Nearly every time we have friends over for dinner, we end up in my home office using a GIS program. Sometimes it is to show where we are going on vacation or to look at a trail map I developed for horseback riding. We change the colors and scale, and add new layers. When requested, I print my dinner guests a color map that will probably end up on their refrigerator held by a flashy magnet. It becomes high-tech art. In any case, I enjoy their fascination with a technology that still excites me.

Unfortunately, for those of us who make our living as purveyors of this technology, many sales calls are very similar. And, it is our own fault. We are so enamored by the technology that we proudly show it off. The result most often is that we make as much money on a sales call as I do having dinner with my friends.

Many of us have moved on to selling solutions by responding to the needs of our customers. We listen first, then probe, jointly develop solutions, and, in a way, become part of their organization. The most startling aspect is that for most of them, a map – that item we love to show off – is not only unnecessary, it is a hindrance.

What most potential users of GIS technology want is an answer. They want data to make decisions. A map is not an answer; it is just more data. If they have to look at a map to get data, then the system has failed. It doesn’t matter if the cause is a poorly designed solution or bad data. The result is the same.

There will always be a need for maps, and some solutions will require them. But, high-end GIS programs can geocode hundreds of thousands of addresses per hour and perform several geographic functions on each. Let’s assume a rate of 500,000 records per hour for one hour. The goal of the application is to determine the distance from a house address to a store or fire station. If it took a trained person with a map-based GIS program five minutes to locate the house, calculate the distance and record it in a database, you would need a staff of nearly 42,000 people to equal the power of a non-map solution.

This would be a definite turn-off for most customers. So, why do we insist on showing them maps and talking about points, lines and polygons? Businesses need data, not works of art.