Geospatial: The Hidden Force Behind the Curtain of Modern Life
As you advance through your geospatial career, you will come across folks who call you niche or have to narrow of a focus on “just” Geospatial. ? We’re just tucked away, generating maps for powerpoints, running HYPER specialized analysis, looking at fuzzy black and white pictures from space that the muggles (yeah, we'll go with muggles), don’t understand.??
This perception of “niche” is rooted in the fundamental understanding of what Geospatial is and can be.??
Geospatial is a fundamental technology and data that makes “EVERY ASPECT OF OUR MODERN WORLD POSSIBLE.”? (Did you get that up there in the cheap seats?)
The thing is, we are nowhere near done yet.
Pay Attention to the Person Behind the Curtain.
First, let's lay out what Geospatial is - for the purpose of this document is going to be the umbrella term that covers the following:
Geospatial powers our world. Personally, we all interact with it daily, if not hourly - from calling an Uber to finding out how many Ethiopian restaurants are nearby to checking the weather to determine if it is an umbrella day.
Professionally, Geospatial folks interact with this tech and data stack daily, but so does about 90% of the professional world:
Again, a non-exhaustive list:
I left Climate and Environmental Monitoring off this list because the Venn diagram between those and Geospatial is a circle.?
Everywhere, Everything
There’s a parable about two goldfish swimming toward a trout. The trout greets the two goldfish by saying, “How’s the water, boys?”? The goldfish smile, nod, and swim off a bit, and then, one looks at the other and says, “What's water?”
Geospatial data and technology are in everything we use; they are woven so completely into our lives that we do not know how much we rely on them.? Far from being a niche obscure tech, which can only be used by people who ride bikes and brew beer, GEOSPATIAL IS FOUNDATIONAL.? The data generated from the cavalcade of sensors, drones, satellites, and people is monstrous, and it's the EKG of humanity.? ??
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Thanks to advances in 5G, Cloud Computing, and Machine Learning/AI, Geospatial can monitor all these things in near real-time, alert you that the subway is going to be 3 minutes late, change your TikTok FYP when you’re in a new city, and present you with videos of local restaurants. Geospatial is the connective tissue of society, transforming data into insights from a geographic point of view.
I want to be Free; I want to Break Free...
Given that Geospatial is woven into our society at a fundamental level, why is it still considered by some to be niche???
Before the proliferation of cloud computing and storage, only a few could use large datasets that drive geospatial data.? Those with the budgets or missions to leverage this technology had access to the vast capabilities of Geospatial.? Droves of satellite data were sitting on tapes that had to be pulled by a robot arm that lived in South Dakota.? It’s not that we gatekept the methods, the technology just hadn’t evolved yet to make it widely accessible.?
Now, its in an S3 bucket, just waiting for anyone to pull it down, play with it, or find a new use case.
?Now, its not just the usual suspects using Geospatial - Finance, Retail, and Health Care, are really diving in to understand how the Geospatial view can provide them insights they could never access before.??
The Future’s So Bright, I Need My Maps in Dark Mode:
Looking into the future its obvious that Geospatial will continue to grow and expand into new verticals.? With the Climate Crisis, Geospatial technology is going to be the core for measuring, monitoring, understanding, and responding to how the world changes.? Or, if you’re a Climate Denier/Conspiracy theorist - How else is HAARP going to know where to target those Hurricanes?
We’re facing a world of increasing complexity and danger. Geospatial will be there to help us solve and mitigate these seemingly monstrous problems.??
Wrap it Up, Geez
From the guy in the corner cube with an M: drive to the whole of Landsat’s data sitting on AWS, geospatial and transformed to an indispensable technology that exists in nearly everything.
Geospatial isn’t niche; it's everywhere.
So next time someone tells you “You’re too niche.”? Just nod and say “Well, you’re JUST in urban planning.”?
Arup Americas East Geospatial Lead
1 个月So true! Thanks for the great article. I did a non-scientific poll on the last GIS Day, to see how people in my office were using maps. Not a surprise, but everyone is using maps! Even if people are not interacting with GIS software directly, it is there somewhere in the process of creating the apps, data, and images that everyone depends on.
Founder & CEO @Mapidea
1 个月This deserves way more than just a like! Tee Barr, thanks for the elegance stating the niche/not niche situation. It might be considered a niche when we are talking about those who create the "not niche" applications. Everyone knows how to call an uber or use Google Maps, but definitely, not everyone will know how it works. And that's absolutely fine, I guess.
Remote Sensing & GIS Consultant | AWS Certified Solutions Architect | Satellite Space Dynamics | SAR Imagery | Data Analysis | Climate Change | Environmental Studies.
1 个月Totally agree ?? geospatial technology is everywhere in our life, an amazing merged patterns of technology and applications are there , no way to hide.
Remote Sensing & GIS Consultant | AWS Certified Solutions Architect | Satellite Space Dynamics | SAR Imagery | Data Analysis | Climate Change | Environmental Studies.
1 个月Totally agree ?? geospatial technology is everywhere in our life, an amazing merged patterns of technology and applications are there , no way to hide.