Always remember, you’re special. Just like everybody else.
We GIS professionals are an insular group. That isn’t entirely our fault. When a lot of us started we were the only people in the organization working on Unix workstations. We programmed in bizarre languages like AML and Avenue. We had an enormous rack of books we referenced to make a map, and we thought that was OK. Spatial wasn’t special, but it was other, because it sucked really bad.
But it is mostly our fault. We don’t use weird hardware or odd programming languages any more, and if I’m presented with a solution that involves a bookshelf I immediately start looking for a different solution. But that sense of other still exists in the GIS community. Not only that, we tend to revel in it, like a dog rolling around on a dead thing. We have even invented certifications to separate ourselves from others via placard. When we were pounding away on Sun workstations and were generally a wart on IT’s ass, when we really were other, nobody saw a need for GIS certifications. Now that we are no longer so different, certs are a big deal (or at least a vocal minority wants them to be).
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