Or better yet, what I’d really like to know, do I?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been organizing and filling out the applications for a couple of professional certifications: the APA’s American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and the GIS Certification Institute’s Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP). I have been working as an independent planning consultant specializing in the use of GIS for the past eight years, and thought it was time I got around to doing this. What’s been holding me up so far has not been that I did not qualify for either one, but my work load. It’s difficult to dedicate the time required to fill out the application forms, acquire and organize the documentation, and prepare for the tests when one has a full load of paying work sitting in front of them. Since my work load has slowed a bit this year, I figured it was time to take the plunge, and get it done.

At the same time I was assembling all of my documentation, there was a noticeable rise in the level of discussion about GISP certification amongst my Twitter followers. This is not unusual. The GISP topic comes up from time to time, and always seems to stir the emotions of the GeoNerds that hang out there. What did surprise me, though, was the level of animosity expounded toward GISP by some. I decided that before I follow through with sending in my $250, I should explore and analyze the requirements and potential benefits of becoming a certified GISP.

I decided to start my analysis by comparing GISP to the other certification process I am familiar with – AICP. The following table compares the two certification process requirements.

AICP vs. GISP

Education

Surprisingly, AICP does not require any formal education at all. However, a graduate degree from an accredited institution does allow you to take the certification test with only 2 years of work experience. Lesser degrees require more work experience.

While the GISP does not explicitly require any formal education, it would be very difficult to satisfy the educational requirement through conference attendance alone. 300 full conference days would be needed to fulfill the GISP education requirement if the applicant had no degree or formal class time. That’s 60 full work-weeks worth of conferences.

Experience

AICP requires between 2 and 4 years of experience depending on the level and accreditation of the degree received (or 8 years with no degree). GISP requires 4 years of work experience regardless of the education.

Code of Ethics

Both AICP and GISP have written codes of ethics that members are expected to adhere to.

Contributions to the profession

AICP requires only current APA membership, while GISP requires the applicant to document their contributions to the profession. These contributions can include merely membership in a GIS organization, or more direct contributions, such as publication of a book or article, participation in a conference or workshop, or volunteering for a non-profit organization.

Test vs. No Test

The most obvious difference between the AICP and GISP requirements is the lack of a test for the GISP. Is this a problem for the GISP? Does it diminish its clout? Would a test improve its acceptance among the GIS crowd? Many of the anti-GISP commenter’s point to the lack of an exam as the main reason GISP is not a valid certification process.

My Thoughts

Amongst practicing planners, AICP is expected if you are to be considered a true professional planner. In GIS circles, GISP – not so much. Overall, I found the AICP application requirements easier to fulfill than the GISP requirements. Granted, the AICP application only allows me to qualify to take the test, but with my education and experience, I do qualify. I  do NOT yet qualify for GISP. Essentially the difference between the two boils down to test vs. experience. Which one is the better measure of professional ability? I come down on the side of experience. I believe the GISP certification process is as valid a process as any other. It emphasizes education and work experience more than does AICP. It expects adherence to a code of ethics  and rules of conduct. Most importantly in my mind, it expects contributions to the profession, (and continuing contributions to maintain certification) which AICP surprisingly does not. It’s these contributions to the profession that I lack, and will be working on the next few months so I will be able to become a GISP.

Why the Antipathy toward GISP from some GISers?

I believe GISers are a particularly independent lot, and feel like GISP is akin to following the herd. GISers are by their nature, non-conformists. GISers are a much more laid back group compared to planners. Compare the two photos below. The first is from the 2009 APA conference, the second from the 2009 ESRI UC.

Notice the suits, button down shirts, and ties at the APA conference.

Notice the lack of ties. There are a few button down shirts, but there’s also an abundance of polo shirts at the ESRI UC. One guy is even wearing flip-flops!

I know not everyone will agree with my analysis, but from my standpoint, GISP is a valid and valuable certification process. I believe it shows the holders of a GISP do have certain qualities that those who do not qualify for GISP do not. Over the next few months I will be working to fulfill the last few requirements, and sending in my application to become a GISP.

