Today, November 16th, is 'GIS Day'! Happy GIS Day! This means we're in the middle of the Geography Awareness Week.
From the GIS Day website: "From Aruba to Thailand, from Hong Kong to Pakistan, GIS Day events are scheduled to be held in 48 U.S. states and 66 countries around the world. Find an event near you."
From the GAW website: "This year’s Geography Awareness Week theme promotes the idea that the geographic perspective is an important way to understand every community—no matter what size, or how long or briefly one has been a part of it."
To my surprise, I haven't found much this year on the geoblogs about GIS Day. Maybe it's because they are mostly targeting kids? I'd say geography and geospatial concerns us all as citizens and human beings.
I see two reasons it's not on many geo-blogs incl. mine:
- geo-fatigue, we're flat out pushing GIS into the community and this is jut another thing to do
- blending in, GIS isn't such a big deal any more with Google and BING, and that is good, really
I once said Mercedes Benz thought the automobile market would be limited by the number of available chauffeurs, until a certain Henry Ford came along. Once chauffeurs polished their horseless carriages they crank-started. Today no one knows or cares today how a starter works, and by the way it's the push of a button. Even as we roll up beautiful maps, no-one knows or cares what map it is on their device as long as they find that coffee shop.
You have an interesting point. Maybe "GIS Day" should focus more on "geography" or "geospatial" than on GIS, which is a bit narrow and not sexy nowadays. GIS Day is part of the Geography Awareness Week. How can we not be in favor of geography? 😉
Maybe it's also a sign that geospatial isn't special anymore? That would be a Good Thing ™ like you point out, since it means that it's ubiquitous and widely used.
Hopefully, we still need geospatial experts, developers and visionaries - we're not out of work just yet 😉
Agreed Alex… Remember how word processing was going to put pulp&paper, publishing and writing industries all out of business in the mid eighties? Until the trio = Apple Mac + Aldus Page Maker + HP Laser Jet came along, that is! Likewise GI is morphing and becoming more ubiquitous, with Apple and Esri acquiring 3D shops on the closed side, and the amazing proliferation of platforms on the open side. @ issue however is how do business models evolve, and how do we keep making money, ergo keep it sustainable on both sides of the equation? That is the real issue that detracts from ra-ra celebrations!