The Professional vs. the Amateur: Thoughts on the ESRI UC
August 5th, 2008by Sean Gorman
As the ESRI User Conference (UC) got under way I’ve been following the blog posts and twitter conversations, and have noticed a stark delineation being made at the UC between GIS “professionals” and “amatuers.” I’ve noticed the same trend in the ESRI literature including the latest ArcNews with an article by Jack Dangermond on “GIS and the GeoWeb.” The article sets Google and Microsoft’s GeoWeb applications as “consumer” and “simple mashups.” Further GeoWeb tools are, “not suited for the more complex work performed by GIS (data management, analysis, workflows, custom applications, etc.)”. The folks at Directions Magazine pointed out that at the UC, “Web mapping was not mentioned; Web GIS was, quite a bit. GeoWeb? Not that I recall.”
ESRI is not alone in drawing these distinctions with the GeoWeb. Mike Hickey, the President of MapInfo, stated , “the explosion of Neogeography is driving awareness [and] collaborative data consolidation [but it] isn’t GIS…there is no data creation and no spatial analysis”. In my mind the rhetoric of both companies comes down to defining their GIS users as professionals and GeoWeb users as amatuers. This has been a popular meme attacking Web 2.0 as a “cult of the amateur.”
I’d argue we’ve confused what a professional is. For a while in GIS there has been a push to define it as a profession. Are you a professional if have a university degree in or related to GIS, do you need certain number of “official” training classes, do you need a professional certification like GISP? While I do think these are potential ways to define a professional, I do not think those are the metrics being used by ESRI and MapInfo to define the market between professional and amateur and between GIS and GeoWeb.
The delineation I’d argue is simple. If I buy ESRI, MapInfo, Manifold, Intergraph etc., that makes me a professional. The distinction that is being drawn between competing software products is artificial in order to preserve market share. On one hand you have to define professional as broadly as possible to encourage people to buy your software, but on the other hand you have to differentiate it from the pesky GeoWeb by calling it simple and amateur. It is all arbitrary and the reality is the two are converging. The GIS companies are producing more consumer friendly products and the GeoWeb companies are producing more robust functionality for the exact things they are labeled as not doing (data management, analysis, workflow etc.).
I believe what makes some one a professional is expertise in a field, understanding both theory and practice, not knowing how to operate a piece of software. The future of software is removing operational skill so that there are as few barriers as possible between a users subject matter expertise and using the software tool. It is the “consumerization of software” trend that is becoming more pervasive across IT. It hearkens the end on an era where you are a professional because you know how to operate a piece of software.
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August 5th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[…] Gorman has a very thought provocative piece on his blog this morning. The Professional vs. the Amateur: Thoughts on the ESRI UC should be read by everyone. I’ve notice that our tribe mentality has really caused great […]
August 5th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Interesting to see little has changed since 2007 when I wrote “The attitude at the moment seems to be, “If you’re using Google or Microsoft for anything, you’re clearly an amateur, and you can go $*#& yourself.” Of course Grandpa Dangermond would never say that — he let his attack dogs do it on stage, but the effect is the same.” I suppose there’s a reason I can’t stand more than one of these conferences every two years!
August 5th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Are you even at the UC? For the tone of your blog it doesn’t sound like it. Extremely disappointing…drawing from conclusions off of twitter and blog postings.
August 6th, 2008 at 10:10 am
JW - So watching the videos of the presentations, reading the blog description, podcasts, and twitters means that I’m not allowed to have an opinion? Only those who have the luxury of taking a week off of work and fly to San Diego are entitled to sharing their thoughts?
Is there something I’ve reported or quoted that is inaccurate? What is disappointing? That my opinion is not the same as yours?
When you go back to 1984 tell Orwell I say hi.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
There is more to the designation of “professional” than software, just as there is more to many professions than experience. The GISP certification was in some respects a response to concerns from the surveying community about law, licensing, and spatial accuracy - no issue is ever two-dimensional, though that can be a good way to prompt discussion.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I found this posting very interesting. We are in the BI space and have a little overlap with mapping, but in general some of the same attitudes exist as to what is or is not BI. The larger players always try to push the “real” being complicated and expensive.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Is it too obvious to say that a professional is someone who does the job for payment, while an amateur does it for love of the topic?
There are obviously amateurs and pros in many fields (writing and sports both spring to mind) and I guess that there’s the same blurring of boundaries - and pros getting snobbish - in all of them.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hi EA,
Agree there is far more to being a professional than operating software, and it is not a binary decision. I think certifications and education degrees are good things because they are generally unbiased third parties. My bit of a rant is about the software providers trying to define “professional” as being the users of their software. I think it creates artificial divisions in the industry. In this case GeoWeb being amateurs and GIS users being professionals. Just seems to be counter productive in my opinion. Appreciate the comment and feedback.
best,
sean
August 15th, 2008 at 7:06 am
[…] realize the existence of the debate about “professional” versus “amateur” users, and I just don’t get the […]
August 16th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I reckon the whole “professional” thing just confuses the issue, because the term is too vague and self-congratulatory, unless you stick to the literal sense of people being paid for their work, as Mark suggests above.
For example, a GISP certificate tells me something about what you’ve achieved in the past, but nothing about your approach to your work. You could get your GISP tomorrow and spend the rest of your working life drinking beer and photocopying your backside all day - are you still a GIS “professional” then? Certification programs/titles should focus on describing what you can do e.g. call it “GIS Practitioner” with “Advanced/Expert” grades for the real experts.
As for “professional”, if your customers/bosses think you work in a “professional” manner, then maybe you’ve earned the description, but let others be the judge of that. I’ve worked 20 years in IT, but I wouldn’t go around shouting about my own “professionalism” - I just try to do my job in a professional manner, and let my work speak for itself. Some of the most experienced guys I’ve worked with did not seem particularly “professional” to me, while I’ve worked with guys not long out of college who were far more “professional” in their approach to work.
As for which software you use, only a software manufacturer on the slide would think that was the way to measure “professionalism”!
OK, rant over.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
[…] the masses, and how some of the biggest projects at the moment are collaborative efforts by “amateur” […]
August 20th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
“I believe what makes some one a professional is expertise in a field, understanding both theory and practice, not knowing how to operate a piece of software.”
Well said! But if you are pushing to keep your market share (to which you alluded) or trying to prove to others how much you know (especially if they can’t use the software YOU can use) this is not a good description.
With few exceptions, I find the discussions in our field to be based on very narrow concerns and narrow visions of what professional education means. A genuine interest in geography, the humanistic discipline that is, not just the techno-gadgets of today, would be a great start, but that isn’t all that common. Without a broader view, people are either fighting over money or over status, and the result is a new form of snobbism, nerd snobbery. Not a pretty picture.
The discussion of user interfaces on James Fee’s blog (how I found this blog) is illuminating. Maps are, after all, produced to communicate to others. Would we tolerate this prose:
“Rotate the handle in a counter-cyclic manner to the degree that it ceases movement without minimal energy applied…”
When we mean this:
“Turn it counter-clockwise to open it?”
No, but many seem to think the equivalent in web-mapping is okay.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
[…] these same lines, Sean Gorman recently wrote “The Professional vs. the Amateur: Thoughts on the ESRI UC” about the delineations between “professionals” and “amateurs” made at the user […]