Why Geospatial Companies are Missing the One Key Driver of Success (and how to fix that)

We live in a copycat culture. Think about fashion. Rather daft. A new style comes out. We see others, who we perceive as cool, promoting this new style. And wham-bam out go our perfectly good ‘old’ style jeans and on go our expensive ‘new’ cool jeans.

Absurd. But guess what .. that keeps the profits flowing for all businesses attached to clothing!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to copycat culture. Somehow it seems baked into human’s DNA. The point I will make in this article is, much depends on who you copy.

Network Effects

I want to momentarily step back and ask; have you heard of the term network effects?

“Network effects occur when a product, service, or platform becomes more valuable as more people use it. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle where increased adoption attracts even more users”

Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a network grows proportionally to the square of its users. Think about a dating site, if there are only 10 people signed up it is not very attractive nor useful. If there are millions, that is quite different. I pulled this example from a fascinating discussion with Chris Dixon of a16z on this topic.

Networks are a core part of human culture. They form the foundational infrastructure of communication, collaboration, and value exchange, shaping how societies, economies, and technologies evolve.

Let’s stick with this technology theme. I have clear memories of seeing the Internet in 1992. This was both a physical, hardware based, and human network. Read (as Chris Dixon describes in his book – Read Write Own) was key. In that first phase of the Internet, sometimes called Web 1, we could share with everybody and anybody on the network – thoughts, articles, images. Newsgroups were amazing, focused communities.

The next phase of the Internet was the corporate owned Web 2. This was marked by the rise of social media, where large companies like Facebook, Twitter etc. realised they could make huge amounts of money through network effects. Watch the Netflix documentary called The Social Dilemma on how they made social media so sticky.

Copycat Culture & Network Effects

So we have copycat culture and network effects. How does that relate to geospatial?

Most geospatial companies (well actually most companies), spend much of their time trying to get noticed in others networks. Take a look at LinkedIn. Suddenly that has been getting some serious attention as LinkedIn tries to mirror the success of other consumer focused social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram etc. But look at what is posted currently on LinkedIn; most of it is uninteresting self promotion. Uninteresting to reader’s and most importantly uninteresting to the LinkedIn algorithm. And that is what the majority miss – your post will only be shared with a wide audience if the algorithm likes it. And what is that decision based on – whether your post keeps readers on LinkedIn!

Thanks to our copycat culture, when it comes to Web 2, we are all doing the same thing. Fighting over getting attention in others networks. That might be social media platforms, it might also be search engines like Google (and the less and less effective world of SEO). These are networks which only exist because of your content, and the money they make by thrusting ads in our faces when people read YOUR CONTENT (I do mean to shout). The more content the better. But where does that leave you?

Copycat culture is just fine. But let's get to that question of who you copy.

Esri & Network Effects

Okay, let’s now point the lens directly at geospatial. Arguably the most successful geospatial company of the last 50 years is Esri.

Why have Esri been so successful?

Is it because of – amazing products. Incredible marketing. Lock-in technology (geodatabase)?

All no doubt important. But plenty of others have the same.

No, the key to Esri’s success is that they built their own network. That is it. As simple as that.

Let’s get back to that word simple in a moment. The brilliance of Esri’s approach was to focus attention on universities, and in particular geography departments (where maps are relevant). Then to provide their software for free.

Simply brilliant.

University adoption of Esri was universal (who baulks at free). Students were taught GIS with Esri tools only. On graduating these students then applied their GIS Esri skills in their jobs. But it did not end there, Esri were smart enough to nurture that community, both online and with their many lavish annual user conferences.

This all left Esri competitors sneering (with envy) at the Esri Kool-Aid drinkers. A hard core, loyal community.

So where does this leave you?

This is the million dollar question. We are living through a time of incredible geospatial opportunity – what I have been calling Geospatial 2.0 or the convergence of geospatial advances (data and technology) with artificial intelligence, and spatial computing.

Success in this new Geospatial 2.0 era requires geospatial companies to stop copying one another by trying to get attention in others networks.

Geospatial companies need to start building their own networks!

As Chris Dixon says – “Traditionally, the hardest part of building a network is the bootstrap phase”. In other words getting started. An incentive systems is needed.

I’ll leave this article here. Clearly there is more to discuss, which I will do in subsequent posts.

Matt Sheehan?is a Geospatial 2.0 expert. He publishes a weekly Spatial-Next Newsletter focused on the convergence of geospatial AI and spatial computing. Subscribe to the newsletter?here.