been on the agenda of practitioners, decision makers and researchers since several years now. Results of this huge trend in information systems are still debated. At the same time this domain develops towards electronic governance, recognizing and promoting an increasing inclusion of non-state actors as stakeholders.
Two cases from the growing field of geo-information management, representing two different paradigms, are discussed: Spatial Data Infrastructure and Human Sensor Web. The first originated in the early Nineties and was conceived to be developed within the public sector. The second, at quite early stages of development, is informed by recent prominence of user generated content and mobile devices on the global scale.
A practice lens is adopted to frame these two examples of global Information systems. This stance helps in appreciating the unpredictability of innovation, therefore the necessity to situate management view close to where action is.
As these large systems cut across levels and countries, maintaining both overview and sensitivity for details is difficult. Several methods are presented with their advantages and disadvantages.