spatial networks | location leverage

With the ever-evolving technology made available via the internet and cell phones, information is virtually at your fingertips wherever you are. I can remember writing research reports in grade school using the Encyclopedia as your main source for information. If you still needed more information, you had to go to the library and look through the card catalog (do they even have that anymore?!) to find where the book was located. It was usually a long and tedious process. So what if you read something that wasn’t going to benefit you for that particular project? You still learned in the process. This is virtually obsolete anymore with the invention of the internet. You simply go to your favorite search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing) and type in ANY topic you are interested in and have virtually 100,000 matches. Whether they are relevant or useful is up to you to decipher, but the information is there for us to access.

Geography is indispensable. It is inconceivable in our contemporary global economy, that any business or governmental function does not use or need to fully leverage geography as part of its core mission. So much depends on understanding the location context of information on a continuous basis, that a mastery and full appreciation of geography, and its manifest applications in geospatial technologies, is an indispensable component to progress and success in any measure.Those that lack this appreciation and competence of geography in their organizations are under-utilizing available resources at best, and at worst, are negligent towards their stakeholders and constituents.

Disregarding geospatial technologies as burdensome administrative costs, or discretionary capital expenditures is extraordinarily shortsighted and suggests inadequate business vision that will result in sub-optimized financial performance over time and decision-making processes that yield inaccurate results. In every department, group or function within a Corporation or Government, geography plays an indispensable role in perfecting the goals and objectives of the organization. If geography is not viewed in this light, or not leveraged in the maximum, then those Corporations and Governmental organizations will suffer as a result. Those leaders that recognize the critical nature and key role that geospatial technology plays in strategic planning and tactical execution will achieve and maintain a level of excellence in their respective markets, and will generate history and knowledge that has exponential value over time.

Geography is much more than knowing the States and Capitals of the Union, it is much more than picking the right postal code for purchasing real-estate, it is much more than choosing with route to take on summer vacation. Geography is as critical as email, the Internet, banking, or any other conventional business tool. The Internet truly has changed everything, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Geography has been "around" and indispensable since, well, as long as there has been geography on the planet earth. It is an indispensable aspect agrarian communities, as well as nomads and traditional, native peoples. Modern business and governments have only recently begun to rediscover the value that geography, or at least the application of geospatial technologies, can have across the enterprise, and some are even recognizing that it is truly indispensable and embrace geography in innovative and often disruptive ways.

Geography always has been, but never more so indispensable than in today’s global community and the increasingly complex choices face by Governments, corporations and individuals. The consequences of poor decision-making are no longer limited to local, small or short-term impacts, but as has been seen over the last 24 months, decision-making without full appreciation of geography can have exponential, negatively cascading impacts across the world that can last for decades. Geography is uniquely qualified as the single most important and therefore, indispensable applied science because it is equally available to both world leaders and local citizenry. The tools, data & technology than can be brought to bear on any given issue have never before been so accessible to the world community. Geography has no equal in this realm, and so it is, entirely indispensable.
 

Geography is irrelevant. In today’s interconnected, globalized economy and communications culture, geography no longer matters. Both ends of an internet connection may physically terminate at two computers thousands of kilometers apart, across oceans and continents, but there is no real difference in the location of those two points. They are essentially coincident, both in the abstract and in the real-time nature of connectivity. Geography is irrelevant in so many ways, due in part because of the technological advancements in communications, geospatial technology, consumer behavior and education, content and choice.