Blogs and other GISP related articles:

Roger Diercks’s Geofoolery blog post Trying to get to the GISP of the matter

Peter Batty’s geothought blog post: The GIS Certification emperor has no clothes

ArcUser Online article: Do You Want to Be a GISP?

The ENTCHEV GIS Blog post: Building a Brand

GISuser.com: The GISP Debate and A GIS Veterans Point of View

’sproke: Are you REALLY a GIS Professional?

How can I use NYS Orthophotos in ArcPad?

 In my GIS work, I make extensive use of the NYS orthoimagery supplied through the NYS GIS Clearinghouse website. I want to be able to use these aerial photos during my fieldwork. The orthophotos are supplied in MrSID format, and can be easily added to an ArcMap document using the supplied Raster Catalogs. But here’s the problem: ArcPad can read MrSID rasters, but cannot make use of the Raster Catalogs.

The individual MrSID tiles use an arcane naming system. This system is great for organizing them in a database, and to be read by a computer, but very difficult for a human being to decipher. Here’s a screenshot that shows the naming convention:

How do I decide which tiles to load into ArcPad?

The naming system makes it nearly impossible to decipher which tiles I need to load onto the Juno in order to use them in ArcPad. I could load all of the MrSID files onto the Juno, but that would mean transfering over 300 MB of data onto my microSD card over a USB cable; a little time consuming. So, how do I decide which tiles to use? I don’t. Here’s what I’ve decided to do:

1. Load the entire Raster Catalog for the area I want to work on into ArcMap. (this typically includes an entire town’s worth of ortho’s)
2. Set the coordinate system in ArcMap to match the ArcPad project you will use (typically WGS 1984)
3. Zoom into the specific area I want to load into ArcPad (the extent of my field work area)
4. Export the map as a JPEG image (making sure I use the Write World File option)
5. Copy the JPEG image and World File onto my GPS unit, and load it into my ArcPad project

Here are a couple of screenshots of the imported JPEGs:

XC-Ski trail near Lake Placid NY

Closeup of the Jack Rabbit XC-Ski Trail

This aerial photo covered an area of ~6 square miles. At a resolution of 300 DPI, the JPEG output was ~6MB in size.

I hope this information is useful to somebody else. I’ve read through the ArcPad documentation, and have been searching through forums and blogs, but have not run across this procedure anywhere else yet. I intend to do some more tests using higher resolution orthophotos, higher DPI JPEG output, and other output formats. I’ll let you know how I make out in future posts. If anyone else has a better solution than this, please let me know. I’m always open to suggestions.

Wow, is it even possible to answer that? It seems to be the perpetual question asked at every GIS conference, and embedded into every keynote address given at them. In an attempt to describe the state of GIS, some (many?) are using the terms Paleo and Neo in an attempt to describe past and future tenses of all things geo/gis-related. I’m still not sure these are the correct words to use ( See my blog post titled “My Latest Lesson in GIS”), but they have become a part of the GIS nomenclature, none-the-less.

The impetus to write this post came from a recent discussion on Twitter about how to advise someone just entering the GIS field. It all started innocently enough with a Twitter post by Shawn Bichsel – “I’m meeting a potential #geonerd for lunch to spread the GIS gospel. What’s one piece advice you would give someone entering the GIS field” Shawn did a great job summarizing the responses to his question on his blog – Bixel Is Outside.
My response to that question was “New GISers should view GIS as a tool, not a profession. Need to know enviro, transp, engineer, planning, helath, web, etc…”. Then Justin Houk followed up with a tweet “I like your thinking don. You should do a post on your views of GIS as a profession.” And so, here it is.

GIS is a myth

I apologize for the abundance of Twitter quotes in this post, but there were so many great ideas flying around that day, it’s just easier explain my thought process by using them. Bill Dolans said in one of his most profound tweets ever: “IMO, GIS is a myth. There are info systems/apps that use spatial data and methods but GIS doesn’t exist.” This then led to a few more exchanges comparing GIS use and using computers as “text information systems”. And that’s when the light bulb lit up in my head. We are probably at a similar point in GIS evolution as word processing was 30 or 40 years ago.

GIS and Word Processing

People have been drawing maps and communicating through the written word for thousands of years. There was a time when Word Processing was as much a profession as GIS is today. Read this description of word processing from the Wikipedia article, and see if it looks familiar to you GIS folk:

[In the late 1960's] IBM defined the term in a broad and vague way as “The combination of people, procedures, and equipment which transforms ideas into printed communications,”

Now look at the definition of GIS from the ESRI website:

A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.

Actually, if I had defined GIS that way on a test in my intro to GIS class, without mentioning that a person was needed to operate it, I would have gotten that one wrong.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this:

• There were writers before word processors, and there still are, and always will be, writers.
• There were geospatial analysts before GIS, and there still are, and always will be, geospatial analysts.
• Word Processing is no longer a profession, but word processors are still being used as a tool in many other professions.
• GIS is on it’s way out as a profession, but GIS will continue to be used as a tool in many other professions.

My advice to someone that wants to get into the GIS field is – don’t, because it’s not going to be around much longer. What you should do is - get into a profession you really enjoy, and learn how to apply the various GIS tools to your work.

Specifically, in the invitation email it says:

If you choose to participate, you will be expected to:

• Actively participate in discussion forums
• Report bugs if you discover them
• Respond to surveys
• Be willing to add others in your organization to the ArcGIS 9.4 beta program if they are interested
• Not discuss the ArcGIS 9.4 beta software outside of the beta program

And, just to make sure, I asked a question about this in the beta program forum. The official answer from ESRI was:

As things change between beta to final, we’d prefer you keep discussions about beta limited to people in the beta program. However, if something comes up you feel is a venue you should talk about 9.4 in, please drop me an email and we can talk about it.

So, it appears I will have to disappoint a few people, and keep any insights I have about the next version of ArcGIS to myself. However, I did not find any restrictions about posting my thoughts about the overall beta program experience (as long as I don’t reveal anything about the software being tested). Most of the beta program site has only been active since October 22, but there is already a lot of interesting discussion going on. I really like the videos posted in the beta resource center, showing all the new functionality being built into 9.4.

One response to my forum question stated the obvious:

“If people want to know about 9.4 they should join the beta program. That’s the best way to learn about and use 9.4 for themselves.”

If you would like to become a beta tester, you can find out more on the ESRI Beta Program Eligibility web page. My email invitation mentioned the following “perks” (along with the requirements mentioned earlier):

• Access to ArcGIS 9.4 beta software at least six months prior to the final release
• Entrance into private beta communities to discuss the beta with other testers and ESRI staff
• The ability to contact technical support via phone or e-mail regarding beta software
• Tools to report bugs and track their status
• The opportunity to win prizes given to the top contributors

My own plans are, to wait for delivery of my recently ordered Dell m2400 64bit Win7 laptop before installing the beta in a virtual machine for testing purposes. That means I won’t be playing around with all the new bells and whistles for at least another week. For those of you who are anxious to find out more, you can get an idea of what’s to come by checking out the ArcWatch magazine article Nine Innovations in ArcGIS 9.4. And the following Question & Answer pages from the 2009 ESRI International User Conference Questionnaire:

• When will ArcGIS 9.4 be released?
• What are the major themes for ArcGIS 9.4?
• What improvements are planned for the ArcMap user interface in ArcGIS 9.4?
• What are the planned improvements for geoprocessing?
• What improvements are coming in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst at 9.4?
• What is coming in ArcGIS 3D Analyst at 9.4?
• What improvements can we expect with respect to 3D?
• Does ESRI plan to add more capability to support image data visualization and analysis?
• What new functionality in ArcGIS 9.4 supports the work of scientists?

One final note about ArcGIS 9.4 (that I hope doesn’t violate the beta program agreement):

What I’ve seen so far… is awesome!

