No not the song.
When I worked for the Feds we had some pretty crazy divisions of labor in the GIS Department. We had 4 sections in 1993:
- Photogrammetry
- Surveys
- Digitizing
- Cartographic
As time went on GPS became easy enough to where we didn’t have to send Surveyors out for everything. We had mapping grade GPS and survey grade GPS and the Surveyors seemed pretty happy about it as they could do whatever they wanted without us bugging them. The digitizing group started really falling apart with Arc Workstation 7 because it was just easy enough to draft information off photographs and digitize it vs sending it one office over. With Arcview, the Carto Department started falling apart because it was easy for everyone to make ugly maps vs sending stuff over to another department. As work changed I jumped jobs from GIS to photogrammetry. Photogrammetry to GIS. I touched it all but surveying.
When I started consulting my first big ass chewing was from a surveyor. I was making a map from pre-compiled data and needed it plotted. One of the engineers thought it was a good idea to send the PDF over to a survey firm to get it printed and in I walked. Once the surveyor figured out what I did it was a non stop ass chewing until I got mad and walked out. “You think you can just take my job with this fancy GIS stuff – EVERYTHING NEEDS A SURVEY”.
Over the last month UAVs have been popping up on my radar in the form of clients. People are using UAV’s to start generating Orthoimagery – which sort or flies in the face of the photogrammetry profession (as I learned it) and building Elevation Models which sorta slaps at both Photogrammetry and Surveys. That’s the life of UAVs. It’s disruptive. 15 years ago I wondered what would kill off the small mom and pop shops who owned a plane and a camera. Then digital happened and that started the slow descent into obsolescence. I’m walking into a conference where there is a talk about “Cheap LIDAR”. It would appear photogrammetric firms may be trying to beat each other over the head on how cheap they can fly LIDAR. Heh. It’s sorta funny to me.
I’ve been diving more and more into PostGIS. I’m not a developer nor do I want to be. My coding practices can only best be described as horrible. Yesterday I spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up a dataset in Postgresql/PostGIS. I’m not a database administrator by any stretch. I discovered from a client I had set one thing up wrong in the database – it wasn’t stopping them from working but it was causing a slight issue. So I’m investigating how to fix that in the database world. The data I’m fixing? Remotely sensed land cover data in NC. Which is funny because…..
In NC you need to be a PLS to practice the dark art of GIS. Yes – it’s a bit silly. I understand the reasoning…..BUT……technically I’m just doing database work. I haven’t done anything relating to location – but I’m about to…….
Why all this rambling? My GISP dropped. I let it expire. Maybe a mistake? Maybe. Maybe not. I used to be a huge fan. As I consult and work and find clients no one has ever asked that I be one – they’ve only asked if I can do the work for the quoted price and “get it right”. I started losing faith when the test started rolling out and it was such a slow progress you saw a gold rush style stampede to get one so you wouldn’t be tested. If your employer goes ‘GET IT’ – then get one. Other than that – meh. I got my GISP in 2006ish when I was doing my stint in photogrammetry. 10 years ago was a life time for me both personally and professionally. 2006 Randy wouldn’t recognize what 2016 Randy is doing with data. It doesn’t represent me anymore.
So what do I do now? I feel like I should have something to “prove my worth” so to speak. Do I know what I’m talking about? I think mostly yes. I have clients. I’m learning things at a pretty fast pace these days. I have to learn. This dive into Open Source and different ways of data collection (mobile with Fulcrum mainly) have really been spinning me around. Is this something you can “certify”? I’m looking at different certifications now. I’m not sure what direction I need to go.
So – Blurred Lines. I’m glad it’s blurred. I’m glad there is lots of gray. It’s progress. This field keeps me guessing constantly at the direction it’s going. My work is varied and that makes me quite happy.
Ok – maybe the song now:
