Podcast: The Schizophrenic Nature of Geospatial
By Directions Magazine français
March 24, 2009
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If you are still wondering which mobile GPS you should buy for your GIS data collection and mapping projects: Download our white paper to see how our MobileMapper 6 GPS beats the competition with better accuracy and lower price. Visit Magellan ProfessionalFor years, geospatial has battled a demon: is it a special discipline in which we look at the world, or is it in fact nothing special, and indeed "for everyone"? Said another way: "Is spatial special?" Directions Magazine editors take look at the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde nature of the disciplines of geography and geospatial technology.
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Show Notes
The 2009 ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit will take place July 11-14 in San Diego, California in conjunction with the ESRI International User Conference. As the only geospatial conference dedicated to homeland security, the event is a must for commanders, first responders, GIS specialists, and anyone else interested in geospatial technology for mission-critical decisions. The deadline to register is May 22. For more information visit the registration website.
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Your Comments Post a comment All comments provided in this section are those of the individual who has created the post. These are not the opinions of Directions Media, its editors, staff or owners unless otherwise noted. Directions Media retains the right to edit or delete any comments posted herein.
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| My personal belief is if folks in the geospatial trades hadn't presented themselves as something so special (geography *matters*) for so long, the world of geospatial would be far larger and more inclusive than it is today. |
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| I believe GIS is like Business Intelligence or Data Warehousing. When industry's see value in it, and have the resources to back, they use it immensely. Otherwise, it remains on the horizon for them, as a nice-to-have-when-we-have-more-resources. The bottomline is that no amount of name-changing or positioning is going to shove it into businesses that do not see value in it. GISers should stop feeling insecure and continue adding value at their businesses while they can. It may be hard to admit but by its very nature, GIS is mainly for mature and rich sectors of the economy. There is a reason ESRI has not democratized the field (by crashing prices) yet, like Microsoft did in BI with SQL Server 2005, or in Content Management with Sharepoint Server 2003. It probably knows, even after crashing prices it will not see the crazy demand or volumes that lower prices generated for Microsoft. The bottomline is that GIS is not as critical for 'most' businesses as GISers would normally like to admit. |
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| You guys should be lawyers: You did not address the same thing – geography as a field of study, GIS as an Information System, GIS as an Information Science, experts to create data, experts who do very complex analysis and the millions who have been geographers for years by your definition simply because they have used a map. It is not hard to believe that you disagreed. In my view the use of geographic knowledge is universal, just like the geography of the world – it is everywhere, and as such not special at all. The human condition is linked inextricably to geography – everything is 'somewhere and somewhen' as we like to say. Most of our geographic experiences are so automatic and easy that we don’t even think of them as such – drive to the same grocery store you have been going to for years, etc. Most do not require a geography education or a computer to do. Many that do require a computer cost more to get an answer than it is worth, which means that many important questions are still not being asked. Back in the day GIS, the Information System, was special by dint of the size of the data and complexity of the calculations. Data storage was expensive, data sharing was nearly impossible, and processors were so slow that it was not uncommon to batch process a simple coordinate transformation that now runs in two or three seconds. I believe that GIS, the Information Science, was and remains a separate discipline and as such is still special in two ways: Special expertise is needed to create data and satisfy Joe’s citation of analyzing data to find the best answer, and its universality is the second. When speaking I like to introduce myself as a Mapaholic: ‘Hi my name is Sam and it has been 1,515 days since I made a map just because I could’. I submit that 99.999% of the people in the world will never make a map just because they can. They will make that map (a metaphor for using geospatial information) so they can do something else with it – UPS dispatches its delivery trucks, businesses select new locations, etc. The geo part is important, but not why the work was done. We need to accept that fact that the great value in geospatial is the benefit it provides in other fields. As time passes more and more of the brain power of geographers will be implemented in software and exploited in computers and more and more people will take advantage of it because the cost / benefit ratio will change. I resist calling geospatial special because I concur with Archie that doing so discourages others from using it. I resist promising geographers that their current jobs can be protected – there will be more people working in the field in five years than there are today, but any thirty-something who thinks they will be able to do the same thing for another 30 years is just wrong. Wrong I might add because another of those old subjects is neglected in today’s education system – history. |
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| At the end of the day, everything's somewhere and you can put it on a map. Since plenty is digital these days, lots of stuff will end up as a dot on a map. Google, Tom-Tom and Open Street Map are proving (very, very quickly) that there are far more people who don't think anything special about geospatial. There will always be special societies around everything that 'must be done' to make something else occur... the art and science of embalming or cremation is rather special to undertakers, but something most of us would choose not to learn. Happens to us all, but we sure don't think much of it day to day. the art and science of coordinate geometries and three-dimensional calculations are rather special to geodesists, but tens of millions of GPS navigation systems users don't know much about geoids or projections...nor do they care. Yes. Geospatial is schizo...just like every other discipline or function in our world. Many seem to feel it needs additional specialness because that serves their purpose of market control and viewing things "through a geographic approach" which is, of course, nothing but self congratulatory puff. Where will we be in five or ten years? Think about where you were without cellphones and before GPS was generally available ten years ago. Now think forward five, take away all the *special approach* claptrap that's promoted by the specialists, and think about how much of what we see and do might end up on a map. That's pretty special, I think. |
