Are you a ‘pissed-off GIS user’?

And who is this pissed-off GIS guy?

The future ‘angry GIS user’ is usually a young person who learned a little about GIS during their studies (sometimes even very well). They went to work for a company where GIS was not used (at most, work on geoportals + Excel). The future ‘angry GIS user’ first widened their eyes and said, ‘But this can be done completely differently!’.

 

 

And so he did. He installed QGIS, learned how to use it on YouTube or Udemy, cleaned up the data, created some projects, and showed them to his colleagues. He became a GIS specialist.

Everyone was very pleased and agreed that QGIS is the way to go!
The GIS specialist organised an internal training session, showed everyone QGIS, and… it began.

It turned out that the barrier to entry for people who are not familiar with GIS is too high (data formats, coordinate systems, etc.). The training did not catch on.

It was agreed that the GIS specialist (mostly in addition to their normal duties) would be a one-person GIS department, preparing data, creating maps (in PDF, of course!) and summaries (in xlsx, of course!). And so the GIS specialist began to receive a few, then dozens of emails a day asking for information on whether there was a local zoning plan for a given area, whether it was a floodplain, or asking for a ‘quick map’ to be made for a presentation…

Anger begins to build up. It often turns into frustration…

How does this story end?

Ending #1: The GIS guy leaves (because he’s fed up with his job) and leaves the company in disarray. A variation on this ending is that the GIS guy stays and takes the company hostage. I don’t know which is worse.

Ending No. 2: The GIS specialist, with the support of the Manager, implements a GIS System in their company (preferably based on Usemaps). The GIS specialist becomes the system administrator, primarily working in QGIS, maintaining data and procedures, while every person in the company receives access to data and tools in their preferred environment (desktop, web, mobile). Training sessions are brief and focus only on essential procedures (entering a new contract, analyzing a plot, adding a network segment, generating a report).

If you are an annoyed GIS specialist, or feel that if you receive one more request for a map in PDF format, you will become one, blink twice and we will contact you. Or send us a message and we will help you 😎