|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS" |
| Date: |
04/05/2003 03:35:00 PM |
| From: |
Karen Morley |
|
|
I don't usually weigh in on these types of threads but couldn't resist this
one.
A recent big sensation on TV has been the forensic science shows, my mother
even hangs up on me to go watch CSI (I think that's what it's called). At
any rate, the shows consistently misrepresent the technology to the public
but interest increases as a result. I read an article that applications to
university programs in forensic sciences have gone up 200% as a result.
Perhaps even if the technology is misrepresented the industry will see a
growth in interest as a result and an opportunity to truly educate people in
geospatial sciences.
my $0.02...
-Karen
-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Quartararo
To: gislist@geocomm.com
Sent: 4/4/2003 6:26 AM
Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
Both good points and well taken. However, when I hear and see what
clueless
celebrity news anchors say and do while using these very powerful tools
of
persuasion (I'm not kidding, it's just like Monday Night Football - with
the
same intellectual capital), the ability to present an incredible array
of
spatial information to global audiences, all the time, over and over,
the
impact of a little white "lie" makes "How to Lie with Maps" seem almost
quaint and homey. We don't need to worry about official
misinformation
sanctioned as part of a military strategy, the media has that handled
all
too well. I'm not expecting the "beautiful people" at CNN to launch
into a
GIS 101 course each time they ramp up the Teledestructor, but it does
bother me that these fools are many people's first real exposure to the
power and application of the fruit of our collective efforts.
I sometimes explain to people I meet that what I do (and what industry I
work in) is to make the guts of "Mapquest.com" for lots of different
industries, and they seem to get it right away. This is a 10 second
explanation that works just fine in social settings, because when I
launch
into the GIS 101 course, lots of glassy eyes abound. While I'm not
pretending to be an ambassador for the industry, every chance I get to
turn
someone on to "how do they do that....", I take advantage. The point
is, in
the rush and effort to become ingrained into everyday business/consumer
mainstream technology, are we (and we should be) prepared to hand over
control of the mainstream "interface" to non-industry professionals ?
ajq
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Hoskins [mailto:healthmaps@attbi.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 8:43 AM
> To: gislist@geocomm.com
> Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
>
>
> Totally right-on comment. When I show up at community
> meetings with cool maps and statistical models of why the
> such and such death rate near a toxic waste site is higher
> than elsewhere, I sort of have my feelings hurt because the
> community passes right over the technology, GIS, computation,
> and statistical effort that it took to produce the results.
>
>
> Then I remind myself that is exactly why we are using the
> technology in the first place, that is, so citizens and
> policy makers can focus on the problem and not on some arcane
> process outside their scope and interest. When technology
> becomes transparent - we have done our job.
>
> Richard E. Hoskins
> WA State Dept of Health
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Gould [mailto:gould@lsi.uji.es]
> Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 5:27 AM
> To: gislist@geocomm.com
> Subject: Re: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
>
>
> Anthony seems surprised that people on the street i.e. the
> press, do not
>
> talk about GIS.
>
> This seems strange to some of us deeply embedded in the GIS
> field, but in
> the end "normal" people care about results, not the
> technologies behind the
> scenes. I can imagine that experts in tire rubber compounds
> are amazed that
> Formula-1 commentators only talk about speed, positions, how
> much drivers
> get paid, etc. and do not focus enough on how well a certain
> tire seems to
> be adhering :-)
>
> Earthviewer lets people see Bagdad. They don't care how many
> GISs it took
> to produce each view or which SUN server is driving the web site.
>
> Just an observation.
> cheers
> Mike Gould
> sig below
>
> At 16:22 03/04/2003 -0500, Anthony Quartararo wrote:
> >Just listened to an NPR report on the media's use of various
> >graphic-intensive tools to illustrate the ongoing war in
> Iraq. It was
> >a nice piece, Keyhole's CEO had a few blurbs, and DigitalGlobe got a
> >few plugs too. I&
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
