I value the empathy shared by geospatial but it does feel phony (or cringe).
If you're an individual sharing your commodity amidst catastrophe, it's going to come off as phony no matter what (especially based on your social platform of choice). But it is important to present yourself as a real phony and not a fake phony. I can't really add much to faceless company posts as these are just phony, like Christopher said not altruistic.
It is definitely vital to serve actual people rather than just serving statistics/demographics, but this is where the moral quandry creates a fork in the road.
is it that informative geospatial is not presented in the correct way?
Or rather the inaction of helpfulness to those in need?
Definitely interested in seeing new ways to serve communities before and after disasters. Increasing resilience is one thing that is evolving [through geospatial decision-making] but innovation in giving back [to communities] is not growing proportionately to the technology in anaylsis and inference.
"is it that informative geospatial is not presented in the correct way?"
I have been pondering this a lot! There is still a massive disconnect between geospatial analytics and impact. We often don't even attempt to measure this: number of lives saved, number of dollars saved etc... You can make the argument that MRV companies do because the market forces them to, but even there the metrics for impact are assessed over particular parcels and areas, and who knows if deforestation outside of those areas increases as a result of restrictions inside?
I think companies could try to present legitimate ways in which their data could prevent such casualties in the future: in whose hands do you have to get your flood risk map to in order to save lives? Is your data really the bottleneck in this process? I think asking this question can actually help companies define their product and find better product-market fit.
In many cases: when you start asking yourself these questions you realize that data and analytics are likely not the bottleneck when it comes to better decision making.
Valid and I get where you’re coming from. I too have had the urge to market my company when events of significance occurred in the past - we didn’t do it, and purely because we weren’t ready yet to give a fully functioning product for a user - in case they reached out (commercials not even in the discussion). But we have all seen some cases where mock-ups and manually-assembled datasets are put out on social media with claims of products already available to use.
You gave examples of more mature companies - and there is another part of the spectrum that we need to speak about too!
On another note, an ideal world would be one where businesses state the disasters they helped avert, mitigate or coordinate saving of lives and reduction in loss of property. This could be the “senior dog who was in the shelter for 2 years adopted” moment for geospatial - but we all know how hard it is to get there.
Thoughtful.
I value the empathy shared by geospatial but it does feel phony (or cringe).
If you're an individual sharing your commodity amidst catastrophe, it's going to come off as phony no matter what (especially based on your social platform of choice). But it is important to present yourself as a real phony and not a fake phony. I can't really add much to faceless company posts as these are just phony, like Christopher said not altruistic.
It is definitely vital to serve actual people rather than just serving statistics/demographics, but this is where the moral quandry creates a fork in the road.
is it that informative geospatial is not presented in the correct way?
Or rather the inaction of helpfulness to those in need?
Definitely interested in seeing new ways to serve communities before and after disasters. Increasing resilience is one thing that is evolving [through geospatial decision-making] but innovation in giving back [to communities] is not growing proportionately to the technology in anaylsis and inference.
"is it that informative geospatial is not presented in the correct way?"
I have been pondering this a lot! There is still a massive disconnect between geospatial analytics and impact. We often don't even attempt to measure this: number of lives saved, number of dollars saved etc... You can make the argument that MRV companies do because the market forces them to, but even there the metrics for impact are assessed over particular parcels and areas, and who knows if deforestation outside of those areas increases as a result of restrictions inside?
I think companies could try to present legitimate ways in which their data could prevent such casualties in the future: in whose hands do you have to get your flood risk map to in order to save lives? Is your data really the bottleneck in this process? I think asking this question can actually help companies define their product and find better product-market fit.
In many cases: when you start asking yourself these questions you realize that data and analytics are likely not the bottleneck when it comes to better decision making.
Valid and I get where you’re coming from. I too have had the urge to market my company when events of significance occurred in the past - we didn’t do it, and purely because we weren’t ready yet to give a fully functioning product for a user - in case they reached out (commercials not even in the discussion). But we have all seen some cases where mock-ups and manually-assembled datasets are put out on social media with claims of products already available to use.
You gave examples of more mature companies - and there is another part of the spectrum that we need to speak about too!
On another note, an ideal world would be one where businesses state the disasters they helped avert, mitigate or coordinate saving of lives and reduction in loss of property. This could be the “senior dog who was in the shelter for 2 years adopted” moment for geospatial - but we all know how hard it is to get there.
Thanks for sharing. I usually cringe when I read these.
I cringe when I see those, but I also cringed a lot writing this.