This morning I was thinking about some seemingly disparate topics. One is that there are an awful lot of companies doing holiday themed maps, presumably to both have fun and show off their software capabilities. For example, here’s a turkey map just in time for Thanksgiving, from Esri:
There was also a Halloween themed map showing scary place names, a map showing the best neighborhoods to trick or treat (from the Census questions pertaining to neighborhood walkability within one mile), and so on. There are non-map examples of this too. Merriam Webster often has special articles showcasing words applicable to certain holidays.
Another one of my thoughts this morning was about the fact that there is a lot of geo data right now. It used to be that most of the GIS project work was focused on collection of data and analysis was almost an afterthought. But now, with many government organizations collecting more and better data and sharing it with the public in easily accessible ways (Census, USGS, etc.) and more companies putting together data in ways that make it easy to have a basemap or to analyze all kinds of data (Urban Mapping, GeoCommons, Esri, Natural Earth to name just a few), we are at a great place to start analyzing that data in more meaningful ways. I’m not saying the era of geo data collection is over. That’s still going to be going on for a long time. I’m just saying that there’s now a bunch of data out there that is just begging for some sense to be made out of it.
These two thoughts were turning around in my head, leading to this idea: we’re going to see people focusing exclusively on geo data analysis in the future. Perhaps they will be called cartographic statisticians.
These people will no longer concern themselves at all with collection of data or spending time finding data. They’ll be working with existing data catalogs full of variables that need to be examined in minute detail. These people will need both analytical skills and cartographic skills so that those results are effectively illustrated. Up until now most GIS jobs included GIS data collection and analysis. Sometimes they also included cartography and development (web development, software development). But this new niche that I really think will start to become more mainstream will focus only on analysis and cartography! Perhaps some would be turned off by the advanced statistics that would be required but some would embrace the challenge, I think. And, I do believe companies will hire for this type of position. We’ve already seen a bit of it in the marketing world (see tweets about turkey maps for example!) and we’ll definitely see more of it in government when this treasure-trove of data and its possibilities become more apparent.
One thing is for certain, it could be a very fun job. To have the creative freedom to just mash data together and determine correlations and perhaps even make a difference to any number of pressing social and environmental issues would make for an enjoyable career. Or maybe that’s just me. What do you think?
#1 by Keith on November 3, 2011 - 1:55 pm
Absolutely. I can imagine a lot of cool visualizations with the right statistical minds behind them.
One of the roadblocks I see to this, however, is the technical aptitude necessary to interact with the available data APIs. The statisticians whom I know are savvy with languages such as R or SAS, but don’t know the first thing about how to interact with RESTful services (or the like) or even what they are. Most don’t even care. Other good data visualization folks I know are in the same boat. They may have some technical knowledge but lack the specific web programming experience they need to get and manipulate this data.
What would be great is to start seeing applications built over these services to allow the people who can really show off the data to do so. Or, alternatively, get the statistician, visualization expert, and web programmer in the same room talking the same language.
Keith