In summary, it is this: “Over the last several years, the rise of service-based GIS has dramatically changed how and where GIS technology is used. GIS has evolved from a project-oriented analytic and modeling technology used by highly trained technicians to a platform technology providing critical real-time information to hundreds or potentially thousands of users and consumers simultaneously.”
The goal in using GIS needs to be to get to the next level of “automatically and seamlessly” incorporating other technologies into the creation of a better situational awareness picture. I do think that this is where, when and if you can, you should hire GIS-capable personnel who have been exposed to the broader capabilities of GIS technology when coming out of higher education or technology training. However, as they point out in the blog post, not every college or university is teaching these concepts.
The end result is this: “Unfortunately, these robust capabilities are not well understood by many executives, managers or operations personnel. GIS’s legacy reputation for being exceedingly complicated and requiring specially trained personnel is still how many think of it. In addition, many folks do not realize that GIS can integrate and work with other non-GIS supporting technologies.”
They promise a follow-up blog post that speaks to potential solutions. I’m waiting for it!
