Janel and colleagues, With all due respect, I personally do not see this as “gorilla marketing”, but rather a healthy discussion/debate with a poignant observation. (and purchasing gorillas for private ownership is illegal in most places anyway) If I may, let’s look at the wise words of “Uncle Jack” (I mean no disrespect Mr. Dangermond, if you are reading this…). He said in an address at the 2013 Esri International User Conference, “At the same time, GIS is transforming, and this is very exciting to us. It's totally transforming into a web GIS, and its leveraging all this stuff. It's leveraging faster machines. It's leveraging the web and the cloud, and big data, and all those big trends. We're taking advantage of that. And it's also integrating all of the new measurement stuff - advancing GIS with remote sensing, GPS, and 3D...and all those things that we are evolving along. Also integration with pervasive information, all that's on the web. And what's emerging is a new little pattern. It's a pattern of apps that make cool maps, that do analytics, that provide pervasive access to your work...that support content management better and go online with content, and more collaboration, and why? Well, what does this mean? GIS is getting easier, it's getting more accessible, dramatically, and it's becoming social…I simply want to start off this meeting by saying, wow, we suddenly have a different kind of GIS, and a very exciting one.” I think he hits the nail on the head and I agree with Mr. Smith- GIS is transforming. You can try to fight the wave, but be aware you may be swept away by it. It may prove useful to learn to swim in the current! Kind regards, Thad Thad J. Dymkowski, GISP GIS Technician Town of Newington, CT Phone: (860) 665-8592 "If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor." ~Albert Einstein From: Northeast Arc Users Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Smith, Michael Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 9:34 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Splitting, Expanding, Maturing, Polarizing .... GIS is Changing OK I don’t see why we need to characterize this as splitting, polarizing, etc. Is it not just a continued evolution of GIS on its natural path? 25 years ago we were all sitting at digitizing tables and everyone came to us for maps. Today we provide digital data and support services and applications that ‘can’ certain GIS analyses. There are people all over the GIS spectrum, some old AML diehards who still use ArcEdit (even me every now and then!), sophisticated web programmers who just include certain geospatial services in their otherwise non-GIS apps, any number of biologist, hydrologist, geologist, other_ologist who uses GIS as a tool in their regular job. I don’t see splits and polarization – that’s only there if you envision it there. Change, maturation, expansion – absolutely. But I think we’re all a pretty big happy family, we geo-geeks (regardless of what flavor you are). Now if we can just everyone in D.C. to work together… =============================== Michael Smith MS GISP State GIS Manager, Maine Office of GIS State of Maine, Office of Information Technology michael.smith _at_ maine.gov 207-215-5530 Board Member, Maine GeoLibrary Education Chair, Maine GIS Users Group State Rep, National States Geographic Information Council [cid:[log in to unmask]] State House Station 145 51 Commerce Drive Augusta, ME 04333-0145 69o 47' 58.9"W 44o 21' 54.8"N From: Northeast Arc Users Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matt Sheehan Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2014 9:25 AM To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Splitting, Expanding, Maturing, Polarizing .... GIS is Changing Just to continue the conversation around changes in our industry. I recently used the word splitting, Joe at Directions Magazine prefers expanding. Joseph Berry questions our narrow terminology. There seems little doubt we are seeing the emergence of two communities "new" and "old". I've pulled more of this widening discussion together in the following blog post: http://www.webmapsolutions.com/splitting-expanding-maturing-polarizing-gis-is-changing The responses to this conversation have been many and varied. Please feel free to pitch in and provide your thoughts. Thanks --Matt Matt Sheehan | WebMapSolutions Mobile: 801-733-0723 | Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list (NEARC-L) is an unmoderated discussion list for all NEARC Users. If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from this list, you can remove yourself by going to http://listserv.uconn.edu/nearc-l.html. ******************************************************************************************* The information contained in this electronic message may be confidential and/or privileged. 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