More difficult than deciding what to write about in my first blog post, has been deciding what to write about in my second. I want to keep some sense of continuity in my writing, and briefly thought about describing my learning progress and work experience through the years. However, I also want to keep the topics here current. So, I’ve decided to skip ahead (way ahead) to where I am today.

What have I learned most recently about the use of GIS in the planning field? I have been spending an extraordinary amount of time on Twitter for the last several months. This IS a good thing. Since I finished my graduate degree, and haven’t spent any time in a classroom in over 6 years, I have become increasingly aware of my isolation as a sole proprietor in a home office. I have been fortunate that my workload has kept me very busy, even through the recent economic meltdown. But, it has also kept me from getting out and keeping up with some of the advancements in the GIS world. In the fast-paced ever-changing world of technology, that is NOT a good thing. In order to overcome my sense of isolation, and to promote my business, I decided to increase my online presence.

Enter > Twitter

There has been a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of Twitter usage in the work place, and the jury is still out (for most people, anyway) on whether the benefits yet outweigh the costs. For myself, I believe Twitter has been a net benefit.

I’d like to describe why I feel this way through an example. A few weeks ago, there was a series of posts (or tweets) about the use of the term NeoGeography to describe recent advancements in the GIS world. In an attempt to describe NeoGeography, the concept of PaleoGeography was also discussed. While these terms are not new (see the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neogeography) There was a significant increase in the chatter on Twitter about the use of these terms. Some tweets were an attempt at definitions of the terms. Some were condemnations of the attempt to label GIS practitioners using particular technologies as new vs. old. Some were expressions of distaste for labels in general, and resulted in the new self applied label – GeoAgnostic.

My take on the whole discussion is this

(modified from a series of tweets on the subject):

The prefix Neo (new), is often associated with “good” while Paleo (old), with “outdated” or “bad”. While I disagree with this association, I can understand why some GIS/Geography professionals don’t want to label their work or themselves as Neo or Paleo. However, I don’t think GeoAgnostic is quite the right term, either. The word agnostic comes from the Greek word agnosis or “without knowledge”. It is usually used in a religious sense, to describe someone who feels the existence of God is impossible to prove, therefore unknowable, and therefore not worth bothering with. I don’t think any of those using the term GeoAgnostic truly feel this way about their chosen profession. My thinking is this: The Root word of agnosis is gnosis, or “knowledge”. Specifically it refers to knowledge gained through personal experience, not just taught by someone else. Again, in the religious sense, Gnostics were early Christians that believed they could grow closer to God by questioning and learning everything you could about your faith. In my view, we should all try to be GeoGnostics, praising and evangelizing the benefits of GeoGnostisism. We should encourage new Geography/GIS professionals to question and test everything, be open to new ideas, and learn as much as possible through direct experience.

What does all of this have to do with my perceived net benefit of using Twitter? Twitter makes me think. Were it not for Twitter, I never would have thought about the whole Neo vs. Paleo thing. I never would have heard the various viewpoints from GIS professionals, government agency officials, and students from a half dozen counties, and three different continents. It allowed me to post a few comments in a very informal way, and get some feedback on how others felt about those comments. I learned, not from a book, but through my own actions and experience. I became more GeoGnostic.

This is just one small example of how Twitter has helped me grow. There are hundreds more I could list. Some small and insignificant, some more substantial, but all of them, important. Twitter allows me to push the envelope with my thinking. Do I ever go too far? Absolutely, but when I do, someone always points it out in a friendly way, and I reel myself back in.

And as for the “label” thing? You can call me a
NeoGeoGnosticPlanner.

If you’d like to read up on some of the Neo vs. Paleeo discussion, I suggest checking out these sites:
Peter Batty’s blog posts about NeoGeography: http://geothought.blogspot.com/search/label/neogeography
James Fee’s blog post on Neo, Geo, GIS and Innovation: www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2009/07/28/neo-geo-gis-and-innovation

I can imagine one question runs through any persons mind once the decision is made to start a blog: “What do I say in my first blog post?” My goal for this blog is to talk about the use of GIS in urban and regional planning. I do not want to make it a personal/family blog, but a more personal and timely version of my business’s website.

