Is this thing on?

Oh hi there!

Man, it's been awhile.

So... yeah... about blogging. Pretty much dead here. Between the great job I have at the Airport, and the better little family I have at home, this little activity has fallen off the rails.

But if you are reading this, thank you. I've never been a good writer, more of a reader. I think I was hoping I'd used this to mull over my geo-related thoughts, but finding the time, if it ever was a priority, hasn't really happened.

What I have found that The Spatial Community on Slack is a fantastic resource, filled with really good people from all sorts of geo companies, groups, positions. As someone juggling an enterprise GIS system, it's a fantastic resource. Maybe better than Twitter now - especially now that the Orange Douchebag has become President and my Twitter stream is filled with rage & despair on the state of affairs south of the border.

Anywhoooo, if you are into anything GIS and geo-related, as a professional, go join the Slack group. You won't regret it.

That and reading up on the latest GeoHipster interviews.

When I read the BC Gov't is joining GitHub...

More info here. (Part of the BCDevExchange Program)

In the spirit of open source projects and development, perhaps a good project might be for a new replacement to the Ministry of Education's BCeSIS program; let's open source the $1.5 million investment the Saanich School District made into the OpenStudent program!

Best GIS Career Advice I've Read So Far...

From Thierry Gregorius, via GeoHipster: 

Over the years there has been much discussion and debate about what career a GIS professional should aspire to, or what a GIS career even is. In my opinion you need to have at least one skill that nobody else has. I once called this the “geomatics striptease” — what expertise and value is there exclusively to us geospatial folks? I came to the conclusion that, if I had to strip off my non-exclusive layers, my naked self would be a geodesist and cartographer. No other field does these things, or at least not as well.

There may be a few other exclusive skills in GIS or geomatics, but many so-called geospatial expertise areas also reside in other professions. They’re not unique and this can be a danger area for career development — unless of course you want to become a multi-disciplinary generalist. In which case, sure thing, go ahead and become that ‘architect’ who orchestrates input from different fields. But whatever you do, it needs to be a conscious decision, and it requires focus. If you dilute yourself too much as a professional you’ll become the Swiss army knife that people only use when there’s nothing better at hand.

So to stay relevant, build a unique skill, stay focused, and never grow up. If you do those things, nobody can eat your lunch. 

(bolded emphasis mine)

So true. Find some focus, & make yourself indispensible. Helped my own GIS career over the years.

Also good, along this vein of thinking, Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You".

Friday Mediations

Going to try and write down the best links I can find on a regular basis. Kudos to TM's Recently posts ... And special kudos to this: How to be Polite. Good read.

MAPPING & GIS

Geohipster: Interview with Jonah Atkins

Kottke: The Precision of Lat/long Coordinates. Short answer: the sixth decimal place is worth up to 0.11 m

Via Gordon Price (@pricetags) & VanCityBuzz, a Vancouver link: The beautiful empty homes of Vancouver

When a colleague stops by my cubicle to ask how our internal Web GIS works... (ht: DBA Reactions)


(I'm so new to the job, I barely know the app myself....!)

FUN:

Run, Walter, Run!

WANT:

13 Shoes.
Not all of these, maybe the boots at the end of the list, a couple pairs of brogues, and a set of white Vans for casual Fridays.

Agile Results - A New Workflow?

As someone, who for most part in my career, has been used to taking orders, or had a definite & clear understanding of the work I was assigned to, this new job means that my range of tasks in developing and producing a solid GIS program has become wider.



The last few months, like most new jobs, has been a bevvy of administration duties, budgeting processes, and the standard airport security courses. Such as is it working for an airport, and rightly so.



But overall, the airport is a mini-city and while I could never develop the range of mapping applications or services like a big city and a vast GIS section to service those user requirements, I think I can modernize what's here into something a little more robust for our core users in Engineering and Airport Operations crews. Between meetings for new requests, meeting new people, and figuring out all the new data and software, some days can be overwhelming.  (Side note: Microstation has improved a lot since I took that dreadful course in 2004. <shudder>)



Lots of freedom to explore but a lot of responsibility as well.

I've always had an interest in how to develop a good enterprise GIS program. Kudos to the BCIT GIS program for giving a good foundation in what a GIS can be for an organization.  Now that I'm no longer a small cog in the GIS section, and now the primary one facilitating most aspects of GIS here, it's important to nail down what's important and how to go about giving my coworkers the best data & maps either via ArcMap, or online, or in a printed map.



So JD Meier's post the other day on Agile Results got me thinking. Agile development is all the rage with GIS developers - time to get into that and apply it to my workflow too. Let's see if I can keep up with it in the next month or two and make it a solid habit. With all the changes in my life (personally and professionally), it's a crazy, busy time.



It's great food for thought and something I'll have to practice to be productive. Because my productivity is no longer tied to waiting for a hard-copy map to be printed or icons to be designed for a new map app by the GIS Analyst Team.



...







Gotta channel some Ron Swanson, daily!  And good coffee helps too.

Python (et al) Cheat Sheets

Awesome. Big Bookmark.

http://overapi.com/python/

Bonus... even more programs and stuff available there too (oooohhh, REGEX!)

Best of January Links

It's 2013, time to work on whipping this mapping blog back into shape. Hopefully I can add a little more insight on what's going on, map-wise, in and around Vancouver, BC.

LOCAL: Sarah Pearce is giving a talk to the Vancouver GIS Users Group, Wednesday, Feb 6 at the BC Hydro Building downtown. Details.

NATIONAL: ESRI Canada has a new catalogue of courses. Check it out, stay on top of new tech.

INTERNATIONAL: The URISA Vanguard Cabinet picked a new set of Young Professionals to add to the ranks. As one of the original five founding members, it's been an illuminating process, and kudos to URISA for getting us YP members more involved in the organization. Best of luck newbies! (Maybe we need an Annual Report like this group!)

GIS Career Advice: Great advice, as usual, from Bill Dollins: Yes, You Need to Code.

Map-Tastic: The London Tube Map, reimagined with curves and circles.

Best Practices: Lifehacker How I Work Series: Jason Pontin & Katie Pomodoros.

Graphic Excellence, with a Vancouver geographic twist. So many high school memories at Broadway & Granville, waiting for the bus to the suburbs.

Viral Video: This is nuts. A 360 pushup? Now that's just showing off now.

When someone tells me they are starting the BCIT GIS Advanced Diploma Program in September.

(It's not that bad, really. Unless you hate programming and haven't taken any courses before entering the full-time program. Say goodbye to a normal sleep schedule!)

BCIT GIS Advanced Diploma Program

"Know Who You Are....

... in Order to to Share Who You Are."

Via NRRW | Note & Point, and designed by Pat Dryburgh, this pretty sums up what I have to figure out what to do with this blog. Best truism I've heard this year.

Stay tuned.