Comments on: Results of Agile GIS Survey http://edgehopper.com/results-of-agile-gis-survey/ Brain Droppings on Innovation, Creativity, and Collaboration Thu, 10 May 2012 09:19:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Rodney http://edgehopper.com/results-of-agile-gis-survey/comment-page-1/#comment-2989 Rodney Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:28:32 +0000 http://www.chrisspagnuolo.com/PermaLink,guid,f1bdbc17-1b16-42c4-92ab-25457573f915.aspx#comment-2989 There is a classic book about how cultures development & some thrive more than others, and big part is explaining reasons for varying adoption rates of new ideas and new technology. The book came out in 1997 and PBS broadcast a miniseries of it in 2005. (My local library has it on DVD.) The book is <strong>Guns, Germs, and Steel</strong> and the author is <strong>Jared Diamond</strong>.  Wikipedia has articles about both. One of the big factors in slower adoption is ISOLATION. How much interaction (trading, etc.) does Culture A have with other cultures?   A more-isolated individual, group, or culture has less access to ideas originated by others, so they lag behind. What does this have to do with GIS? Many people start using GIS while working in another field (civil engineering, botany, real estate, etc.), with no background in IT, other than maybe 1 or 2 programming courses, or reading a book or two.  Self-taught developers may have never even heard of software engineering, so they think cowboy coding is normal. Don't ask their job title, ask how much background do they have in IT, and how much interaction do they have with IT professionals outside of GIS. Jack Dangermond says that GIS is becoming more integrated  into the enterprise systems, so maybe the isolation will decrease. There is a classic book about how cultures development & some thrive more than others, and big part is explaining reasons for varying adoption rates of new ideas and new technology. The book came out in 1997 and PBS broadcast a miniseries of it in 2005. (My local library has it on DVD.)
The book is Guns, Germs, and Steel and the author is Jared Diamond.  Wikipedia has articles about both.

One of the big factors in slower adoption is ISOLATION.
How much interaction (trading, etc.) does Culture A have with other cultures?   A more-isolated individual, group, or culture has less access to ideas originated by others, so they lag behind.
What does this have to do with GIS?
Many people start using GIS while working in another field (civil engineering, botany, real estate, etc.), with no background in IT, other than maybe 1 or 2 programming courses, or reading a book or two.  Self-taught developers may have never even heard of software engineering, so they think cowboy coding is normal.
Don’t ask their job title, ask how much background do they have in IT, and how much interaction do they have with IT professionals outside of GIS.
Jack Dangermond says that GIS is becoming more integrated  into the enterprise systems, so maybe the isolation will decrease.

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