Make A Difference: Join the Movement

"Excellence has always been achieved by those who dared to believe that something inside them is superior to the circumstances."

GIS Champions: Without Champions GIS goes nowhere

Identify a “GIS Champion” by the following qualities and traits :

Inclusive with a varied knowledge base and good Spatial Aptitude (High SQ)
Knowledgeable even then curious to know more about the emerging technologies
Always able to look at the big picture
Looks for consensus but dares to clear ambiguity due to misinterpretations by the team
Involved in projects from the beginning (even doing dirty work)
Confident, unafraid of change; a change-master
Enthusiastic about the challenges
Communicator
Mentor (when required)
Satisfied with knowing that better decisions are being made as the result of GIS
Sees organizational benefits of GIS, not personal
Looks forward to Monday morning.

Strategy to create GIS Champions:

Understand the limitations of CAD and expectations from GIS
Hire qualified staff, provide training to interested staff
Encourage positive organizational changes to accommodate "Real GIS experts"
Look for the people with a winning “GIS Personality”
Trash the decade old assumption that "Anyone can learn GIS (read it CAD)".
Identify the group of pretenders and halt their train of excuses ASAP. Root-cause of most of the project failures and poor performance is lack of learning, underestimation of client expectations and application of second (& third) hand knowledge.
Don’t give up when there are setbacks.