Over the past year I have greeted over more than 5,000 visitors to ESRI Health Solutions booths at no less than 10 industry events. Each event, from the Health Information Management Systems Society, the “comdex” of healthcare computing; to the Association for Health Services Research, helps redefine the market in which we all are vying to gain leadership with GIS products and services.

So what have we learned this past year about the market? For starters, the “market” remains “desktop” and not enterprise. Despite everyone talking about “enterprise,” the market is still buying desktop “fat client.” Two obvious reasons for this seem to be a legacy budget process that favors independent departmental purchasing, and second, the lack of knowledge about GIS among the corporate information systems management.

Eventually, if enough seats get purchased in total or at any one time, then perhaps a corporate purchasing manager might take notice and report this to a corporate information systems executive, who in turn will become curious about how this technology is being used. Selling spatial software to information systems managers within large health organizations requires a compelling business case. For starters, it requires a great deal of basic understanding about spatial technology. For those of us who make our living selling spatial software, the reality still remains that many information systems professionals just don’t know what GIS technology is or what it can do for their business.

In some cases, this lack of knowledge is so profound that some people use GIS applications and never realize it. I frequently hear healthcare professionals who, upon entering our booth, exclaim, “what in the world could this technology have to do with healthcare?” We then ask them if they have ever looked up a doctor using the Internet and they respond, “sure, we even got a map!”

Once you can get people to make the transition from just thinking about maps as a “product” to that of making decision that involves spatial thinking, the learning curve diminishes dramatically. Creating marketing material and demos that aid in this mental transition is critical to the entire sales process.

Since the first day of this publication I have mistakenly referred to Directions as “New Directions.” Perhaps this is what I secretly want Directions to become! Keeping abreast of what is transpiring in the GIS community is important but figuring out where it will likely go is quite another.

Those of us who spend the majority of our working day marketing or selling spatial software to health organizations often fail to convince our audience of the tremendous role spatial information can play in serving their needs. Spending time on understanding how we can help people do their job better through the use of our spatial tools is just as important as trying to discover the “killer ap.”

Let us make Directions as important to the GIS marketing and sales professional as it has already become to those deep in the bowels of the technology. Hearing from those of you who actually sell to the healthcare marketplace everyday will surely create some “new direction” and give the rest of us some insights into the continued adoption of spatial technology into a field so rich in promise and value to mankind.