Kristi Grahl's editorial in the September POB was not quite fullfilling. I was reading my preferable hard print copy today as I spend tes understanding."enough time on a computer, and need regular breaks from it.
I quote from her head in paragraph.
"But as technology increasingly blurs the lines between data collection and data application, surveyors will need to become better at seeing the world through the eyes of their clients so they can add value by providing not just data, but information-intelligent, layered, visual information that improves decision-making and facilitates understanding."
That is a lot to mull around, which is why I posted it here.
Consider the following conversation.
"Ring, ring."
"Surveyors Anonymous, how can I help you?"
"I need a survey."
"What is the purpose of said survey."
"I just need a survey, don't you do that?"
From there the conversation goes slowly uphill or quickly downhill.
The basic client does not know what he wants to do, but somehow we are to perceive how we can make his inknown use more productive for him, most likely at our expense.
In my opinion, "data is dumb" it just sits there. Some data is very precisely dumb, while some is just dumb enough to get by. No matter what I do, I cannot make the data more intelligent. I can leave in a disorderly manner or I can intelligently organize it, but the data does not change. I can also add more data creating the possibility that the client is less likely to readily find what he needs.
Somehow data can become intelligent information, but I fail to see how without an intelligent user intervening.
What is proposed is that making your data freely available on the web for instance gives the client more value. I believe with so much information available the client will not perceive that he in fact needs more data. He will instead go to the data mine and grab the sparkling pyrite and sell it as gold in his project. He may wish to expand his project by merging data, grabbing from job "A" and job "B" both on local but separate SPC systems. Even with the metadata included to allow a qualified professional to properly merge that data, one has no control that it in fact gets properly done.
I believe that the more data available the more intelligent the user has to be. Also it is very dangerous to provide information such that an idiot can think he has accomplished an intelligent task.
BTW, in case you need more information, it is 3:50 EDT on 9/20/2012, 64°, clear blue sky. Hope that helps you decide about the value of my data.
Paul in PA
""Ring, ring."
"Surveyors Anonymous, how can I help you?"
"I need a survey."
"What is the purpose of said survey."
"I just need a survey, don't you do that?"
From there the conversation goes slowly uphill or quickly downhill."
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I'll disagree with you Paul. I always ask my clients the purpose of the survey. I have not had one person respond with "I just have some extra money and want one done."
There is always a reason why they need a survey, putting up fences, additions to the house, conflict with the neighbor etc. and they always know why!
Do you not offer a range of services or is a "survey" a "survey".??
Don
Foggy
My point is that most clients are seldom forthright in the survey's purpose. That they either do not want to disclose it or actually don't know. Extraction of the purpose can sometimes be easy and sometimes not.bbbbb
Probably a bad start to my comments as they appear to be relying on a knowledgeable client in the editorial.
Paul in PA
Larry P often talks about differences in types of clients. The editorial is talking about a different type of client than the one asking how much for a survey? I don't really read POB anymore as inmho they should just rename it GIS or maybe BIM magazine.
Mr. Paul in PA,
I ain't been on this here surveying forum for too long but I suspect you got some sense in that noggin a yours from some postings you done laid forth for the general readership. Myself being included amongst them general readers. And I suspect you may well be sensing some of the same frustrations my son frequently senses, since he come back from the university anyhow muttering about advertisements and the like, concerning what we might call the Main Stuff of the Mind: being I suppose the LANGUAGE and SENTENCES of the brain. Mr. Paul in PA I suspect you hearing Stupid Talk and it ain't sitting well with you.
My son if he were here would prolly (after vexing me concerning my own language) wonder if Ms. Grahl is speaking in the linguistic tradition of Lynette Fromme when she uses that there larynx a hers to say something like: "...the data is just the beginning. By seeing the bigger picture, surveying and mapping professionals can help clients visualize new solutions."
I'd prolly right here affect my deepest central Virginia drawl and say, "Yer jokin."
Well I don't spect Captain Meriwether figured his data to be any sort a end when Mr. Jefferson told him to take his observations with great pains and accuracy not just for hisself but for others. Nor do I spect Mr. Don up there in Cape Cod will get that call from some lost geocached soul requesting that survey just because they want some data. And Mr. Rambleon done already seen the whole data collecting world ain't nothing but a ad for more data collectin instruments. Ain't no surveyor ever been that stupid to think data is gettin collected for the sake of data. But you might well get that notion reading that there Information vs. Data bulletin. That notion that surveyors and their kin are a bunch a data collectin fools studying standard deviations from historical and statistical propriety and little else. And I suspect Mr. Paul in PA that THAT what done pissed you off concerning Ms. Grahl's vocalization. Or some such generative act from which all Higher Stupidities Flow.
And I won't here let myself tirade on the issues of too much data, though I see you touchin on it there in your sentences, with a somewhat right angled trajectory than I myself might take.
Then she done quote some other smart-ass engineer to give us dumb-asses more wisdom concerning our professional obligation: "When someone asks for a map, there not just asking for a map; they're asking for a way to convey answers to certain questions."
You must be jokin. (OMG we better plug our data in boys! My grandaughter be proud of me right about now all that OMG stuff.) I spect that LARGE visualization she been getting from Jack and his kin getting the best a her MINDING and LANGUAGE.
But the point I's getting to concerning Lynette Fromme--if you'll recall Lynette and her kin attempting to assssinate Gerald Ford a few years back--concerned a statement she made after being sentenced to life in prison. Sumbitch stuck with me many a year. She said this: "I want Manson out. I want a world of peace." That'd be CHARLES Manson. I spect you remember him. And for the life a me I never could reconcile them two sentences together. Manson and peace? What the blazes am I missin? And then I go see it over and over and over again. Crazy talk. And I ain't no youngster and I ain't no educated coffee shop gentry. But I sometimes find myself in perplexed wonder that the entire subject matter of stupidity ain't encompassed by the ways we talk to ourselves. There ain't stupid people, just stupid sentences.
Mr. Paul in PA, keep yer detectors on, yer doing fine.
