Once upon a map

Duration:     0:23:15

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Voiceover:             The Spatial Jam, an Esri UK podcast.

(Music)

Beth:                      GIS is taking the world by stealth,

Elleni:                    Answered the question to the ‘perfect where’.

Alasdair:                I’m getting suspicious about the relationship between GIS and your stomachs. It’s definitely a theme for this episode, isn’t it?

Sam:                      Hi everyone, and welcome to the Spatial Jam podcast, thanks so much for joining us today for our very first episode. Hopefully you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it.

My name is Sam Bark, and I am a cartographer at Esri UK. And today, I am joined by my three other co-hosts.

Beth:                      Hi, I’m Beth Adams, content product manager.

Elleni:                    Hi, I’m Elleni Rogers. I’m the industry lead for utilities and telecoms.

Alasdair:                Hello, I’m Alasdair Hind, product comms technical lead.

We’re really excited that you’re joining the four of us in this new conversation about GIS and all things spatial.

Beth:                      We’ll be sharing some of our top tips and favourite examples of GIS in action. We’ll also be inviting guests in to take us deeper into the technology and to share their GIS stories.

Elleni:                    So, you’re welcome to just listen, but we also hope you’ll join in and pass this on to colleagues. You can also get in touch with us and let us know what you think and what you’d like to hear about in future episodes, so look out for the email at the end of this recording.

Sam:                      To kick off this first episode, we wanted to take a deeper dive into GIS and discover how each of our journeys have influenced us over the years. One of the amazing things about GIS is how much it has evolved since it was born, which you know, we’re now seeing some fascinating uses of it today.

So, my first question is, has GIS come of age?

Alasdair:                Very good question, Sam, very pertinent. I think that you could make a pretty good case for it having come of age. And I think for me, one of the things that I’ve noticed as a trend in the last few years, is the return of maps to the news. They kind of disappeared for a while, we became less geographically concerned in the way news was presented, but that’s definitely come back.

Can’t talk about the news at the moment without it kind of turning back to the coronavirus pandemic, and that’s become very spatially driven. You know, it’s unfolded as a global pandemic, we watched it progressing, kind of country by country.

But also, the way it has been followed within the UK and the way it’s been managed, that’s been done on a region-by-region basis. And if you want to try and understand what’s going on nationally, you’ve got to start looking at that spatial pattern. It’s an unfortunate mechanism for driving GIS into the public conscious, but I think that’s definitely kind of part of why you could make that case for GIS coming of age.

Sam:                      Yeah, we’ve seen some really interesting infographics and maps for displaying COVID information and I think it’s one of the keyways of presenting on a spatial level and people understand it a lot more based on their region, where they live and I think it’s been yeah, really important to see those kinds of maps.

Elleni:                    And there’s been a huge change, I think, not just in the way that people use maps and see spatial information in light of the pandemic, but the way in which the pandemic has actually impacted the way that we behave as well, on a global scale.

And going back to your question, Sam, you know, has GIS come of age? I think it’s such an interesting question, and how I would put it is, has GIS come to a point now where it’s almost impossible to operate without it?

And one of the things that I really enjoyed learning about the impacts of the pandemic, was how much people were ordering food online, of course to protect themselves, having that convenience of food and beverages being delivered to your home in often minutes if you were getting it from a food delivery service.

And what’s fascinating about that, is they are using GIS hour by hour to understand, what is the best way of routing their drivers to get food to people quickly? Especially when demand has gone up rapidly.

And actually, Beth, you sent me a really great article the other day by Esri, which was talking about this and talking about how they reckon that the internet retail category for food and beverages will be the fastest growing e-commerce category by far in the next four to five years, which is just incredible.

Sam:                      That’s really interesting.

Beth:                      I also did research into the Same thing, but more just from a receiving food point of view, just for research purposes, obviously, as I’m sure we all did.

Elleni:                    (Laughter)

Beth:                      But I think really, GIS is taking the world by stealth. Like if you asked friends, family, do you do GIS? They’ll be like, “Uh, what? What is that?” But they’re using apps on their phones, they’re looking at maps on the news, as we were talking about earlier. Everyone is using it, they just don’t realise they are and it’s really coming of age in that respect, in that it’s there, but people just don’t know about it as a concept of GIS.

So, it’s probably the best way for it to really get through the population, is people just don’t know they’re using it, but they are inherently doing so, just in everyday life.

