7. Geospatial Friday — 12 Things (Pt 1)

For this weeks Geospatial Friday, we have been provided with some career insights from the highly experienced geospatial consultant Thierry Gregorius.

Thierry is the former Global GIS Coordinator and Head of Exploration Data Management & Geomatics for Shell. He is currently the Principal Strategic Consultant for the UK based UK oil and gas consultancy Exprodat.

The following is an illustrated version of the career advice which he initially provided in an interview with GeoHipster.com.

Part 2 will follow next week.

1. Make up your mind: Geospatial vs X

The geospatial profession cuts across many disciplines, so you first need to decide what your professional identity is. If you are committed to a geospatial career you are basically making a choice not to be a geographer, geoscientist, engineer, computer scientist, urban planner or whatever else you might be mistaken for. If you want to be one of those things, go study their subjects and enter their professions proper — it’s much harder to get there via the geospatial route. Of course you can also be a bit of both, and such a combination is highly valuable. But the career of a geologist who has GIS skills will probably look very different to the career of a GIS professional who also knows about geology. In fact, as a geospatial professional you need to know about many other things too, being both a generalist and a specialist. You’ll work with many disciplines, providing input and joining things up (hence also the comparison with architects in my interview). So you need to be clear: Are you a geospatial professional, or a professional in another field who also has some geospatial knowledge? The difference can be huge.

2. Build a technical foundation early in your career

Geospatial is a technical profession. Whether you want to be a guru analyst, champion account manager or visionary CEO, in the geospatial domain you will have little success and credibility without a solid grounding in its technical aspects. So resist the temptation of going into managerial or commercial positions too soon. Clients can spot bullshitters a mile off, and so can your staff (but they may be cruel enough not to tell you). Get as much work under your belt as possible, looking for a diverse range of technical responsibilities. It may not pay big bucks now but it’s a long-term career investment that will pay dividends later. Besides, once you reach that coveted leadership position you may well find all that glitters is not gold. Doing stuff is often more satisfying than talking about stuff. But, just like teenagers wanting to be adults and adults wanting to be young, you may only learn this the hard way.

3. Build a unique skillset

You can’t be all things to all people. This is especially true in the geospatial domain where many ‘geospatial’ skills overlap with those of other disciplines. If you dilute yourself too much as a geospatial professional you’ll end up becoming the Swiss army knife that people only use when there’s nothing better to hand. Also, it’s not enough to be good at “programming” or “making maps”. These days, any five-year old can do that. Ask yourself, what is unique to you? Where can you make a difference? This could initially be a single skill (say, geoprocessing for environmental workflows), later growing to become a unique combination of skills. The list is potentially endless, hence the need to focus.

4. Focus

The geospatial arena is very broad and cuts across all industries, so it’s very easy to go off in different directions. This brings with it a lot of opportunities — and distractions. Make conscious choices at every step. Ask yourself: What skills am I learning to apply here? What goal will this help me achieve? What development gaps am I plugging? Don’t just fall into things unless serendipity is your chosen life philosophy.

5. Depth vs breadth

As in all technical professions you will, at some point, face an important decision between depth or breadth. Do you want to become a technical guru, or go after a more general role such as project management, sales or leadership? In some scenarios you may be able to hang on to both but that’s tough — just ask any geospatial entrepreneur or freelancer. Again, this requires conscious choices. Remember, after you’ve left the technical track for a while it can be hard to get back on it.

6. Learn ‘the business’

This may sound contradictory to some points above but OK, life is full of contradictions. It’s not enough to have geospatial knowledge, you also need to understand the industry vertical in which you are applying it. Your data analysis skills may be legendary but if you don’t understand what your clients do for a living and the specific issues they face, you’ll only scratch the surface with generic solutions and get nowhere. Google for example has the best map in the world but they have learned to leave market verticals alone — it’s a different kind of expertise, and that is where you come in.

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