You’re not a GIS Manager, You’re a Data Scientist

It’s time to stop calling yourself a GIS manager and time to call yourself a Data Scientist.  Why?  Because businesses are increasingly bringing Data Scientists into the centre of their businesses to answer their most pressing questions.  GIS managers as a whole are not.

So what makes you a Data Scientist?

Making sense of complex data

The key skill that spells out a Data Scientist is their ability to make sense out of complex data.  As your day to day job is to manage some of the most complex and difficult data on the plant, this puts you front and centre.

Being able to manage Big Data

Big Data is often quoted as being data over 1 Terrabyte in size. So that’s OS MasterMap and a bit of aerial.  In our world, not scary at all.

Crucially you have developed the ability to manage this data in a highly efficient manner with tools that are a fraction of the price of mainstream Data Integration tools – the cost difference is usually in terms of 10x.

Blending data

In addition by handling all this data you have built up a real skill in understanding what real data management is.  You understand currency, consistency, schemas, formats compatibility and transformation.

One of the hottest topics that we see at the moment is multi-source data blending.  You nailed this 5 years ago when you adopted WFS/WMS.

So drop the GIS Manager tag – call yourself a Data Scientist and show the rest of the business just how far ahead GIS has been in terms of data management than just about any other part of business.

Find out how you could make more of your specialist skills by contacting our team.