I love geographic information systems! The creativity in map design, the science of spatial analysis, and the cross-industry power are amazing.
I also love Geoscience. Geoscience makes the world go. We find minerals for your phone, computers and batteries. We find cheap energy to power the world.
I am going to give you little insight into something you may not have considered.
Technology changes fast, and people change slowly.
Your education may be great… but there is something called Moore’s Law which will start erasing your education by the minutes.
Moore’s law says that computing power will double every two years (roughly speaking).
Consider the “Human Law”… it took 100,000 thousand years for us to think the digital watch is a pretty neat idea.
It took you 2-4 years to get your degree.
This means, that keeping up is going to be a challenge… BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
And knowing that you have to keep up, and how to keep up is half the battle.
I talk about how to keep up in my post on “Learning how to learn, and Learning how to teach”.
I am also going to give you a couple more insights here.
You see when I first started doing geographic information systems in the geoscience, I was amazed.
…amazed at just how backward GIS in geoscience was.
Still use paper for field maps. Limited field connectivity. No data analytics.
How about this… I worked next to a geologist who used Adobe Illustrator to do her geological interpretations… ADOBE ILLUSTROR!?!?!
Things were changing while I was still doing field ops, but it made me realize there are three areas that every GIS and Geoscience person needs to focus on.
Some of these you might say “I knew that”.
But are you really doing them? Are you REALLY doing them with your data?
Web Connectivity
If your data is stuck on a land computer… you are doing EVERYTHING wrong.
Again, I have seen entire small companies still operating in field as if the internet does not exists.
You can refuse to order your books from Amazon, but you can’t refuse to connect your geoscience / GIS to the internet.
You need to always think about how you can put your data online to ensure you stay competitive.
Mobile Technology
Mobile technology follows us into the toilet… if you are not harnessing this opportunity for GIS or Geoscience, you are already behind.
Perhaps a few years ago you could complain that mobile tech was not that useful.
This is not the case. There are apps for everything… and your competitors are using them.
Luckily more companies are doing what ESRI is doing and letting you harness their apps for your mobile operations.
All you have to do is use your imagination (I give you some ideas below)
Cloud Technology
Cloud tech is the super child of mobile and web connectivity… the future is all in the Cloud.
There could well be a future where we no longer have home computers, only terminals and online cloud computers.
You could light up a supercomputer for 10 minutes to process your GIS data, and spin it down to go back to a normal computer for everyday use.
Cloud storage is a necessity.
I remember a time when losing a hard drive to a random crash was scary. Dead drive means lost data.
Just think how useful Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive are. In recent years, I have still lost data because I hadn’t saved it to a cloud drive.
A.I. Everything… NOW
“Artificial Intelligence” is rampant theft on an industrial scale never seen before in human history… that you need to harness NOW.
“AI” (I hate using this term) has simultaneously raised and lowered the bar in every single field requiring technology.
It has lowered the bar because now I don’t even have to Google Python code I have forgotten, I just ask GPT to create what I need. Now eveyrone can create simple programs.
AI has raised the bar because if you want to stay ahead, you have to operate at a completely different level than before. More data analytics, more user friendly, more pretty, more faster, more EVERYTHING.
If you get caught in the middle of AI… you are loosing.
This is all ok… you can do this… but you have to start NOW… and here are some ideas.
Stumped about ideas for GIS and Geoscience… here is a quick ideas I came up with ON THE FLY (I will show you how this is done in a future blog post).
Some of these might already be created… I don’t know, but I do know you can come up with your own.
- Cloud computing for seismic processing (already started!)
- Mobile technology for field safety
- Web connectivity for office/field communication
- Cloud computing for automated core log analysis
- Mobile technology for geological mapping
- Web connectivity for operation monitoring
- Cloud computing for automatic survey design
- Mobile real-time operation updates
- Web connectivity for up-to-the-minute operational analytics
- Cloud computing for massive seismic data storage (already started!)
- Mobile equipment analytics
- Web connectivity for client interactions
- Cloud computing to save on computer purchase
- Mobile permit documentation
- Web… to connect all of this
Have fun, you now have a ton of ideas to go out and make happen.
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Geographic Information Success 