Less GIS more WHERE Please!

Think about this. When you ask a geographic question do you ever include the terms GIS, location or map?

Your answer (if you are a GIS expert) might be YES. Now go ask your husband/wife, maintenance guy, business analysts, salesman. I bet you get a resounding NO. How do these folks frame a geographic question? With the word:

Where are the kids? Where is the pipe I need to fix? Where is the best site for a new store? Where are the best opportunities in my sales territory?

Less GIS more WHERE Please!

WHERE is the question now, more than ever before, which is being asked. Its why demand for answers from location technology (GIS) is rising exponentially. The fact that we are not starting conversations focused on the WHERE question is why we are not engaging people properly, and answering their questions as we should.

I was at a GIS conference recently, listening to a booth worker talking to an attendee. I should say tech talking at an attendee. It was horrible. Never once did the booth worker ask the attendee why he was interested in the product. What were the WHERE questions the attendee needed answering. It was a droning monologue of tech talk and features. I felt for the attendee. His body language expressed much .. get me out of here. What a missed opportunity for everybody.

I am still not convinced the penny has dropped: GIS is all about answering WHERE questions. Those who have had a long history in the industry need to relearn. Those new need to be trained.

We have put in place a very carefully laid out customer path. A process we call From WHERE to THERE in 4 Steps. No tech talk. No jargon. A carefully laid out problem to solution path for those with WHERE questions.

The answers our location technology can provide are in demand. Its now up to us to help guide users to answers to their WHERE questions without letting technology or confusing terminology get in the way.