Google Geospatial Technologist: “The End of GIS?”

I ran across an opinion piece entitle “The creative Destruction of GIS” by Ed Parsons, a Geospatial Technologist at Google, published online by GIS Development. I have to admit that when I first scanned the piece, my face crinkled up with the “whhhhaaaaat?” sort of look.

For a common frame of reference, you might want to click here and browse/read the article first before reading the rest of my column. I suppose its taboo to reference narrative in a competitive publication, but I was never one to follow the rules especially if I think the reader will benefit from the interaction.

First off, I don’t know Ed and have never met him. He seems like a knowledgeable gent and from his bio, one can see he’s spent a fair amount of time in the geospatial industry. A friend of mine asked for my thoughts on his piece and I’ve seen it referenced in one or two other places so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

After reading the article more thoroughly, it’s truly a sheep in wolf’s clothing (as opposed to the popular “wolf in sheep’s clothing”). Yes, its bark is worse than its bite. My guess is that an editor got a hold of the piece and inserted the eye-catching title “The creative destruction of GIS” and subtitles “The end of GIS?” and “The post-GIS future”.

No Chicken Little, the GIS sky is not falling.

To his credit, Ed paints a pretty good picture of the infancy of web publishing and Location-Based Services (LBS). But before we go there, let’s set the record straight about GIS. I think Ed wrote it just right:

“…GIS, as described previously, is and will remain the domain of specialists,…”

and

“GIS as we recognise it today will not disappear.”

I agree. The GIS industry, as we know it, is not going anywhere soon. It’s going to continue its moderate and healthy annual double-digit growth rate (save a few economic speed bumps along the way). The same software makers, in general, will dominate the GIS market and serve as a platform on which GIS’s are built for: fed/state/local government, natural resources, utilities, armed forces, transportation, engineering/surveying, yada, yada, yada.

“What do these broad trends mean for the future of GIS? The focus of the industry is moving away for the creation/ maintenance of geospatial information to its exploitation.”

Reading the above quote in his piece is one part where my face got a little crinkly. I beg to differ with that statement and here’s why…

If my kids asked me which career has significant upside in the next ten years, I’d say GIS makes the list. What’s my claim based on? [Big sigh]….there is so much ground that GIS hasn’t covered yet; the industry is just beginning to mess around with 3D, the much-needed surveying+GIS collaboration has really just begun, and soooooo many paper records are still waiting to be entered into a GIS. The list is very extensive. On top of that, data collection technologies like remote sensing and GPS are improving substantially so better quality data will continue to be introduced. Of course, GIS is the engine and data is the fuel. We’ve got some pretty good engines available to us, but we are still lacking for fuel. Data is the name of the game so the idea that the industry is moving away from data creation and maintenance is a little absurd to me.

In my opinion, data is the future of GIS. I’ll use the GPS analogy to illustrate this. When GPS was invented in the early 1970’s, the military creators never envisioned how it is being used today. Never in their wildest dreams did they think that civilian engineers would figure out a way to tap into the signal intended only for military users and be able to design a small GPS receiver that can deliver cm-level positioning in real-time. Similarly, ten years from now GIS will be used in ways we can’t envision today. The difference and what makes GIS more dynamic than GPS is that fundamentally, the GPS infrastructure hasn’t changed much in the last 15 years. Yes, there are new satellites and the L2C signal, but the change has been relatively small. Mind you, the user side of GPS has changed a lot.

That’s not so for GIS. The GIS infrastructure (GIS software tools) has changed significantly as well as tools for the user side of GIS…and they will continue to change. In the coming years, new GIS tools will be developed, new data will be harness and new GIS applications will be developed. Just think about it…the United States, one of the most developed nations in the world, doesn’t even have a complete land record (parcel) database in a GIS yet and many local governments are still years away from it. Hi-resolution elevation contours? Not a chance. Just yesterday, I was searching for 2 foot contours of a 150 acre parcel (a park) in a major metropolitan area. Nothing. The best they made available to the public were 100’ contours in a pdf map. Mind you, I’m sure they had much better data in-house so part of the problem is data sharing policy but I really doubt they have 2 foot contour lines of the parcel. Just think of the analysis (eg. drainage) that could be done if 6” contours were available for every park, open space and developed area within a country. The good news is that it’s just a matter of time before that kind of detailed data is generated and available.

Regarding web publishing and Location-Base Services (LBS), these are two areas that will go crazy. I’ve written quite a bit about LBS in the past. It’s a blank slate at this point and there’s a ton of entreprenurial energy being expended to find the sweet spots. Rest assured there will be many. But that’s not much to do with the future of GIS as we know it. Yes, serving GIS data to the public in a usable format is valuable and growing, but that’s not what Ed is writing about. What Ed’s piece really needs is to be separated from the GIS discussion. Web publishing and LBS for Joe Consumer is a huge topic and worthy of Google chasing after those segments, not GIS.