So, where to start? Why not begin with my very first exposure to GIS and its application to planning. You might be surprised that this was through music. Back in 1978, I was an undergrad at a small NH liberal arts college, majoring in biology. My four years in NH opened my eyes to many new things, one of which was new wave/progressive rock. One of my favorite bands at the time was (and still is) Talking Heads. My favorite Talking Heads album, and the one that exposed me to GIS and the planning profession, is More Songs About Building and Food. The back side of that album shows a photo-mosaic of the United States made up of LandSAT images. The text on the inner sleeve describes it best:

The back cover is a reproduction of Portrait U.S.A., the first color photomosaic of the United States. It is made up of 569 photos taken from space by the LandSAT satellite. Each photo in the mosaic is made up of four separate photos of different parts of the light spectrum: Green, Red, and two different Infra-red regions. These light regions were chosen because they help bring out the differences in geographical forms and types of vegetation. Each image is made up of many scan lines, much like a T.V. picture… analog information is converted to digital information and then transmitted to various ground receiving stations. This information is then converted into a black-and-white picture corresponding to each spectral region. These can then be combined to make the color pictures that are used in this mosaic. In the version reproduced on the cover, the information from the green spectral region is printed as yellow, the red region is printed as magenta, and the infra-red region is printed as cyan. This is called a false color image. In this version vegetation appears as turquoise, rocks and soil appear as red, yellow, brown, and towns, roads, and water appear as black. Objects as small as 33 feet are visible on the LandSAT photos if the object is in contrast to its environment. The practical applications of the LandSAT photos are many, some of which are forest-fire damage, regional planning, assessment of land use: Which crops are being grown where, mapping of ice for shipping, mapping and detection of air and water pollution, and monitoring surface mining.
Portrait U.S.A. is copyrighted by the General Electric Co., 1976. It was produced by their Beltsville Photo Engineering Lab with the assistance of the National Geographic Society and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Not to be outdone by NASA, Talking Heads decided to take this concept one step farther, and put a photo-mosaic of the band on the front cover of the album, using 529 close-up Polaroid photos:

Of course great album cover art was never the sole focus of any band. The music mattered, too. And it was one of the songs on this album that really drove home, for me anyway, the importance of planning, and how it affects our everyday lives. It was overshadowed by the much more popular Take Me To The River (written by Al Green), but The Big Country (by David Byrne), was a much better song, fit the title of the album and the cover art, and as the final track, completed the entire album experience.
Many times, after sitting through a 2 hour meeting, presenting the results of a survey, a workshop meeting, a buildout analysis, or some other GIS analysis, I queue up this song, turn the iPod up to max, and settle in for the long drive home. The lyrics are not a very positive commentary on our built environment, actually, the opposite. The song essentially asks the question “Why would anybody want to live the way we do?” I ask myself that same question all the time. What is it that keeps our elected officials from building places we would all love to live in? I don’t have the answer to that question, but for some reason, I get great satisfaction from the fact that one of my favorite bands asked the same thing, over 31 years ago, before I even knew what urban and regional planning was.

The Big Country Lyrics:

I see the shapes,
I remember from maps.
I see the shoreline.
I see the whitecaps.

A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.
Places to park by the factories and buildings.
Restaurants and bar for later in the evening.

Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas.
And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,

(chorus)
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I couldn’t live like that, no siree!
I couldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I couldn’t live there if you paid me to.

I guess it’s healthy, I guess the air is clean.
I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends.
Look at that kitchen and all of that food.
Look at them eat it guess it tastes real good.

They grow it in the farmlands
And they take it to the stores
They put it in the car trunk
And they bring it back home
And I say…

(chorus)
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I couldn’t live like that, no siree!
I couldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to.

I’m tired of looking out the windows of the airplane
I’m tired of travelling, I want to be somewhere.
Its not even worth talking
About those people down there.

Goo goo ga ga ga
Goo goo ga ga ga