Alasdair:                I think that’s a really interesting way of looking at it, Beth.

And I think, thinking about what I was saying about maps in the news, maybe part of the reason why maps have become a good vehicle for the news again, is because as a nation we are all becoming a bit more map literate and a bit more comfortable with maps because they have crept into our takeaway habits, and how we find our way to places using satnavs and all those stealth things that you were talking about.

Sam:                      And I guess that kind of leads into my next thought, or the next question to everyone, and that was, I was thinking about how often we have to explain what GIS is to someone. You know, within the industry, everyone kind of knows what GIS is and have their own relationship with it.

But obviously, explaining to someone outside of a GIS role, it can be quite difficult. And that was something that I was going to ask everyone today is, you know, how do you explain GIS to someone?

And I know from personal experience, trying to explain GIS to my mum and dad has always been a bit of an uphill challenge. But I’ve found a quite nice, simplified version that is kind of layers of information on a map that just help you make a decision.

And typically, I kind of follow that up with a bit of an example of, “Imagine you’re a supermarket trying to decide where to build your next supermarket, and you’ve got, you know, five different pieces of information to pull together. And if you have it on a CSV document or something, you’re not going to be able to understand the spatial impact of that location.”

So hopefully, yeah, when I put it in those terms, they kind of understand it from a better perspective. But I was interested to know, you know, from everyone, what their definition of GIS was?

Elleni:                    Sam, I think you’ve stolen my exact example of how I would explain GIS to someone. It’s one of those ones that’s so universal, and people kind of get it. It’s something that everyone can understand and often I’ll start, when I meet someone new, or I’m talking to friends and family and they say, “What is it that you actually do, again? I can’t quite remember.”

And I often use the first sentence, which kind of pricks their ears, but they still get a bit confused, that is, “GIS is the tool that allows you to answer the question to ‘the perfect where?’” And often, that kind of gets them interested.

But then, I follow it up with exactly that, the supermarket example, or retail example, where I’m a new person opening up a new retail store to sell products.

I want to understand how many people are going to walk past my store, where are the transport links that will enable people to get to my store and allow my customers to become repeat customers? Where are the demographics for my target market? All of these sorts of things which GIS can ingest altogether, overlay it in a geographic context and help you to pinpoint that ‘perfect where’.

Alasdair:                I’m getting suspicious about the relationship between GIS and your stomachs, both you and Sam. (Laughter)

Elleni:                    (Laughter) Very important.

Alasdair:                Examples are all very food oriented here.

I guess it depends who I’m talking to a bit. I often start just by talking about it as digital mapping because again, I think that’s one of the kind of things that people see.

But sometimes I then, for me, I think part of what defines GIS and takes it beyond simple, digital mapping is that it’s about collecting, managing and using spatial data. So, data that has a geography. So, I usually try and find some way of talking about that.

I guess, as an example, the one that I tend to use is satnavs, or a location-based app on the phone. You know, people habitually use satnavs to find their way around when they’re in their cars. Yeah, they maybe use an app on their phone to know where they are or where they are in relation to something. And that’s all GIS in action, you know that’s something that they’re using GIS in an everyday setting.

Beth:                      I often get accused by my family of just colouring in maps all day, which I guess part of GIS is colouring in maps, but with a reason. You’re trying to provide something with wisdom at the end of it. So, you’re bringing in data, information, doing something with it to then provide an answer, or provide someone with the ability to create their own answer, to come up with the solution that they need.

But I think it is, it’s really difficult because people use apps and use GIS all the time, as we were saying earlier, and they don’t really realise it, so they don’t necessarily see it as a concept. They’re just like, “Oh that’s just the app, that’s just a satnav.” So, it can be difficult. But I think people are slowly starting to understand.

When my grandparents get it, that’ll be the point where we know I’ve actually managed to work out an actual explanation for them.

Alasdair:                So, is that when GIS has truly come of age is it, Beth?

Beth:                      Yes, that will be it.

Elleni:                    (Laughter) I think that’s the crux of why it’s so difficult to explain what GIS is, because it’s so all encompassing. Like you say, you know, we had so many examples of there, both me and Sam went for food. But Alasdair, you know, it’s mobile phones, it’s satnav, it’s GIS by stealth, it’s so far ranging in its capabilities, it is really hard to explain it, I think.

