I want to change the way we learn geospatial in the next 6 months

First off, thank you and welcome. This is my new consolidated newsletter that I’ll be sharing on a regular basis called Spatial Stack. After a semi-productive first half of the year, I took a look at what my goals are and decided to refocus around one simple idea: maximizing how I can help others learn about modern geospatial and GIS and grow their careers.

For me that means three different things:

1. How to grow your career in geospatial
2. How to use new and innovative tools and approaches to increase your impact
3. How to grow in an ever changing industry

For me, I think I was able to accomplish number three with the Geospatial Landscape, and hope to continue to do so, but providing different insights on our industry and how things are changing. What I learned from the process was that our industry is much larger than I thought it was, and there is a lot to discover.

Or I felt like I was falling short in the first two goals. One of the reasons I started sharing and posting was really to help others learn from the things that I was able to learn across the course of my career and, hopefully, do it a bit faster than I did.

What I loved about the first half of the year was that I was able to experiment and try a lot of new things. One of those was testing out live streams on YouTube and LinkedIn which took off and sort of made a life of its own, including what might turn into a podcast. Thanks to all of you who have tuned in and watched live – the chats are one of my favorite parts of the live stream to see where everyone is joining from.

I also got to experiment with a ton of different topics on YouTube, and I think I am starting to find my rhythm on that platform as well. From trying out new intros to making catchy thumbnails, it provides a great creative freedom while still being able to discuss topics I enjoy.

But…

What I haven’t been able to focus in on is helping you learn new tools and skills and helping you grow professionally.

I really enjoy sharing, teaching, and mentoring about these types of topics. Any time I have had the opportunity to share and help others use new tools has been something that is particularly rewarding to me. In fact, that was the original reason for the live streams.

So this is what my focus will be on in the next 6 months in terms of most of my content. I have always had a goal of providing new ways to learn geospatial tools and skills. I have had hundreds of conversations within my network who want to learn these skills and either:

1. Look for a bootcamp for general programming, then fit that back to their geospatial skills
2. Explore a geospatial or GIS certificate program which is a big time commitment and expense
3. Piece it together from tutorials and tools across the web

I did it the third way and, well, it took a long time. I loved finding a new blog post and trying something out, and maybe it would work and I would pick up a cool new trick, but at the same time, it is tough to see how it all fits together.

What I did have going for me was a great group of people I worked with that were willing to answer my questions, help me understand concepts, and work with me as I struggled through code or other projects. It’s that collaboration and support that was the secret sauce that made it all click for me.

And to finally get to the title of the email, that is what I want to build. I want to solve those problems of scattered tutorials and heavy commitments, while bringing in that element of collaboration and community.

This is still a work in progress, but I have been deep into creating what I am calling the Spatial Lab. It is a membership community that helps others learn about modern geospatial and GIS and grow their careers – together. It blends the two elements that worked so well for me, focused learning and community, into one place.

I’ll share more as the Lab starts to take shape, but I would love for you to join me.

Looking forward to sharing this journey with you and sharing what I learn and hopefully helping you along the way.