Ideas on advertising your GIS department

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08-08-2019 04:16 PM
AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor

This will be a little bit of a different "question" from the normal GeoNet questions, but I am hoping to gather some ideas.

I work for a small engineering firm that does Civil Engineering and Land Survey kind of work. We sometimes go to a conference and exhibit what we do. For awhile I have had the idea of trying to promote my GIS department (which is a department of one) by showing off the use of different apps and maps in the world of engineers and surveyors.

I wanted to ask you, the great people of GeoNet, what sort of things have you seen, or done, at a conference/trade show (not necessarily GIS related) that caught your attention? 

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I had ideas of having some kind of interactive "game" where people could find, or guess, a specific location based on an arbitrary photo and maybe they get "points" based on how close they were to the actual location. This could be fun but it may not fully demonstrate that much GIS "power" (plus I don't have the best idea on how to calculate the points and tally it up later - need to put more thought into it). I think it would be great to use interactive apps and maps (like Survey123 for ArcGIS‌, Collector for ArcGIS‌, Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS‌, ArcGIS StoryMaps‌, Crowdsourcing‌, and newer things that I haven't touched yet like ArcGIS QuickCapture‌ and Tracker for ArcGIS‌).

14 Replies
AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor
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LarryMasters
Occasional Contributor

Adrian,

It has been my experience that anything showing changes over time draws attention. Big monitor with a slide show showing project changes over time work well. If it is surveying and the project is land development (subdivision), show original parcel, then one after the lots were divided up (different versions if necessary), things like that. The reason slide shows are better is that it is a quick change on the monitor and peoples eyes are drawn to movement. Specifically quick movements. It works better than videos. Construction projects for pipelines, tanks, treatment plants, all those things work well also.

Would love to see what you come up with after you decide.

Best of luck,

Larry

AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor

Larry,

This is a wonderful idea. I agree that moving things captures people's attention quite well. I understand what you're saying about a slideshow versus a video, but what about an animated video created from ArcGIS that shows progression over time, than can be somewhat slideshow related? 

I came across this video yesterday:

The Biggest Cities In The United States From 1790 To 2018, Visualized - Digg 

But it's not a 'video' to where I can pause and play it. But I love it. The data is fun and the graphical idea of it is intriguing (but it's information that I enjoy so maybe that makes a difference). So, this makes me think maybe something like a GIF would work just as well...

Thanks for the ideas and I'll be sure to report back with what we come up with (a few months away).

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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

Adrian- we have an internal portal that we add pages to that target specific divisions and link to ESRI solutions etc.  You can use AGOL the same way.  I'm currently working on a 'What Is GIS' story map that I'll be presenting to a brown-bag type of lunch discussion; basic concepts, nomenclature, and visuals of typical analyses.

That should just about do it....
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AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor

Joe Borgione,

"What is GIS" is the never ending question! I'd like to see that sometime if it were public. And... maybe just maybe I could drop by and watch your presentation, haha! (btw, are you coming to the SLUG meeting next week at DNR?)

Anyways, great idea, thanks!

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JoeBorgione
MVP Emeritus

Adrian-  I may sneak over to the slug meeting next week.  When I get the what is gis done, I'll send you the url...

That should just about do it....
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AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor

Thanks Joe! I look forward to it.

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DerekLaw
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Adrian,

> ... what sort of things have you seen, or done, at a conference/trade show (not necessarily GIS related) that caught your attention? 

Working at conferences/trade shows, I typically have my laptop and a single medium-sized display monitor. I will typically have Chrome browser open with 7-10 different tabs, where each tab shows a relevant web page, web app, document, etc. I use a Chrome browser extension called Revolver (available free) - which enables the browser to rotate through the various tabs. In effect, I get a slideshow in Chrome. This is great as it rotates through the different tabs and helps draw attention to my monitor.

Hope this helps,

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AdrianWelsh
MVP Honored Contributor

Derek,

This is a great idea and I haven't seen the Revolver app before. I'll definitely be checking this app out.

Thanks!