In the past weeks there has been a good deal of discussion on the GIS community and communication. There has been numerous comments and blog postings all pertaining to this topic (including one I missed a couple of weeks ago from slashgeo). When I started this series of postings, I was just curious how other GIS professionals perceived the notion of a GIS community. In this post I would like to highlight what I consider to be the “take away” points from this discussion and offer my final thoughts.

Take Away Points - Big Ideas Gleaned from the “Community” Discussion

I have tried to outline the main points raised from this discussion. I am sure I have missed a few, I just tried to hit the big ones. Let me know if there is a major point I am missing.

     
  • The GIS Community represents an “Archipelago of GIS” as Bouwman puts it. Differentiation is the key term here as the GIS community appears to resemble islands of specialization.
  • Sites like planetGeospatial and blinkgeo are important methods of delivery and sources of communication. I still have some issue with this one, but a good deal of the people who have commented have placed an importance on RSS aggregators as prime mediums for communication message distribution. I still believe there needs to be more development and adoption of community portal(s) supporting forums and user submitted content.
  • Culture must be considered when talking about communication (See vector ones article).
  • I really liked vector one’s idea on fostering mentors within our community. Not sure how it would work, but I really like the idea.
  • Online conceptualization of “community” while concurrently the fields of GIS is maturing. With this maturation has come an onslaught of differentiation. As GIS matures, the individuals within the GIS community need to continue to work, to foster bidirectional communication and to grow with the medium within which we work.
  • Things take time. This sorta crosses over the other items above, but as GIS grows, it will take time for a larger group to emerge, with a greater social and/or community conscience.
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    Conclusion and Final Thoughts

    Be it good or bad, this appears to be the case. As the community grows hopefully our methods and abilities to communicate with each other grow as well. The most important thing moving forward is a continued drive to foster greater communication, even if it is just within our own geospatial specialty islands. I think the reason people have found an interest in this topic recently, is that we are all at a point where we realize there is something more to this concept of “GIS community”. Maybe this is not GIS community specific, but more of a cultural internet transformation, transforming how we as a society communicate with each other.

    I feel by having this discussion my eyes have been opened to a different way of thinking about community. I don’t want to beat a dead horse as the saying goes, but I did want to put some conclusion to this discussion. I am sure there will be other issues that will be raised and I might, and probably will , even blog about these related issues, maybe on a smaller scale, things very specific to the environments I work in. Not to say I am giving up on the idea of one GIS community, but I am accepting a different interpretation of that community. I plan on continuing to foster discussions that will hopefully provide positive food for thought about our community and post on these and other related topics. Your thoughts?

    Talk Hard!!!