In response to Gary's survey:
Some further remarks:
Only six responses were from outside of the USA, four of them from Canada. All
but two of them were in educational institutions.
Obviously I'm one of the exceptions mentioned... A possible reason for
lack of response from private firms, like Jaro points out, is the
importance attributed to things like informal surveys. Although it is
well known that people will fill in *any* form if they're asked to, it is
also very easy to forget that you got one, somewhere in your mailbox.
I'm not sure what the significance of these figures is, if there is any. Certainly, it's an unscientific survey. Does the response reflect a bias towards those who are really active in GIS, or towards those with easy access to the Internet? Are the t
wo> closely related? My gut feeling is that there are a lot of
private firms, consultants, that use GIS, but on a small, rather superficial
scale, i.e. mostly for producing nice maps. These firms are most likely to have
PC applications, and are far less likely to be on-line.So in the end, these findings reinforce my own prejudice, that big GIS is
something that happens mostly in universities and goverment agencies. Kind of
makes sense, given that that is where long range planning tends to go on.
I think you must make a distinction between firms using GIS as a support
tool for their own work (like environmental consulting or landscape
planning, to mention some obvious applications) and specialized GIS
firms, trying to sell their know-how on GIS. It seems clear to me that
the second type of activity is far more 'satisfying' for people really
interested in GIS, and it is my feeling that you can make some money with
it as well.
My motive for this survey, since some people inquired about it, is to learn a
bit more about the market for GIS professionals. At one time, when I was job
searching, I was very frustrated about finding work in the field. I did not
want to work for a goverment agency [I have done that, and it isn't for me.]
and I did not want to be an academic. My search of the private sector found
relatively few firms that do GIS in a big way.
And as last remark: my experience is that whether you find a job in GIS
or not is greatly dependent on the other type of education that you might
have: if you're a hard-boiled computer scientists, you may find it very
difficult to find your way in ecology, geography or archaeology than if
you have the relevant background in these sciences.
All the best,
Philip Verhagen
--
S t i c h t i n g R A A P
Regionaal Archeologisch Archiverings Projekt
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