Change your tools; it may free your thinking

Paul Arden (author)

I am presenting at a data science conference in Boston next month. I am slowly realizing that data scientists don’t know what a geospatial analyst actually is or does. Of course my plan is to introduce them to why I work with geographic information systems but where do I start?

Typically when asked what I do, I respond that I am an author and public speaker. I almost feel guilty for their alert and rapturous expressions.

“Oh would I have read anything you have written?”

In my head I am scanning back over the decades where I was primarily a medical writer and think of the series on hepatobiliary disease but think better of mentioning. Or the final clinical piece I wrote for a client, Hematapoetic Stem Cell Transplantation in Pediatric Patients where the client was cherry picking data and I left that collaboration with the realization that something was changing in medicine and I didn’t care to be part of the new order. Plus I was pissed that I missed a Steven Tyler concert privately arranged for attendees of a conference — to make a deadline and when I submitted the manuscript I got a bolus of “out of office” messages for a team that was unavailable anyway…

The two recent books, with another on the way, all deal with geospatial analysis and a few of the popular tools we use to gather insights. Python for Geospatial and Geospatial Analysis with SQL although geared for anyone with a minimal tech background but interest in the field are still not fodder for typical book clubs.

My secret sauce for not glazing over eyeballs is describing my work as a human geographer. I mean, the analytics is the tool right? Surgeons don’t tell you they are bone saws. Analysts have to position what we do better…

What is a human geographer?

The study of the interrelationships between people, place, and environment, and how these vary spatially and temporally across and between locations. Whereas physical geography concentrates on spatial and environmental processes that shape the natural world and tends to draw on the natural and physical sciences for its scientific underpinnings and methods of investigation, human geography concentrates on the spatial organization and processes shaping the lives and activities of people, and their interactions with places and nature…

What distinguishes human geography from other related disciplines, such as development, economics, politics, and sociology, are the application of a set of core geographical concepts to the phenomena under investigation, including space, place, scale, landscape, mobility, and nature. These concepts foreground the notion that the world operates spatially and temporally, and that social relations do not operate independently of place and environment, but are thoroughly grounded in and through them.

With respect to methods, human geography uses the full sweep of quantitative and qualitative methods from across the social sciences and humanities, mindful of using them to provide a thorough geographic analysis. It also places emphasis on fieldwork and mapping (see cartography), and has made a number of contributions to developing new methods and techniques, notably in the areas of spatial analysis, spatial statistics, and GIScience.— Dartmouth Library, Defining human geography

Awareness of spatial statistics and analysis came on the back of a global pandemic.

And most recently, aerial satellite feeds showing Russian troops invading Ukraine.

The capabilities of applying remote sensing data to our every day lives is mind boggling. This is where I spend most of my time. Never at a lost for topics or data to explore or explain, the graphic below is how I anchor my talks and books.

If you are interested in the technology side of what I do, Open-Source Solutions for Geospatial Analysis is for you. A lot of free content and also the opportunity to join the paid subscribers and have access to the deeper analysis, chat groups, and tech tutorials.

Otherwise you are in the right place. A smattering of tech, a nod at the world around us, and the musings of a human geographer. Welcome!

Hopefully the blend is just right, otherwise remember our childhood companion Goldilocks.

“But Goldilocks, like many freaks, Does not appreciate antiques.”
― Roald Dahl, Revolting Rhymes