A New Era for Geography
We, as an industry, dedicate a significant amount of time talking about what we could name our core activity: Geographic Information Systems, Location Intelligence, Location Analytics, Geospatial, (…), the list goes on and on.
I believe that all these are better represented with a stronger name: Geography. Just because it’s done with technology, it doesn’t mean that it’s something completely different. Somehow, Geography tends to be placed backstage, related to Academia and History, when, in my opinion, it should be at the forefront. It’s from Geography that we get the secret engine to help understand what’s happening around us, what are the causes, and how phenomena evolve across the territory.
We are on the verge of a new era for Geography. Somehow, an ongoing process has been moving in different directions – and therefore - spreading the power of Geography in different activities. Why? A combination of factors collides to create the “perfect storm”: More data, more accuracy, more suitable technological environment (cloud), more awareness regarding maps, and, finally, very important, more complex business challenges to solve.
In war times, people pay more attention to maps. It’s almost a natural instinct to try to see what’s happening, even if it’s far away from our home. The startup Keyhole got their break when their technology was used by CNN, showing satellite imagery from the locations of the war in Iraq. It leads to Google acquiring them in 2004 and creating the success story we know so far. The impact of Google Maps was (and is) overwhelming, it brought geographic information and maps to an unimaginable level of massification, never achieved before, being used in all sorts of circumstances and apps. It also leads the way for more mapping companies to appear and blend their activity with mainstream organizations.
An important part of the GIS world looked at Google Maps with some disbelief and classified it as a fun thing, far from their traditional universe of complex processes and tools. Experts tend to protect their knowledge, frequently stating that a GIS analysis should be done by a GIS expert only.
With the pandemic, we observe the same trend, with maps getting a lot of attention: I risk to say that in the last year, there were no news programs that didn’t show a Covid evolution map, either from their respective country or the world.
Mapidea is not one of those companies. Similar to when Google Maps appeared, we are very happy to see maps being used to communicate, raise awareness and change behaviors in order to save lives. We don’t feel that these types of maps should only be done by experts.
For some complex analyses and processes, GIS expertise is required, but there is space for a symbiotic relationship between complexity and simple use cases. We are working at the forefront of simplification, making it easy to explore data using Geography.
Both groups have benefited from this strategy: GIS experts can stop responding to repetitive requests that are time-consuming and focus on more challenging tasks, while the rest of the organization, that may not have GIS expertise, can find answers on a self-service basis, performing simple tasks like spatial filters, some spatial calculations or creating thematic maps. And there is nothing closer to the reality that we can have in a meeting room than a map. It’s the natural environment for data to breathe, to express itself, and for users to discover relations and patterns that would go unnoticed if simply observed on a spreadsheet or a chart.
Interesting times to be working in this industry, with emerging new players with different value propositions. One thing is certain: Geography is the backbone of them all and at Mapidea, we are looking forward to the new Era.
