Does a stereotypical GIS user exist?

Details

By Matt Ball | 28 August 2012 | 1739

At the stage of maturity that GIS has achieved with more than four decades of use and users in very diverse disciplines, it would be hard to pin a stereotype on the user base. Certainly there are skills, approaches, and even similar work days among the users that might manifest themselves with similar life outlooks and even demographics, but you can no longer spot a GIS user by their gender, age, attire or other stock characteristic.

There has been great work over the past few years to define the skills and competencies of GIS professionals, which are now encoded as a model framework with the U.S. Department of Labor. This framework provides an important encapsulation of academic, workplace and industry-sector requirements, and yet it really can’t capture the evolution of the tools and the diversity of their use. While the consummate professional has kept up on the latest technology as GIS has evolved over the years from mainframes, to desktops, to web, and now the cloud, the evolution has also created individuals that are more skilled in one facet and that may focus only on one type of GIS.

Enterprise and IT

The rise of the enterprise GIS provided a means to integrate the systems throughout an entire organization across departments and ushered in the IT-centric era where many GIS departments were subsequently placed under IT. The packaging and standardization of components came into play in 2005, and helped GIS rise in importance in large companies, yet few GIS users had the network and database skills to lead the charge in this change.

With the enterprise approach, whole new areas of specialization arose, with job descriptions asking for experience with specific enterprise components, databases, as well as integration experience. Many consultants and integrators were able to take advantage of complex and long-term conversions of department-centric to the enterprise, and GIS gained a whole new level of use and respect throughout the larger IT umbrella. GIS users who gained an IT focus may have found themselves being pulled in new directions than GIS as their integration skills proved of more value than mapmaking.

Here Come the Coders

With the maturity of the tools came the creation of components built on open source code, where a great deal of customization was possible for those that could code. Many developers flocked to the functionality and possibility of solutions built around GIS functionality without a GIS background. GIS users also embraced the ability to code in order to navigate barriers that held them back in the past, creating custom and performant systems meeting the needs of their clients or organizations.

Vendors also have created development ecosystems, in addition to open source tools, that provide building blocks for developers to exploit functionality and piece together solutions and applications among a wide array of data sources, visualization and analysis functionality. The “mash-up” era of maps began with the coming of Web 2.0 at roughly the same time as the enterprise enablement began. This competing vision has allowed for fast and loose coupling of components via the Web, and has attracted a large entrepreneurial contingent to the mapping community of those that hope to create the next hot combination of functionality and community to draw investors and then sell out to major players.

Welcoming Designers

With the convergence of software functionality aimed at infrastructure professions, we’re now seeing a whole new era of users that will harness GIS to design while taking into account impacts of their creations through inputs, feedback and analysis. As the designers take to the toolsets, we’ll see a greater emphasis on user interface and aesthetic visualization, combining the best of CAD and BIM with GIS to inform awareness of broader geographies centered on our built environment.

Concurrent with the embrace of designers, will be all new sensored and instrumented infrastructure elements to provide real-time understanding of change. This whole new branch of GIS integration with the design profession, and for more informed planning and management of urban space, promises a range of new approaches that directly impact how we all live.

There may never have been a GIS stereotype, and with the ever-expanding universe of users it will only get harder to spot and characterize a GIS user. Those that have been taught either a tool-centric or discipline-centric approach complement one another nicely as do the coders, database gurus, and designers. The more diverse the user base and their skill set, the better the tools will evolve into all-new areas of application and provide new opportunities for employment. A new era of easily customizable and accessible tools are also coming, meaning that the diversity of the user base will only accelerate.

About Matt Ball

Matt Ball

Matt has been promoting the application of sensors, systems, models and simulation for the better stewardship of our planet for the past fifteen years. The first ten years of that span were as editor of GeoWorld magazine and show manager of the GeoTec Event. The past five have been as a founder of Vector1 Media, with publications Sensors & Systems, Informed Infrastructure and Asia Surveying & Mapping. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.