IDV Solutions, LLC has taken mapping to a whole new level. By developing a suite of visualization software using map-based data, governmental organizations and corporations can now integrate and see all vital information in one place online.

“Industry estimates are that 80 percent of data has some sort of geographic reference component,” explained Mark Morrison, CEO for IDV Solutions. “That could be sales territories, a plant location, retail locations, a pipeline, a truck route. We’re all visual beings. We all understand things better with a picture than we do in a spreadsheet, so we’re appealing to how we behave. People don’t think in spreadsheets. We think in terms of ‘What happened?’ ‘Where did it happen?’ So our whole company is built around that.”

“From avian bird flu to disaster response, tsunamis, hurricanes, terrorists, the maps are the first place you turn to make sense of a situation,” added Ian Clemens, chief technology officer for IDV. “‘Where was it?’ is fundamental.”

Both local natives, Clemens and Morrison self-funded IDV Solutions in January 2004. Prior to IDV, Morrison cofounded Strategic Interactive Inc., which created Web-based training and human resource systems. He has a degree in liberal studies from Western Michigan University.  Clemens previously launched a commercial Web mapping application and was the director of technology solutions for Universal Map. He has a degree in applied mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Christian studies from Regent College.

“I’ve been in this town for 45 years, so winning the [entrepreneurial] award is great,” said Morrison, when IDV was named the 2008 entrepreneurial winner in the technology category. “Nobody thinks you can build a technology company in Lansing, which is not true. There are lots of good people coming out of Michigan State and the University of Michigan in computer science.”

IDV currently has 50 employees. IDV sponsors company softball teams, provides in-house training and updates, encourages continuing education, and buys lunch for employees three times a week.

“We have a great team here,” Clemens stated. “It’s a great culture. It’s fun, creative and innovative.”

“We truly have the best people on the planet,” said Morrison. “These are smart, humble, highly educated, creative people that are making this company a success.”

As for its customers, IDV developed the Visual Fusion Suite to help them make good management decisions by combining numerous sources of information into simpler Internet maps.

“We work with large organizations,” said Clemens. “They have a lot of data being generated, and [we’re] making it come alive through charts, graphics and maps. We do that through a standard Web browser, and we have software that ties into that ongoing data and information.”

For the future, Clemens and Morrison intend to globally market IDV and to increase sales by adding more partners and resellers.

In addition to the Entrepreneurial Award for Technology, IDV Solutions was named one of  Michigan’s Top 50 Companies to Watch in 2006 by the Edward Lowe Foundation and the Small Business Association of Michigan, was a Microsoft Rookie Partner of the Year for 2006, and won a Computerworld Honors Program award in 2007 for a hurricane management system it developed for BP Oil.

As for other budding entrepreneurs, Morrison advised, “Don’t listen to the news. Figure out what you can do and have the faith and perseverance to do it, and find good people. That’s what our company is filled with: 50 really, really brilliant employees.”