Q: How is a GIS professional like a maxillofacial surgeon?
A: The general public has no idea what either one does, but would readily pay the surgeon 10 times more.
I just came up with this. Funny much? Didn’t think so.
A new All Points Blog entry popped in my RSS reader as I was in the middle of drafting a blog post on marine navigation (temporarily put on hold in favor of this one). Actually, on the disconnect between what the GIS industry produces and the general public’s awareness thereof, with marine navigation technology as a setting. The APB entry is about GIS for cemeteries. Different setting, same phenomenon.
This got me thinking: Why the disconnect? Why does The Real World seem to care so little about what we GIS folks do? It must be either because we GIS folks are horrible marketers, or because what we do isn’t all that interesting beyond our own immediate circle.
I submit it is both, with a heavy emphasis on the latter.
Consider this: my friend John Reiser spent a month of his own time on a fancy and sophisticated web GIS implementation showing urban growth and open space loss in New Jersey from 1986 through 2007. The local (NJ) press didn’t even give him a mention, or a link to the project website (they wrote up the project, though).
Or consider this: James Fee, one of the most-popular and widely respected GIS tweeple, has 1,496 followers. By comparison, Lindsay Lohan’s ankle bracelet has a Twitter account with 3,072 followers and 10 tweets. Not Lindsay herself – the bracelet!!! Kanye West jumped on Twitter yesterday, and already has 302,539 followers. It’s not that there is a disparity – it’s the *magnitude* of that disparity that’s hard to grasp.
I don’t have a good closing. I’ll just stop here.
Posted by Atanas Entchev at 7/30/2010 1:16 PM 
Categories: Culture, blog, New Jersey, GIS, NJ, profession, Online Mapping, funny, Twitter, technology
Tags: Culture profession blog funny Kanye West NJ GIS Online Mapping Lindsay Lohan Twitter John Reiser technology New Jersey
Categories: Culture, blog, New Jersey, GIS, NJ, profession, Online Mapping, funny, Twitter, technology
Tags: Culture profession blog funny Kanye West NJ GIS Online Mapping Lindsay Lohan Twitter John Reiser technology New Jersey
Interesting stuff, even for a non-techie like me.
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Thanks for the mention and link. The fact that they did not link to the report (or the website, which was designed to resonate with the non-GIS, non-planning general public) is that they don't "get it." And I don't think it's the author of the articles, it's the mindset of mass media: it's got to appeal to all. So, water it down. The problem is that when you take any specialized report, oversimplify it and then publicize the dumbed down version, you leave the original research open to attacks that have no real relationship to the body of work. Our report has already been commented on by some as proof of the ills of affordable housing. Huh?
GIS suffers from this all the time. If there isn't a sufficient narrative accompanying the data or a clear legend and statement accompanying a map, the work is twisted or misunderstood. If academics and GIS practitioners worked like the paparazzi, we'd get all the attention we desire because "X causes cancer" or "New Jersey will be paved over tomorrow" are sensational statements that are easy to toss about. We'd all be worse off for it. We're supposed to be the "experts" not the "celebrities."
You can be assured that if James ever gets as big as an Andres Duany, Zaha Hadid or Richard Florida, you know to start taking everything he says with a grain of salt.
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I do not covet Lindsay Lohan's ankle bracelet's Twitter followers. But I do believe that by elevating the public image of the GIS profession everyone (not just us GISers) will win. We perform advanced analyses using sophisticated technologies which is on par with what Gregory House does. Yet we don't get the public recognition and reward. To a large degree because nobody knows what we do.
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First off, House is a fictional character. Temperance Brennan, the fictional anthropologist in Bones is, along with House, a perfect example of why your field doesn't want mainstream attention. It waters down the science into science-theater. I already have to talk people down from the rafters when they think I can zoom in on their license plates using Google Earth because they saw something similar in Enemy of the State. Not all attention is positive.
I would love for GIS to have the buzz surrounding it, especially for our enrollment at the University. Most of our Geography majors are sophomores, juniors and even seniors when they switch to the major. Our Environmental Studies program has many freshman, however many of them have blinders on as they progress through the courses (many of which are Geography-taught) and they focus on getting a degree with the word "environment" on it because "that's what employers are looking for."
I'd gladly take the robe-laden, candle-lit secret society days of just a few years ago than a GIS culture of "everybody can make maps - it's okay that you don't know what you're doing." Maybe we need more respect, but we don't want the spotlight.
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All I'm saying is the level of compensation in our field is not commensurate with either the sophistication of skill, or the benefit to society. Exposure and heightened public awareness (both through media and professional organizations' efforts) can go a long way towards fixing this inequality.
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Financial compensation? I think that some GIS folks are probably underpaid (public sector) and there are some likely overpaid. On the whole, do you feel that we are not adequately compensated financially? I think you're right about the amount of respect. While I alluded to the "dark robes, secret order" days of the past, we may now be seen as just "IT" or "computer" people by non-technical coworkers. I've had to deal with that in every job. "No, I don't fix the copier. Call someone else." That perception of us needs to change.
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Overpaid or underpaid relative to what? To some universally accepted pecking order of professions?
Who and how established this pecking order is what I want to know. More importantly, how do we change it?
Why is it universally-accepted that a lawyer should be better compensated than a GIS professional? Because they went to a better school? Because they got more schooling? Because they wear a suit? Because their contributions to society are more valuable?
Or because what the public sees us do is "just mapping?"
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From a comment in another thread which I believe is spot-on:
"Well, my take on this is that the oral surgeon doesn't market himself as a skilled knife-wielder - instead he's getting paid for solving your health problem."
http://forum.manifold.net/forum/t101336.3
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We, as a community, need to be aware of how GIS is used in the mainstream media. We suffer if we comes across as technobabble or as something so easy that it becomes inconsequential.
We'll become this in the minds of the public: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
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