The GIS Professional is all that… and more!
I had the honor of delivering a welcome speech at the Esri Mid-Atlantic User Conference this week in Philly. It had been more three years I think since I’d attended a GIS conference. I didn’t expect to be as moved as I was to see friends and fomer colleagues all in one place. It felt so very good to see everyone again. The event reinforced my second learning of the pandemic — take time to appreciate all the things you once took for granted.
Below is a copy of the speech I wrote the night before the conference — but never brought with me. I rushed out the door minus my laptop and crib notes. When I got up on stage, I tried to use my phone, but I’m not a speaker who’s comfortable glancing down at the small screen while talking. So, I did my best from memory. (It’s the stage actor in me who’d much rather memorize the script, or make it up as he goes along.) Here it is as written:
[December 6, 2022 — Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, Esri Mid-Atlantic UC]
Good morning! Welcome back to Philadelphia! I’m so happy see everyone in-person, healthy, and…. with the twinkle of summer vacation still in your eyes — or is that the promise of a January trip to a southern beach resort I see instead? Doesn’t matter, we’re all together again.
I want to thank our host Rachel Weedon and her team (Keith, Alex, Laurie), for inviting me here to welcome you all this morning to the Esri Mid-Atlantic User Conference. As the CIO for Philly city government, its an honor to welcome you all to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.
When Rachel and Christian Carlson, Senior Director for State and Local Government at Esri, and I met a few weeks back to talk about the theme for our collective introductions, Christian started our conversation by asking me — What is GIS in the City of Philadelphia?
I love that question, because there is so much to say.
If you imagine that the all of city operations could be displayed on this stage — stacked and arrayed around me, alive and all churning — you’d see street cleaning on South Broad St here, workers installing new water mains in Kingsessing there, emergency housing repairs dollars deployed in Flourtown, grants enabling storefront improvements on Lancaster Ave, vaccine outreach happening at the Strawberry Mansion health center, and inspectors routing themselves from critical stop to critical stop from the Riverwards to Pennsport… and so on..
Each and every one of these operations involves GIS. Actually, from my perspective its far easier for me to name the short list of operations within Philly city government that are NOT reliant on GIS than it is to describe all those that are. That’s because going back 30 years the city of Philly has increasingly intertwined GIS with business logic, operations, and policy making. Geo info systems, geo-data and location intelligence exist at the core of city operations now. GIS is foundational to HOW we do what we do for the public.
Folks who have worked with me for a while know that I bristle at the suggestion that cities need Chief Data Officers or Chief Analytical officers. Why? Because THE data experts, those at the nexus of the most important data flows in government, ARE the GIS professionals. These professionals, and their interdisciplinary skills and perspectives, have existed for decades inside city and county governments. I’m confident that by the mid 1990’s there was not a state, city or large county in the US that didn’t have a GIS operation of some scale or another. The power to improve performance or service delivery and to assess for equity in decision-making — is all in the grasp of elected leaders, without the need for additional teams and bureaucracy. Because the professionals who can do (or have been doing) this work have existed all along in government, they just don’t get the visibility (to be lifted up).
This audience — all of you ARE the data engineers, the data stewards, the subject matter experts on what can and cannot be understood from data, THE data scientists, and the inclusive user design experts (I’m talking about you cartographers!).
You are the original leaders of digital transformation within government. You are the one set of professionals whose very interdisciplinary nature is to disrupt the status quo and generate insights from data. You don’t need ANYONE telling you are less than or not equal to the job of — a data scientist, data officer or analytics chief.
You are all those titles and more.
GIS is likely the greatest example of a successful, highly impactful digital transformation. Think about all the time-consuming visits to city offices requiring staff to rummage through filing cabinets, overlay drawings, and to sketch out computations on paper that have been automated by you and liberated for public access on the web — permissionless access at that. GIS was on the vanguard of innovation 50 years ago and it’s still driving innovation today. Think of the immense power of GIS behind the emerging tech for connected vehicles. And who’s likely to be the group that quantifies the negative or positive impacts of intelligent infrastructure on disadvantaged neighborhoods? The GIS professional.
So now when I hear the question “What is GIS in the City of Philadelphia?” I think of you all first — the GIS professionals — who innovate, who drive transformation, who are constantly learning and challenging one another. You are all collectively creating a 21st century city.
Today, you’ve set aside the time to come in here in-person and learn from one another and to be inspired. I don’t want you forget how important you are to government operations you enable and support.
Thank you for having me. Enjoy the day.
