Your GIS peers (still) want to be your best friend
As I look forward to attending another Esri UC, I looked back at some of my previous blog posts and thought about the many great ideas that conference ALWAYS offers. As always, I am looking forward to the plenary session, which is filled with the latest Esri tools and a huge number of organizations that are making a difference through their use of GIS solutions. I love to attend the opening of the Map Gallery with the latest projects and of course, the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that focus on the latest work by government GIS users.
As always, I know there will be inspiring people to talk with. And, at the Hyland booth, we’ll have inspiring conversations about the power of the Esri ArcGIS platform and how carrying that forward with a content services platform has even more impact. It’s interesting when experts get together and have conversations about two essential technologies – GIS and content services – and imagine how organizations can benefit from them.
Here are some of the key conversations I Iook forward to having with Esri UC 2018 attendees.
Use that data
So many of the conversations begin with “I have this data set …” and end with how to further leverage the data that drives all GIS applications. It’s important to avoid retyping data, especially for the people in an organization that might not realize the extensive data that’s behind the maps they use every day.
As a content services professional, I think of the documents that overwhelm organizations, but GIS professionals live and breathe data. By integrating GIS and content services, both platforms can harness those types of information to deliver more value to an organization.
Use a map, please!
With OnBase 18, it’s easier than ever to deliver a map to a peer who might not normally use Esri. Beyond that, being able to geo-code documents and add them to a map that your GIS peer has produced puts those maps – and all the useful documents – in the hands of even more staff.
This is always an interesting topic for many of our booth visitors at Esri UC, especially given that data is so often trapped in paper documents and an organization may not have the time and staff to transfer to a data set in the traditional way. Being able to bring those documents to the map in an interface that a non-GIS person can manage means that everyone can use a map.
And, the map is more powerful for the completeness of the data behind it.
Use the data, redux
Fieldwork will also be a hot topic. As I mentioned above, attendees are looking for ways to leverage their GIS data, so the conversation will focus on using their maps on mobile devices – something that Esri ArcGIS easily supports.
I love watching people’s faces when we discuss how to take data from their maps and pre-populate electronic forms. Electronic forms can help them move away from paper and the tasks associated with it – printing, copying, updating.
But, more importantly, leveraging their data to pre-populate forms vastly improves the user experience for staff considering the move from paper to tablet-based input during fieldwork. The speed of completing forms using a tablet is incredible and increases the value of the data sets they spend years collecting.
Join the conversation in booth 1114
As I’ve seen over the years, nothing slows down Esri UC attendees’ efforts to use the Esri platform to improve the work of their organizations. My conversations with them show they are searching for other platforms that can use the data driving their GIS applications, because they want to deliver more value for themselves and their peers. And I’ll be there evangelizing how GIS and content services help each other, increasing the value delivered by the two platforms, leveraging the data just as attendees hope.
Your GIS peers want to be your best friend and they want their data to help you be more productive.
What will I learn during these conversations at UC 2018? I can’t wait to find out.
Stop by to join the conversation at booth 1114!
- It’s one thing to have a plan, and another thing to deliver value - 10/14/2020
- The quest for alignment - 09/16/2020
- Getting strategic: Why you need a strategic workshop - 02/17/2020
