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GIS / Lidar – To Be – or Not to Be Focused

By Vector One ⋅ May 4, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Gene writes on the Lidar News Blog about ESRI – “A tremendous accomplishment on the one hand, but at the same time perhaps they were far too focused on the core technology to see how it could be much more widely applied.”

I disagree with this statement.

My observation is that much of ESRI’s success can be directly attributed to focusing on the core technology. In fact, when I have heard Keith Bentley of Bentley Systems, Incorporated talk about MicroStation, he talks about the ‘platform‘ and the concept that everything – everything – extends from that. When I look at Autodesk Geospatial I see this – a system of components that combine to support the efficient leveraging of spatial data – a focused approach. Cadcorp is focused on interoperability and MapInfo on business intelligence.

In each one of these cases, the depth of user knowledge about how to apply the core technologies – is significantly and directly attributable to the educational material associated with the product. Dumping technology into the marketplace does not help people to understand how to apply it, education does.

Some people think it can be like riding a bike, you just get on it and go. Part true, but not fully. Those who excel at cycling are taught and trained to race.

Most of the problems we face today are complex. Solving health, defense, environmental, energy and water quality issues requires some understanding of the nature of the problems at hand. There are different ways of going about the journey to the solution, but helping people to understand both how technology functions and can be applied, is critical to leveraging tools successfully toward solutions.

In almost all cases in the geospatial industry, those achieving the greatest success are investing money, time and effort into training and education. It goes without saying, they seem to also be discussing the important issues of the day and how they might get resolved.

Focusing on excellence in technology and coupling that to education is a sure fire way to succeed.