And I really like that analogy, Beth, that you used, “GIS by stealth”, and hopefully one day we’ll all be secret GIS nerds without really realising it. (Laughter)

Alasdair:                The other thing that I liked was the way a couple of you talked about, I suppose, mapping information to then enable decision making. And that actually, part of the end goal of GIS is to make better decisions, to make more informed decisions. Although, I’m also suspicious that for Sam it is just colouring in maps, isn’t it? As cartographer?

Sam:                      Just, yeah, I can’t really argue against that one. I guess that’s part of my role and that – Beth, I think you mentioned you know, about choosing the colours and stuff like that. And I think that’s when I come to talking about more of a cartography description than a GIS.

One of the examples is the London underground tube map. And I know yeah, obviously that’s spatial information, but I think it’s a really good way of explaining to someone the importance of a map, because how often do you use the tube map? Not just the London one, you know, metro systems around the world.

And if the design of that map is poor and you can’t navigate your way round it and the colours are too conflicting, you know, there’s so many elements to the design and the sort of data that goes behind it, that you kind of subconsciously absorb and you don’t even realise.

And I think you know, when I tell people, “You know, the tube map is GIS of sorts.” But I guess, as technology has evolved as well, we’ve had it more accessible, as you say, Alasdair, it’s in the news more frequently. It’s on our smart phones, which kind of you know, is an interesting point in itself and I’d be interested to know if you know, what are the key technologies that you’ve observed that have got us where we were to where we are now in GIS?

Elleni:                    Web GIS, I think has just absolutely changed the game for so many users of GIS in the industry nowadays. It’s no longer an application that you install on your desktop and you do in isolation, and you know, you figure out an answer to a problem using geographical information.

It’s now sharing that data publicly, through news stories so that more people can access it and comment on it, as well. Because I think, no map is perfect, as you say, Sam. You use colours to imply or convey information. But they can also be used in the wrong way, as well.

And I think, the most amazing observation for me, is that crowdsourcing of information with GIS that’s only been possible through the web and through the birth of the internet, really.

Alasdair:                I think you’re right, Elleni, I think the move to web GIS has been very transformative. And I think it’s really opened things up, the data becomes accessible, people can interact and comment on it.

And I think the other thing that sits alongside that in terms of that opening up of GIS and data and kind of delivering it across a broader community, has been the move to mobile phones. You know, now we all carry a computer around, a sophisticated computer around in our pockets. And not only that, but that computer has its own GPS built in, it’s hooked into knowing where on the planet it is.

So, suddenly that changes the way that we can work with spatial data and maps. And so then, there’s nothing unusual about people going out for a run or a bike ride and tracking that run in real time and then looking at it against a map, all on a small computer that’s gone with them.

That stuff is easy now, you know, it’s simple, it’s become the everyday. But you don’t have to go back that far, and I know that my kind of living memory goes back a little bit further than you guys, but you know, I literally grew up during the birth of personal computing. So, for me it still blows my mind that where we’ve got to in that time, you know, what used to be really difficult, tomorrow’s world style technology, it’s just become everyday.

Elleni:                    I think that’s a really important point, about taking the introduction of mobile phones and of web GIS, has taken GIS from the realms of just those GIS analysts and put it into the hands of everyday people. So, you know, before a GIS analyst would make a map, they’d print it out, they’d give it to some people to have a look at.

But now, they can create a web app, they can put it out onto someone’s mobile phone, and they can then look at it, share that information, gain wisdom from it and just putting it out into the world, like we were talking about. It’s stealth GIS, I tell you.

Beth:                      (Laughter)

Beth:                      Word of the day.

Sam:                      It’s creeping up on us.

 

Alasdair:                I think the other thing, sort of thinking about our own technology and the journey that ArcGIS has been on, you know, all of those things have been transformative. And I think, the other thing that’s kind of played into some of that and, particularly, you know, it’s one of the ways in which web GIS is now delivered through ArcGIS, is the cloud 0:16:36 computing and using hosted systems.

So, as an organisation now, if you sign up to ArcGIS online, you get access to all the opportunity of web GIS and mobile GIS without having to take care of any infrastructure. You don’t have to have servers and set up your own firewalls and all the kind of stuff that used to be involved just to begin to do some of the things that we talked about in terms of web GIS and mobile.

Sam:                      And it’s interesting to hear how, you know, we’ve all observed technology progressing to see where we are in GIS now. But actually, for our listeners today, I thought it would be quite interesting for them to hear how we’ve sort of – the journey that we’ve been on, to where we are today, how we’ve sort of ended up in the roles that we’re at, at Esri UK. And I just thought it would be quite a nice way to share a little bit of backstory for our GIS history.

