The ArcGIS Community Smells

Time for me to get my knuckles rapped by more than just the few for a blog post. Its time to get in trouble with you all!!

Now would I really?

What I actually mean is:

“The ArcGIS community smells GREAT.” 

Its true. The ArcGIS community is fab. The business. The bollocks.

And what a year we have had. A year of evolution. That’s slow. Right? It is. But evolution (as against revolution) is gradual, unforced change. Darwinism. Sure its slow. Yeah, it can be painful. But the path is forward. The endpoint survival. Well in our case wider acceptance and use. In short, more love.

My reflection on 2016: A Year of Geospatial Growing Pains. Yes growing pains. Those who know ArcGIS …. moving to new “stuff”. Those who don’t know ArcGIS … leveraging new “stuff” for the first time.

Isn’t life all about challenges. Well we have them. But the challenges we face are super cool. Bringing geography: geographic thinking, methods and tools to everybody. I was a poorly misunderstood geography teen, now I’m a grown up geographer I’m better understood, but still working damned hard at it believe me!

Where does my company fit into the big scheme of things?

• Hard core ‘must be impossible’ ArcGIS development. Check!
• Hand holding guidance from problem to ArcGIS solution. Check!

Brilliant.

Forgive me but some quick 2016 shout outs:

Yeming, Matt, Joe, Spencer, Chad, Tom and our amazing team. Thanks.

Karyn, Ryan, Clarke, Nigel, Eddie, Sean, Joe, Mark, Jenny, Christina, Kandar. Such a pleasure working with you guys looking forward to continuing together in 2017.

SSP Innovations. A truly unique company. A pleasure partnering with you guys.

To our good friends: DataCapable, cmapsanalytics, Esri. Let’s keep moving towards working more closely together.

James, Rex. Good luck on your voyage of discovery. These are complicated times. Often the best path is not obvious. May your journey’s end successfully. Good luck.

One big happy family. We hope so. Passionate people trying to improve the understanding of the power of geography to solve important business problems. Ground breaking.

Let’s keep smelling great and continue to drive forward.

Matt Sheehan is the Founder of WebMapSolutions, a company which helps organizations big and small understand and use GIS to solve business problems. Connect with Matt on Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter.