What is a Geospatial Content Strategy?

Have you ever read web sites which proclaim the following:

We are a highly innovative geospatial firm that provides unique and effective solutions for complex problems. Our company is a proven performer that delivers the highest quality, cost effective, technical services to our government and commercial customers.

Or articles which proudly announce:

Ours is an innovative product which uses our own ground-breaking technology to provide a unique way for you to improve your geospatial data collection processes.

I generally use 3 words to describe these prose: Empty. Meaningless. Gobbledegook.

In this article we will discuss geospatial content. More specifically what is a geospatial content strategy. In this and future posts we will discuss why a carefully designed content strategy will help you avoid empty, meaningless, gobbledegook.

What is a Content Strategy?

Let’s begin with two definitions:

Content (Wikipedia):

In publishing, art, and communication, content is the information and experiences that are directed toward an end-user or audience. Content is something that is to be expressed through some medium, such as speech, writing or any of various arts

Strategy (Wikipedia):

Strategy generally involves setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions.

Bringing these together.

A content strategy is the planning and action associated with communication (written, spoken, art) of information directed at a specific audience.

That word geospatial ..

Geospatial means ‘place on earth’. In today’s technology world, geospatial relates to location-based data. Over the last 40 years an industry has grown which leverages this data; called GIS, or more increasingly, Geospatial 1.0. It’s a sector and technology centred on the government or the public sector. An expert solution marketed and sold to geospatial experts.

In the last few years a new branch of geospatial has emerged. Based on new automated ways to collect location-based data, and new techniques (artificial intelligence) to process that data. This is Geospatial 2.0. A diverse group of companies are active in this sector: satellite/space, IoT, LiDAR, radar, AI/ML-centric, mobile data (people and vehicle), the list goes on.

Though different in many ways, those active in the Geospatial 1.0 and Geospatial 2.0 sectors respectively share one goal.

Reaching a new audience.

That is a business audience. Those with problems solved by aggregating and processing geospatial data. An audience interested in business outcomes not technology. That requires a new conversation with a new audience. To engage in these conversations will require a carefully crafted geospatial content strategy.

In our next blog post we will discuss: 3 Steps to Creating a Winning Geospatial Content Strategy