Perspectives Post

The early to late-1990’s were a period of profound excitement about the promise of geospatial technology. Companies were popping out of the woodwork with business plans that addressed various aspects of geospatial technology development and application. I had a front row seat during this exciting time, working at the premier industry publication. I recall well the amount of buzz, and the number of interesting ideas about how the technology can be applied.

Since then we’ve seen a great deal of industry consolidation and a maturing of the technology space. Over the past six months—as we’ve developed the V1 website, Blogs and newsletter—there has been a noticeable acceleration of products and possibilities in the industry. I’m reminded of those early days of excitement, and have seen the return of many old ideas. Products and plans that may have flopped earlier due to a lack of available data are now being resurrected as the platform for geospatial business solutions has matured.

It has never been as easy as it is now to create a new business in the geospatial space. Practitioners and developers are also finding it much easier to stand up tailored solutions with interfaces, performance and data that meet and exceed customer expectations. The amount of available geospatial data, coupled with much easier means to distribute and collaborate, is fueling an industry resurgence.

It’s a great time to become involved in the geospatial industry, and I can think of many areas where I’d love to be starting a career.

Making a Municipality Sing

The sheer number of interesting land management and planning applications within a municipality still makes it a premier place to ply the geospatial trade. If you’re interested in having a profound effect on the efficiency and transparency of local government, you can’t beat geospatial technology for making an impact.

The opportunity exists in a municipality to interface with a wide number of departments and practitioners, from the tax collection and permitting group, to the engineers and maintenance group in public works, to the parks and recreation department, to the municipal-owned water and wastewater, and to urban planners. There’s also an opportunity to work out data sharing agreements with a wide consortium of data users, working together to pull together the best possible data for all to use.

Over the years, I’ve visited with a number of creative and enterprising municipal GIS managers. I’ve been impressed with the creativity and dedication of this group as a whole, and think it would be a fun fraternity to belong to.

Developing Solutions

The number of tools and platforms that are available to developers in the geospatial space makes it an exciting time to be a consultant and solutions developer. The number of available platforms, programming languages and delivery mechanisms (desktop, server, website, mobile) make the possibilities for applications wide open.

The availability of data and the standards in place that make it much easier to create widely distributed systems both ease a lot of the pain points of the past. The sheer number of interesting applications and mashups show that there’s a very vibrant developer community in the geospatial space. While geospatial expertise is important, growing accessibility to developer tools and easier access to geospatial components means that developers of all kinds will soon be exploiting geospatial capabilities.

An idea for a solution or a mashup can be done rapidly these days, and if you get in a bind, there are a great number of helpful geospatial developers that are active on several highly trafficked help sites. Turning your own or a client’s thoughts into a solution that gains wide adoption has to be a rewarding feeling.

Training for Technology Convergence

The inefficiencies within the building and construction industry means that there are great opportunities to streamline the design, construction and management of infrastructure. The convergence of CAD/GIS and Building Information Modeling (BIM) is only a matter of time as we realize the model-based future. The sweeping change that this represents will require a large number of training and consulting efforts, and I think it would be a very interesting pursuit to wrap oneself around these problems to bring about much-needed change.

Given the complexity of model-based design, there’s a good deal that can be explored to make the process easier. Immersing oneself in the nuances of each interface, and teasing out the best workflow for a large design/build firm would be a very challenging pursuit. Tracking the changes and conveying them to engineering and design students would likewise prove challenging, and would offer a great opportunity to make considerable impact.

Platform and Product Development

While the above three job scenarios are at the top of my list for applying geospatial technology, I think it would be a great deal of fun to be in on the product development side of the business. There are still a great deal of problems to pursue to create the best possible GIS platform, including greater development of analysis tools, the pursuit of 3d, and the addition of temporal capabilities.

Being in on platform development would provide the greatest connection to the user base. Seeing a myriad number of user requirements and aiming to solve those and make workflows and solutions more efficient would be a rewarding pursuit. The increasingly competitive marketplace from players outside of the traditional geospatial space would provide a good deal of incentive to speed development and to achieve innovation.

With all things considered, my favorite job is exactly where I sit. I get to speak to interesting people in all of the above application areas, while postulating about where the industry is headed. I’ve always appreciated the privilege and access that being a journalist affords, and I can’t think of a more interesting and dynamic technology sector to cover than the geospatial technology industry.

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