Make your Data Work for You

Facilities, businesses, organizations, municipalities, and individuals are all dealing with a data problem. All over, people are collecting great data and not putting it to work. Hours, days, months are spent gathering data, sorting, re-sorting, and re-sorting again to analyze it for a particular need. Or worse… data is collected over and over again and ends up sitting and going to waste.

Your data should be understandable. It should be reliable. And, it should be accessible.

GIS technologies allow you to make your data work for you. Instead of storing information in multiple locations- maps, spreadsheets, notepads, clipboards, cell phones, email chains- now we have the ability to put it all in just one, single place.

With GIS technology, data can be accessed on multiple devices from various users and at any time. It allows you to continuously and consistently revise- so your information is always up to date. With GIS, data makes sense.

GIS software links geographic information (the where) with descriptive information including data, comments, pictures, and more (the what). Data doesn’t have to be just numbers on a screen or photos in a folder.

By compiling all of these things into the visual representation of a digital map- your data begins to work for you.

While flat maps and standard database systems offer you the surface, GIS technology takes what you know on a deeper level- allowing you to better understand the relationships, the patterns, and the connections between things that happen and why.

Because when data tells a story, you’re able to make smarter decisions in a shorter time.

But it doesn’t stop there. Through GIS, we have also been able to streamline data collection while maximizing efficiency. Throw the clipboards and blank paper forms away. Instead, all field team members need is a smart phone or a tablet. Customized data collection apps allow you and your team to gather data (pictures too!) with smart devices and it is immediately populated into your GIS map. No filling out forms. No copying forms into spreadsheets, or rewriting maps onto other maps. Instead, it’s all in one place and it remains as up to date as you are.

Interact with your data. Make sense of your maps. Find out the answers that you need to know. ….try doing all of that on paper.