At Esri UC 2016, GISCafe Voice spoke with Matt Zenus, vice president, Product Strategy Go-To-Market, Digital Enterprise Platform Group at SAP and Marie Goodell, Head of Marketing, SAP HANA Platform at SAP about their recent announcements.

So has Pokemon Go finally put location technology on the map?

That is a terrible pun, but an interesting question. One worth exploring.

The Rise and Rise of Location Technology

Let’s start with what is location technology?

Leveraging the built in GPS your mobile device knows where you are at all times. That means it can find what and who is around you. How it does that is through location technology. As an example, fire up your favourite mapping app and ask the question “Where is the nearest gas station?”. The map magically shows all stations close to your current location. Now that is a simple question. How about something more complex. Show me all the homes for sale within a 5 mile radius of my current location which are priced under $200,000.

You get the idea. Location technology is focused on providing users the ability to display and query location based data. Maps are the most common display method. But is location technology the same as mapping technology? That is a tricky one. Both yes and no.

I’m at it again. Writing controversial blog posts. But I want to explain why GIS SUCS.

GIS SUCS

Now I often do not follow conventional wisdom. I like to step back and look at the big picture. I try to base my opinions not on what I am told, but what I observe, and hear. This is why I have come to the conclusion GIS SUCS.

Now I do think the new platform is a significant advance. It’s easier to work with, and comes loaded with so many new services and applications. New is good. A plethora of new tools and services is fantastic. But all of the focus put here is why GIS SUCS.

It’s broken record week, since I seemed to have repeated this in a number of posts over the last 7 days. But starting with the technology is starting in the middle.

Success with GIS .. requires

Understanding

Curiosity … and the

Story

SUCS. Let me explain where I am going here.

If I used the term Open Kimono what comes to mind?

For me its nudity. I’m sorry. Maybe my mind sits in the wrong place, but when a colleague recently used the term when discussing GIS, I raised an eyebrow. So today’s blog post is about getting naked.

Open Kimono GIS

Well not exactly. The smarty pants among you will of course know the term open kimono. The formal definition:

To reveal what is being planned or to share important information freely. Similar to ”open the books” or an “open door policy,” opening the kimono means revealing the inner workings of a project or company to an outside party.

Sorry to disappoint but though we are thinking here about naked, its not in the ‘without clothes’ way. Discovery is where we are going. Specifically problem and story discovery.

I have mentioned in other blog post this notion of stepping back from the technology and focusing on the problem. Too often we jump into GIS projects focused on the technology. Understanding the problem is key. And that doesn’t mean a short conversation, it means having in place what we call a Discovery process.