UC 2022 Reveals Impact of Esri Community
Welcome to Esri Community
“Hello, I want to welcome you to the Esri Community,” begins Esri Founder & CEO, Jack Dangermond, in a video address to new members of Esri’s online Community. In his video, Jack goes on to recall a URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) conference he’d attended early in his career, where he found himself surrounded by people from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds all coming together to exchange knowledge. In that seminal moment, he identified the collaboration and connection found there as a form of community, and that it was powerful.
Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the many hallmarks of community, including generosity, dependability, mutual support, and open communication, have been intentional elements in Esri’s DNA throughout the decades. Those fingerprints appear in many forms throughout Esri, including our suitably-named Esri Community — this very digital place where anyone across the globe can freely connect with GIS peers and professionals with the purpose of finding and giving support at any time, regardless of location.
Growth of Community
Like anything worthwhile, a community takes time to build. Whether the building blocks are the bricks of a Town Hall or lines of code in a website, gathering points are erected — locations where people with like-purpose can meet others. Resources and messaging are woven together to guide the unfamiliar there.
Over time, bit by bit, the group grows as does the stream of value deposited and withdrawn from those who make that place a hub in their journeys. At some point, one pauses to look around and is struck by the realization: Wow, we’ve really got something amazing here.
Esri’s online community platform is no different as it’s progressively evolved in shape and utility over the years; first as conversation forums and then GeoNet, before transitioning into its current home as Esri Community where members across hundreds of thousands of accounts gather daily to seek help, solve problems, and advance the future of GIS together.
Esri Community’s Presence at UC 2022
A striking moment of realization arrived with this year’s Esri User Conference. Of the many joys experienced that week, one would turn out to be witnessing how common and valued a resource Esri Community has become to customers. But even before anyone set foot in San Diego, attendee data signaled that something big had already happened.
Out of the nearly 38,000 total people who registered to attend UC, 54% already had accounts in Esri Community.
This insight wasn’t reserved for a spreadsheet. Once in the showcase, the Esri Community booth relished a steady flow of visits from event attendees — plenty of whom were learning about Esri Community for the first time, but also from many visitors approaching with the light of familiarity in their eyes and a smile reserved for friends.
In Members' Own Words
Esri Community members at UC were generous with their readiness to share how Community has played a supportive role in their lives, some of which can be seen here.
When you stop by the Esri Community homepage, the first thing your eyes are likely to land on is a banner that reads—
A global community of Esri users where you can find solutions, share ideas, and collaborate
to solve problems with GIS.
To witness that purpose affirmed in the words of Esri customers is, to borrow a sentiment from Jack in his previously mentioned video, thrilling.
The value that Esri Community makes available is only possible through the combined contributions of Esri staff, its partners, and users like yourself. That grows as more great and generous minds extend themselves by visiting Esri Community and adding their own grain of value to the whole.
Thanks to Esri Community members Josh Carlson (@jcarlson), Brian Colson (@Brian_Colson), Marvin Davis (@MarvinDavis), Luiza Fernandez (@LuizaCintra_Fernandes), Mitchell Gugliotti (@MitchellGugliotti), Allison Hardy, Sri Krishna (@sri_krishnahari), Jared Pilbeam (@JaredPilbeam2), and Jeffrey Timm, who are featured in the video.