Which type of mapmaker are you?

10 ways to make a map – and what they say about you

Once, in my earlier career, I performed a “Geomatics Striptease” during a presentation. Before you get worried, it was just a term I had coined to ask the geomatics profession a simple question: What unique skill do you have left after all the layers of overlapping disciplines have been peeled off? After stripping away IT, geography, GIS, remote sensing and so on, the one core skill unique to the profession was geodetic positioning – making sure that things are precisely & accurately in the right place.

Anybody can make a map these days so, beyond that, what unique skill can you contribute to society? Whatever your profession, you can probably list any number of skills that other disciplines also offer. So what is unique about you? Why should your customer pay you and not someone else? If you’re unsure about the answer, a good starting point might be to determine your preferred mapping style. It will provide some clues as you what makes you unique. So I’ve made this chart to help you find out:

(Click on chart for full size, or get it here from my Flickr page.)

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