Esri Community Member Spotlight: Marvin Davis
We’re starting a new monthly series of member spotlights featuring you and your peers here in Esri Community—the people playing a role in finding solutions, sharing ideas, and collaborating to solve problems with GIS. We’re doing this to recognize amazing user contributions, to example how Esri Community’s purpose is being brought to life, and to bring depth to this group of incredible people who may never meet in person, but who benefit from each other’s generous expertise.
The Solo Practitioner
They say no person is an island, and that everyone relies on connections to others in order to navigate their way in life. When it comes to the GIS profession, though, there can seem to be an abundance of workplaces determined to challenge that adage.
At Esri, we hear from many folks grappling with the demands of being the only GIS practitioner where they work. For plenty, it can make for a sometimes lonely, difficult row to hoe. The benefits of shared understanding and the cooperative shouldering of burdens aside, settings with a limited body of experience can mean overcoming hurdles is a whole different undertaking than in those where mentors sit at nearby desks or are a quick Slack message away.
Conditions like these necessitate a degree of self-sufficiency that Marvin Davis (@MarvinDavis) can relate to. He’s the GIS Analyst for the City of Morgantown, WV, and is the sole GIS practitioner in his workplace where he carries out projects for state and local government.
Our team had the opportunity to meet up with Marvin at User Conference (UC) 2022, to learn more about how Esri Community has become his go-to support system of GIS peers and professionals who can collaborate regardless of any individual workplace’s setup.
You’re Not Alone
Marvin began using Esri Community back in 2014 when he was a grad student at West Virginia University, and it’s been at the top of his toolbox ever since. That reliance has only become more acute in recent years as he’s found himself working with ArcGIS Enterprise—a product whose power can come with a learning curve.
“ I think that the Esri Community, especially in the past few years, has
been absolutely critical to my work. … [it’s] an incredible savings to
my time and to my organization’s time and the funds available. ”
Whether through a Google Search or going to the platform directly, Esri Community is the place that Marvin almost always lands after butting up against an error code or when something simply isn’t shaping up the way he expected. That includes solving for any challenges he encountered while helping the City of Morgantown implement a series of GIS solutions to make voting processes more accessible and efficient for both the public and workers during its 2021 municipal elections.
Learn how the City of Morgantown improved 2021 municipal voting using GIS in Marvin’s Map Gallery report
Following an enthusiastic response from both voters and election officials, and armed with 20-20 insights, Marvin and the city are now actively engaged in deploying GIS solutions to prepare for when candidates begin filing for the 2023 elections in early January. The vast, searchable library of member collaborations and the opportunity to pose new questions to others in Esri Community continue to be a resource along the way.
“You’re not alone,” Marvin reflected when describing what Esri Community has meant to him. He’s long recognized that his experiences usually aren’t unique; others have likely encountered them as well and shared their solutions with the goal of helping those who follow.
What’s more, Esri Community is a resource that Marvin has found to be particularly time economical.
“I think the Esri Community, especially in the past few years, has been absolutely critical to my work.” Marvin noted that he could be looking at hours of work to get a resolution via other means, whereas going to Esri Community can reduce that time to minutes. “… [it’s] an incredible savings to my time and to my organization’s time and the funds available.”
Returning the Favor
There’s more to Esri Community than just benefiting from the answers of those who’ve come before. At their heart, all communities are ecosystems that operate at their full potential when people not only take, but also give back. It’s a process on Marvin’s mind.
“ … you are able to not only learn, but contribute your own experience
toward improving the geospatial community, improving the technology,
and helping Esri improve their product. ”
One of the best ways he’s found to connect and contribute is through ArcGIS Ideas. There, he’s been able to observe other people coalescing around ideas for how to enhance certain Esri products. And he’s witnessed some of those ideas get adopted so that they become part of a product release.
“… I see [an idea] getting upgraded in status from being thought of to being implemented. … I’ve been really excited to help contribute—however little that may be—but helping contribute to seeing it come to fruition.”
Thanks to the collaborative efforts of members like Marvin, more than 600 user-submitted ideas have been implemented in Esri products in the last two years alone. That’s a powerful pipeline running directly between customers and the product teams at Esri.
Marvin summed up the point, “… you are able to not only learn, but contribute your own experience toward improving the geospatial community, improving the technology, and helping Esri improve their product.”
Marvin’s win-win mentality assures a community that better supports its users every passing day and ever-improves this space where people can find solutions, share ideas, and collaborate to solve problems with GIS.
Marvin Davis is the GIS Analyst for state and local government in the City of Morgantown, WV. Among his projects, Marvin’s work to help the city integrate GIS solutions that improve municipal voting for the local public and election officials is captured in his ArcGIS StoryMap Report.