This month’s column is all about a real life experience.  Please note the title has changed from ‘An Eye on the Web’ to ‘An Eye on the YEB’, bear with me as it will become clear before long.  This is written, not from a fancy hotel in Los Angeles but from a hotel in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire.  What, you may ask, am I talking about?

This evening whilst staying away from home (always miserable) I decided to partake in the evening Pub Quiz.  Whilst sitting down at a table, a local quiz team sat down next to me and I started to talk to one of its members. She asked what I did - I didn’t admit to being journalist so said I was involved in mapping. “Mapping,” she said – “You must know about the Circle controversy ” – a roundabout outside the pub we were sitting in.  Not being local I said I didn’t and she explained how planning permission had been granted quietly and how a ‘young fellow’ was vigorously contesting the planning decision that hadn’t appeared on his local Land Search when he bought his bungalow.  Mmm NLIS, Planning Portal, interesting I thought…but decided to keep mum!

Later on another, older member of the team asked what I did for a shilling – computer mapping I said expecting no reply.  GIS he said – I love that stuff!  Intrigued would be an understatement.  I know about GIS from my YEB days he said.   YEB?  I thought I was entering the world of Star Wars complete with Jedi’s, Sith’s and who knows what else.  Actually YEB is the Yorkshire Electricity Board.  Alan is a retired Senior High Voltage Engineer who for the next hour tried to explain to me how his career had evolved from being an apprentice draughtsman to being a senior engineer who used GIS in his work.  His career had stretched from being allowed to draw, in Indian ink, on to a linen material circuit plan in the 1960’s to the introduction of GIS in the 1990‘s which enabled the location of an electricity sub-station in minutes rather than hours.

Alan was a real user from the coalface and explained how, although sceptical at first, he became an advocate of GIS and Ordnance Survey mapping.  We chatted for an hour or so and I told him that I remembered the electricity blackouts of the 70’s and 80’s how I felt the younger generation ‘didn’t really appreciate how good things are today’ - this was Alan’s area.  He told me how he used to be phoned in the middle of the night and would get up quietly, so as not to awaken his wife, to go out and fix these outages.  GIS he said had been revolutionary.  No longer did he have to first go to the office – 5 miles away to get the circuit diagrams from the plan chest but could instead use the GIS.  “How much time did this save you,” I asked?  “10 – 15 minutes?”  “No.” he said.  “Hours.”  These are the things that we should all be talking about.

Where am I going with this?  Glad you asked.  Last week (late October) I gave a talk to the Autodesk Infrastructure User Group based upon my experiences with GIS, web mapping and Open Source.  After tonight I feel this was a missed opportunity. What I really should have talked about is REAL LIFE experiences of how GIS has helped someone to do their job much much better and how this translated into better service provision and value for customers.  Perhaps we should all re-evaluate our own experiences with that of others, steer away from the technical and simply concentrate on the real reasons why GIS is good.

I am amazed, and I must say happy, that in the world we live in today I can now mention computer mapping and people no longer look at me with blank expressions.   The general public are becoming more familiar with computer mapping through the use of ‘Sat Nav’s’ in their cars, route finding websites or maybe through Google Maps. There is a growing awareness of the value of maps and mapping is insidious, worming its way in to everyday life from planning applications to house searches and in other areas such as the provision of electricity. Everyone is reaping the benefits of mapping and GIS, the difference is most of the time they don’t even know it.

As I look down from my pulpit I say unto you, “go hence and spread the GIS gospel, let everyone amongst you know its benefits, put licensing issues behind you and rejoice in the amazing range of detailed map data now available. Together we can change the World!”