I tried this GIS analogy on several visitors to our booth at the 93rd Annual New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJSLOM) show in Atlantic City earlier this week. Not sure how well it worked for my sales – I’ll get back to you on that (maybe). But the analogy is near-perfect.

Some background: About two months ago I mused on this blog about the economics of GIS, particularly on how the current economic downturn would affect GIS spending. Is GIS spending elastic, like air travel? Or is it inelastic, like toilet paper?

My friend and colleague Chris McClain suggested that GIS is like toilet paper on a plane, and I became instantly jealous of him for not having thought of this myself. Indeed, as a GIS system owner, one is already on a plane. Maybe you even own the plane. It only makes sense to get enough supplies to last you during the entire flight.

Back to the NJSLOM show. We saw lots of traffic, as we do every year. We spoke to more people who knew what GIS was than ever before. Yet with reduced municipal budgets, there were many lookers but few takers.