Harvey
My friend Harvey is retiring.
I learned one of the most valuable GIS lessons of my career so far from Harvey.
I met Harvey about a year into my GIS career. Harvey was a cowboy fireman with the most impressive mustache. He was in the office on light duty following a surgery.
We were paired up to work on a few projects together, creating spreadsheets and maps.
Harvey has bad eye sight. The mapbook I made for the fire department had 27 pages covering the city. But Harvey couldn't see it and would throw the mapbook at someone else to look at it while on their way to a call. For Christmas later that year, we made Harvey his own special mapbook, with 108 pages covering the city. He chuckled. And used it.
To this day, every map I make, I make with Harvey in mind. Harvey is an old soul that doesn't like computers. He has no use for complex maps. While GIS is complex and ever-growing, I try to make every map a map that Harvey will understand. It is easy for us GIS-ers to get caught up in wanting to make the most elaborate and advanced map possible, getting lost in the technology and intricate details, and completely losing the intent of the map and giving the end-user what they wanted and asked for - that is not our job. Our job is to give the end-user something they can use, understand, and applies to and fulfills their needs. Giving something too robust and overly complicated is a complete fail. Keep the end-user in mind. I know we do cool things and want to show it off, but our duty is to provide what's needed, not a compilation of every cool thing we know how to do. So, I keep Harvey in mind as I make all of my maps, and make a map that Harvey can use.
I learned one of the most valuable GIS lessons of my career so far from Harvey.
I met Harvey about a year into my GIS career. Harvey was a cowboy fireman with the most impressive mustache. He was in the office on light duty following a surgery.
We were paired up to work on a few projects together, creating spreadsheets and maps.
Harvey has bad eye sight. The mapbook I made for the fire department had 27 pages covering the city. But Harvey couldn't see it and would throw the mapbook at someone else to look at it while on their way to a call. For Christmas later that year, we made Harvey his own special mapbook, with 108 pages covering the city. He chuckled. And used it.
To this day, every map I make, I make with Harvey in mind. Harvey is an old soul that doesn't like computers. He has no use for complex maps. While GIS is complex and ever-growing, I try to make every map a map that Harvey will understand. It is easy for us GIS-ers to get caught up in wanting to make the most elaborate and advanced map possible, getting lost in the technology and intricate details, and completely losing the intent of the map and giving the end-user what they wanted and asked for - that is not our job. Our job is to give the end-user something they can use, understand, and applies to and fulfills their needs. Giving something too robust and overly complicated is a complete fail. Keep the end-user in mind. I know we do cool things and want to show it off, but our duty is to provide what's needed, not a compilation of every cool thing we know how to do. So, I keep Harvey in mind as I make all of my maps, and make a map that Harvey can use.
