GIS Meetup and Educational Seminar Summary #12
Presented by: ESRI Industries
Presented on: 3 July 2019
Presenters:
- Adam Carnow, ESRI, acarnow@esri.com
- Ann Taylor, ESRI, Account Manager and the tribal program lead
Overview
This presentation from Esri makes the case that to drive increased utilization of GIS withing their organizations, GIS professionals should rebrand GIS as a location intelligence platform and actively promote the business value of its spatial analysis capabilities.
Underutilization
Adam Carnow explains why he believes GIS is underutilized within many organizations and offers suggestions to remedy this situation. According to Carnow, the primary reason that GIS has not reached its full potential is often the perception that GIS is just a “map making” platform. This is unfortunate because the greatest return on investment from GIS comes from making better decisions enabled by spatial information. Consequently, he recommends that GIS professional change their "elevator pitch" from "I make maps" to "I help people make better decisions through the power of location intelligence."
Cures
He also recommends that where possible organizations should stop making paper maps and instead promote access to location information via webapps and digital devices.
Because GIS can do much more than simply edit data and make maps, he recommends that GIS professionals become familiar with the full range of tools available and proactively market these capabilities to within their organizations.
He proposes that GIS should be promoted in a similar way to Business Intelligence (BI) as a system which transforms raw data into meaningful, useful information that helps better decision making. Consequently, because there is a lot of value locked up in GIS databases, we should consider GIS as a Location Intelligence (LI) system.
Unlocking the Potential of Spatial Analysis
GIS was originally created to perform spatial analysis. However, a major obstacle to unlocking its full potential is the lack of awareness of these capabilities. Therefore, it is vital to educate executives, colleagues, and fellow workers on the power of spatial analysis. Carnow identifies the six capabilities of spatial analysis as follows:
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Understand where
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Measure size, shape, and distribution
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Determine how places are related
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Find best locations and paths
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Detect and quantify patterns
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Make predictions
Areas of Opportunity
He goes on to identify the following broad areas of opportunity for spatial analysis:
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Apps
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Content
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Real-time GIS
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Big data
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Mapping and visualization
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Imagery and remote sensing
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3D
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CAD
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Data management
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Geodesign
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Community engagement
New Services and Experiences
The most effective way for GIS professionals to change their image from just being map makers is by providing different services and different experiences, for example, creating dashboards which are easy to implement. Dashboard applications help executives understand the value of GIS beyond map making. However, GIS professionals need to be proactive in promoting GIS because executives will not often ask for these applications. Here are some of the best practices he recommends for the deployment of GIS enabled applications:
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Give everyone alternatives
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Provide a known, controlled, secure environment
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Enable access to the latest and most authoritative data
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Provide live web services
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Help the business get the work done
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Focus on business not technology
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Offer new services
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Generate more revenue
Digital Transformation through Location Intelligence
GIS is often seen as a "maps" or visual graphics product, and the more advanced capabilities are ignored because they remain unknown to key departments and decision makers. However, GIS is a location intelligence platform and effective GIS implementation should be about digital transformation which lowers costs, improves decision making, and enhances communication. There are nine common usage patterns for GIS:
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Mapping and visualization
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Data management
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Field mobility
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Monitoring
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Analytics
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Design and planning
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Decision support
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Constituent engagement
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Sharing and collaboration
More details are available online in the document:
Reaction
For me it was interesting to hear Esri’s sales pitch for GIS as an enterprise location intelligence platform. The point that GIS is more than “map making” and that GIS professionals need to be proactive in promoting GIS as a location intelligence system with all the benefits that spatial analysis can provide is well taken. I believe that understanding and learning to articulate this message is a powerful way for GIS professionals to improve their career prospects. I was interested to watch how a professional salesman delivers this message, how many words, visual images, and short case studies it takes, and how much repetition is involved to persuade an audience of this simple message.