#businesspeak — Public Fediverse posts

My Pontification – Being a Spatial Data Professional Moving Forward Is Being Ac Active Part Of A Larger Technical Team
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The real strength of GIS today isn’t in being the “GIS person (aka boffin) in the corner”, on some island where you got info supplies on a schedule (to overwork the metaphor!)
That island is gone. The role of the spatial professional is – and should be – shifting…
Instead – for the betterment of all! - it is in being a collaborative part of a technical team working on real problems - where your primary (but not only) contribution is spatial data and spatial thinking, as #alldataisspatial
If you go with the eicky #businesspeak jargon, it is about being the bridge not the silo 🗺️💼
You don’t have to be (and can’t be) the expert on every part of a project (that is why there is a team!) - but you do want and indeed need to know enough about the different technical aspects of the work to be genuinely helpful as it proceeds. The more you understand the context, the better your contribution, including in problem solving and perhaps seeing potential concerns & the proverbial ‘areas for improvement ‘
Get curious about each use case, especially the technical aspects and the desired outcomes for the team. Ask questions. Collaborate. Let the domain experts teach you their world, and show them what spatial thinking can add in return. That exchange is where the best work happens.
Solid, definable progress shows up when your skills fit into & hence complement & amplify the broader technical picture - and when you’re willing to grow with the team rather than sit in a narrow role. Pigeonholes are for birds, not GIS professionals.
P.S. Nobody cares which flavor of spatial tools you use. They care that you know how to use them well, creatively, and in service of the problem at hand.
P.P.S. The project I have been working on & with for the last decade (!) - rightly - went from a 'cartography product’ with an almost ancillary spatial data use' - 'evolving spatial data that is ALSO used for cartography - and much more!'...
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