I love the creativity of geographic information systems. I love the ability to combine programming, visual detail, and science into one cool discipline. GIS can be used in so many places… and here lies the problem.

GIS is not a career by itself.

Now all you knee jerk naysayers out there, hear me out.

GIS is best tacked onto another discipline. GIS is best as a compliment to a larger more complex career. Focusing on GIS as a career by itself is probably not a great idea, unless you are developing GIS software… which again, means GIS is tacked onto another dicipline… software development.

Now say this with me… This is a good thing.

This comes back to what a GIS instructor once told me:

The “Shallow” is an aspect of the problem. Sometimes digging deeper into GIS is not possible. Sometimes digging deeper is getting away form the solution.

GIS is not always the solution.

If all you need are directions from point A to point B, your GIS ends there.

If all you need are points on a map showing size differences for population, your GIS ends there.

If all you need is an Excel spreadsheet to track you metrics, your GIS ends there.

Of course GIS can do some really cool stuff. Time motion analysis, mobile applications, statistical dashboards, image analysis, the list goes on.

I listened to a Mapscaping podcast interviewing Adam Carnow, of ESRI where they talk about communicating GIS value and re-branding. Go listen to the podcast because it got me thinking.

I have written about “Value in GIS” and I know that communicating value is important. However, for most people communicating GIS value looks like this.

“If the higher ups just saw the awesome GIS stuff we can do, it would all be better”.

Or

“If I just had a better GIS pitch, everything would work out perfectly”

These are wrong. Your GIS solution gets in the way of what people really care about. This is especially true if people in your organization can’t spell GIS.

People want to tune into ” WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me”).

People are not interested in technology, they are not interested in GIS.

People are interested in solutions to their problems they think about the most… not GIS.

If a spread sheet has done the job for years, your GIS solution gets in the way.

If bringing in mobile apps means more training and more money spent, your GIS solution gets in the way.

If multispectral imagery costs X+$100 with GIS, your GIS solution is getting in the way.

GIS IS GETTING IN THE WAY.

The truth is YOU are getting in the way. You have to change the way you think about GIS. You have to change the way you approach the situation.

If you want to be hireable or get ahead you need to think differently.

Here are a few steps you to take to ensure that your GIS solution doesn’t get in the way.

Learn to understand what other people want.

If you are like me, you love technology. So do other people. But they don’t care how it works, as long as it works.

Learning the technology is great, but now take some time to learn marketing, sales, and psychology. You can sell feelings far easier and faster than technology.

Start thinking of your GIS as emotional, as currency, as food that people want.

This requires talking to people. This requires going out and being interested in the people using your GIS. This requires understanding their needs and desires and how you can help them.

If they want to save money, talk about saving money with GIS. If they want to make money, talk about making money with GIS. Leave the technical talk to your close team.

Learn clear communication.

You can communicate multiple ways to people. You can communicate in ways that turns people off, or turns people on. Try to communicate to everyone, or communicate to the ones who matter.

Your choice of words matter, your choice of visuals matter, your choice of medium matters.

Give presentations. Create videos. Use infographics. Create a podcast. Write a help document. Make mistakes. Fix mistakes. Get better.

Communication is a skill you can actively learn.

Learn business skills and business intelligence

The biggest driver behind what is going to keep you employed and get your hired is money. Yes there are exceptions, but your ability to affect the bottom line in a positive way can make or break you.

Business skills are long term approach. I am going to tell you a secret… I have poor business skills. Here is another secret… I am learning business skills now!

These skills include, strategic planning, leadership, team building, sales, marketing (see above), negotiation, delegation, and financial management.

If you are reasonably ambitious, you will end up in a managerial role in your future. It is the natural progression of a job that requires you to understand business more than technology.

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I love Geographic Information Systems. I love the creativity of programming, database design, and map creation.

I think it is the perfect discipline for a visually creative science minded person with marketing sensibilities.

GIS is wide reaching as a great support tool for multiple industries. GIS can help plan research, aid in problem-solving, organize data, demonstrate statistics, target marketing, and create visualization.

However, there is something that has stuck with me for a long time. A very thoughtful instructor I had said the following:

This means to me that GIS can be used pretty much anywhere (maybe), but doesn’t have much depth to its use.

GIS software in also becoming ubiquitous in the work place. With the ease of use and download of open source software, GIS is beginning to be part of the furniture.

I spoke with a friend who is in the security supply industry. I mentioned GIS could help his business and he said “Oh ya, we have a guy in the office doing that”.

By “Doing that” me meant using Google maps to plan out routes and google earth to show address clusters. Not the most sophisticated GIS, but GIS none the less. This got my creative juices flowing!

A few months ago I was asked on my YouTube channel if GIS could be used for chemistry by a person who worked in a lap. My knee jerk reaction was to say “Of course!”

After a few weeks of contemplation I realized that my automatic reactions about GIS may not be true. In fact, the following is most likely the real answer.

GIS is not a solution for everything.

Sad I know, but GIS really isn’t a fit-all solution.

But how do we know that GIS is not a solution in specific cases?

On a philosophical level a single answer to everything is an answer to nothing. Simple singular answers, while comforting, creates dogmatic views. A dogmatic view will shoehorning every inconsistency into its narrative, no matter how absurd.

In the 1999 Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink Jr. (yes I had to look that up), asks Lucy Lawless from Xena a continuity error questions to which she response:

You can view the clip here.

A simplistic answer such as “GIS can work for you” is not always true. GIS could get in the way of making quick, easy and correct decisions.

How can we find out if GIS will be useful for situations?

We can start with a brief look at the scientific method of course.

As a long time researcher and academic I appreciate the scientific method. First and foremost it allows us to make mistakes, correct our methods, and try again.

Mistakes are okay to make, mistakes allow you to grow, ask better questions, and make better decisions. To find out if GIS can work for our problem, we can ask a few questions.

Is your data geographically referenced and is the referencing important?

This is obvious in many cases such as surveying buildings, street lights and fire hydrants where location is critical. But not so obvious when thinking in a business context.

A friend of mine owned a car body shop. He knew how many people came through his doors, what work they needed done, and how much they paid. But he did not have their addresses, even for marketing purposes.

Address for a business are important to be able to understand where your customers are coming from. They allow a business owner to target areas for marketing.

Is your data affected by the shape of the earth and other surface features?

When I was doing field survey design, the standard practice was to make flat lines on a map and let field workers decided where to go. The field dealt with the hills, we dealt with the lines.

Turns out that using Lidar for pre-planning is important for cost assessment, project analysis, and safety.

Do customers addresses mater in this context? Possibly if you are delivering packages and need to know routes.

Do you have multiple different geographically referenced data sets from multiple disciplines?

More geographically reference data increases the need for a system to compile and analyses the data. In the case of my friend and his body shop, perhaps only his clients address were important, making GIS a very small factor in his operations.

In the case of a geological survey, you would have roads, slopes, geochemistry, hydrography, ecology, and the list can go on.

Does your geographically referenced data have different attributes?

My parents had an arborist come out and look at taking down an old dead tree from their front yard. As a GIS person I got to thinking, how could this arborist use GIS?

They could use a mobile app to take notes of locations of trees in a block they visit. Each tree could have attribute of “type”, “age”, “height”, “trim required”, “removal required”. These attributes could easily drive a marketing plan for the neighborhood.

It takes asking questions, creatively formulating a hypothesis, and testing that hypothesis before GIS is a solution to everything.

The more I think about it… the more I think GIS can drive some serious cash flow with some spatial creativity.

I have shirts available on my Teespring store if you would like to support me.

Also, sign up to my news letter!