So, Elleni, I didn’t know if you wanted to touch on, you know, how you’ve got to where you are today?

Elleni:                    GIS for me at least, arrived by stealth, funnily enough. (Laughter) Beth says it, it is true.

Alasdair:                It’s definitely a theme for this episode.

Elleni:                    It is a theme. (Laughter) Erm, no, I started at university doing a geography degree. I’ve always been someone that’s been quite passionate about, you know, climate change and solving those environmental issues, as I’m sure many people are today, hearing about it in the news.

But I had absolutely no idea what GIS was when I went to university, it was only by chance, it was one of the modules that we did, and I fell in love with it. Not to mention, it was something that was almost an art form, it was creative making these maps and choosing the colours for them and being able to convey data.

But it was also the fact that it was a computer programme, it was fun to do. I’ve always loved computers and gaming and things like that and working out how to solve a problem using a tool like that was fascinating for me.

And so, that kind of started my journey, and eventually I ended up, Esri UK, in a job that I love doing – exactly that, solving problems, but for the utility and telecom industry. So, it’s been a journey, but it definitely arrived by stealth. (Laughter)

Beth:                      Elleni, I think our journeys are quite similar, really. I came across GIS at university as well, having done quite a lot of remote sensing at university, stumbled across this thing called GIS, which to me seemed a world easier than remote sensing because suddenly there was a whole community online that had all these resources that were there to help you, which I just hadn’t found before.

And again, like you fell in love with it, you get this great output, you know. It looks great, it tells a story, it really conveys that message that you’re trying to put across, rather than you having to just write an essay in 10,000 words.

And then, from there, joined Esri UK, worked in the content team for the entire time I’ve been in Esri. Just talk way too much about maps and data and everything like that and have got to where I am now, managing products and trying to make our users’ lives as easy as possible with the products that I look after.

So yeah, it’s a bit of a journey, but it’s been a good one, been around for a few years now, so they’re starting to become part of the furniture, Esri UK, I think.

Elleni:                    (Laughter)

Alasdair:                And I guess my story, in terms of a professional kind of shift into GIS, it was completely by accident. I actually did software engineering for a while, that was also a slightly accidental career.

But having shifted into doing software engineering, I ended up getting a job with a company that did mobile GIS in Edinburgh, a small company. And for me, my previous job had been writing software for extracting information for bank mortgage letters. And then suddenly, I was writing software for mapping, and it was so much more exciting and so much more interesting to me than the previous application.

And then, one of the projects that I worked on was with the Ordnance Survey. And so, for me, that was a bit of a buzz. I gradually got more interested by the GIS side of it, than the software development side.

So, within Esri UK, I’ve kind of shifted focus. And as I’ve kind of been around GIS for longer, I think one of the things that I find so exciting about it, is that it is used across so many different industries in so many different ways.

And not only that, but because the technology keeps changing, that in itself is interesting, so what’s there and what we can do with GIS changes. But that then also means that those stories change, you know, what people then take that capability and do with it keeps on changing.

So, you know, there’s always something new to learn, whether it’s about the way the technology works and what it does, or whether it’s about how people are taking that and applying it in the real world and using it to change their work processes and change the way they do things. So, that’s how I ended up in GIS.

Sam:                      Hopefully you know, a lot of our listeners will be able to relate to different parts of our stories. But it’s really interesting to hear.

Alasdair:                Well, we’ve run out of time on this episode of the Spatial Jam. We wanted to kick the series off by introducing ourselves and also sharing a bit about what interests and motivates us about GIS. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and in the next episodes, we’re going to be digging in a bit deeper to some of the technology themes that we’ve mentioned today and looking at particular technologies within GIS, as well.

Sam:                      We’ve got some really exciting episodes coming up, so please do look out for our fortnightly jams and join us on our journey. We’d love to also hear what you think, or what you’d like to hear about, so please do drop us an email at podcast@esriuk.com.

And obviously, please don’t forget to subscribe and rate us on your chosen podcast channel. It really does make a difference. So, thanks so much for listening today and we hope you join us again.

(Music)

Voiceover:             The views of the presenters may differ from those of Esri UK.

Alasdair:                Do we get fortnightly scones with our fortnightly jams?

Elleni:                    (Laughter)

Beth:                      Better do, it’s the only reason I’m here.

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