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| Sam: Your points are well taken. I would emphasize however, that the knowledge applied when using geospatial software is a special skill. Not everyone has it. Not everyone thinks spatially. It can be taught and for that, I would hope someone would be eminently more qualified in a job that requires this skill. What you suggest is that some aspects of geography are taken for granted, assumed, learned by experience, etc. That's a universal knowledge that has been acquired, but not by study. Where I think you are correct is that more people will enter the trade and a body of knowledge developed that will not seem so special. The technology and its applications will be ubiquitous. We see this happening now. But certain skills will be required as more "specialized" as we evolve the science. That's just a natural process. |
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| One of Adena's arguments doesn't make sense. Just because everyone should know the basics of something doesn't mean it isn't a unique profession/discipline. You used math and english as examples. Yes, we took those in college, and yes, we can do the basics of those to get our job done, but 1) there are english and math departments at college filled with specialists, and 2) there are professional writers and mathematicians we call upon for the really difficult needs. What they do may as well be magic from my perspective. I agree with you, that ideally, there should be GenEd and high school courses in Geography and GIS (mostly taught by specialists, btw). In the future, lots of non-specialists will use the concepts and technology to do basic tasks. And I expect that the range of what is considered "basic" will continue to expand. But there will still be a market for professionals who can do the stuff that looks like magic to the non-magicians. I only hope they will be paid magician wages. It will likely require, however, that we "experts" expand our repertoire (we need some new magic). If all I know how to do is make a basic map that isn't any better than Google Maps, then no, I am not special enough to deserve a job. I'm always amazed that the advanced spatial analysis methods that don't get used in, say, your typical city planning department. In the same way, academic geography departments need to do better at articulating how we can use our unique perspective to understand the world and solve problems in ways other disciplines cannot. |
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| Archie states the point of view of neogeographers very well (I don't know if he is one or not). "We can put points on maps too, so we don't need GIS people." This implies that GIS is nothing more than points on maps, drawing some trails, A-B routing, zoom and pan, etc. Unfortunately, for many GIS technicians, that is true, and down the road, there won't be much of a job market for them. We all need to do a better job of showing that the value of GIS analysis (and the geographic concepts that underlie it) goes far beyond this. I was talking to a former student who was having a difficult time trying to convince his boss (a commercial real estate firm) that Real Estate GIS can be a lot more than plopping business logos on air photos, until he was able to show them that he could do spatial analyses that they couldn't do. Now he's the indispensable magician. |
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| I'd say the term "neogeography" is something only a GIS-er could develop. I'd rather be called a 'mapper' There's a certain condescension to the term 'neo' when it's appended to just about anything...neocon, neogreen, etc. But I suppose this is a justified perspective if you're one of the intelligensia in a particular field. Anyone who spent coded in AML, wrote an Autodesk script, or built a GeoDatbase before they could plot a few dots on a map has got to be frustrated by the simplicity of these 'neo' tools. Particularly frustrated now that your 12-year-old nephew is mapping his Boy Scout hikes onto Google Earth after downloading the snail trail from his wrist-band GPS. Yes. Geospatial is really cool, really powerful, and could be really big someday...oh wait, I think Google and Microsoft are making that happen now. |
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| I'm sorry folks but after reading through the comments I dare say I am not reminded of blind men and elephant story. Almost all the comments so far carry an element of truth with out doubt but unfortunately not the whole truth. Many of the comments seem to be directed towards the special or peculiar-depending on your love for GIS-characterics of GIS and on the ease / difficulty in adapting it as an analytical tool in a decision making process. The bottom line, according to me, is that GIS at best is a technology whose exploitation for the larger benefit of society is entirely up to the society itself, as a user. GIS technologists would assume greater importance and their number would also go up manifold if - and only if - there is a conviction and consensus in the larger section of the society about the applicability of GIS technology in improving the quality of life. Technologies such as mobile telephony or desk top computing which were not even heard of a few years ago are today just a way of life. Has any one heard of a Nokia, say twenty years ago? The essential difference is that GIS by itself is not a technology whose benefit could be easily and tangibly perceived by common man. However that by no means can take away the true value it brings to Information System and Analysis, used in several walks of daily life. So the pace of exploiting GIS as a technology may be slower as compared to say, mobile telephony, but definitely the need to do so would not remain stagnant. |
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| The elephant has no ability to effect help the blind understand. However, if a pair of 800-pound gorillas decide to get active on the subject, folks will know which way to run fairly quickly. My overall point is all of the benefits of complex spatial analyses mean nothing to someone who doesn't understand the basic idea of a map. MSFT and GOOG have done more in the last two years to advance 'geospatial' than an entire cottage industry has managed in the last three decades. |
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