GIS is missing its true meaning

Explaining GIS is tough. The reason is, depending on your level of use with GIS from beginner, developer, or professional, each has a varied definition. What I have noticed when trying to sell GIS to “C” level executives, or to 99.9% of the world who does not claim GIS as their profession, you can not give a standard answer, and no there is no such thing as “the answer.” In fact I have not quite figured out the perfect answer yet, but that is another reason for this blog – try to figure out the best manner to deliver the GIS message.

This blog should be able to provide “the answer” that GIS professionals will use from now on, and the rest of the population as well. The answer should be just as easy as saying “I am a doctor.” Everyone knows what that means, and also the next question, “what do you practice?” To find the true meaning of GIS (I will try not to compare that statement to Christmas!) it will take several posts to explain the background terminology I use, spreading over several dimensions. I will bold words that deserve a future post.

GIS is very often confused with mapping, or map feature drawing. Though these are two of the 4 principles of GIS, it should not be considered the primary purpose. Both these principles create a visual aspect. The visual is actually being separated from GIS, the future holds mapping as service based. In fact, the visual does have a definition that seems to be lost in the human language, cartography. I am not sure why this term and profession has gone away, but it should be brought back. It seems as soon as drawing maps went digital, the term cartography went out as well…can you say "the baby with the bath water?" The loss of cartography as a profession is confusing, because as soon as a graphic artists went digital, their title did not change to “PhotoShop Analyst.”

Mapping is most synonymous with GIS because it is what makes the most sense. It is easy to describe because of pictures…remember "a picture is worth a thousand words." The visual is so much easier to sell- its “the sizzle.” However, the sizzle is not going to sell a true analytical system. The sizzle is now a commodity due to Google.

The analytics, the 3rd of 4 principles of GIS, is the transparency for integration into other technology systems. GIS analytics are rarely known except by GIS professionals. You may even find that daily GIS users don’t even know of the analytics. Again, this is where the perception of map creation and data become more apparent to GIS. Analytics will play a huge part for the future of GIS. So what everyone should know, and “the answer” should present, is that GIS provides analytics.

How do you provide the perfect description? Well that is one of the reasons why I choose to call this blog “What’s Ur 20”. GIS professionals need to think in current technology terms that influence the majority of the population. Guess what, everyone knows what the title of this blog means from playing with walkie talkies as a kid. We should be able to describe GIS as easy as the blog’s question. In fact I once read that USA Today is such a popular newspaper because it is written at a 6th grade reading level. Another thing I have heard, and I can’t remember where, but the statement was “if you can’t describe what you do in one sentence, you need to find another profession.” We need to consider these two statements when creating “the answer.” As you can see this post has created “a can of worms” for many more posts to come.

Why a blog about GIS?

As technology is moving forward, GIS is becoming more functional and more of a necessity. However, there is a disconnect between those who consider themselves GIS professionals and developers who are making this technology easier to use and more mainstream. This blog is an attempt to place a "human" description to what GIS is...meaning give it a definition that everyone who is not a GIS professional can understand its purpose, and to assist those who are the "professionals" to understand how technology is making GIS more and more transparent. This blog should be a good read for those who have never heard of GIS as well as those who can claim GIS as their profession of choice. It will be interesting to see if I can blog and define GIS without having to post a visual display....Is this possible?....We'll see....

Blog Introduction

I will be periodically adding thoughts to this post to introduce GIS concepts and to generate discussions of how GIS can and is changing technology. My thoughts come from background experience, perceived future, and research. If my thoughts do change, I will keep the original blog so that the evolution and migration of ideas can be displayed.