GIS for Non-GIS People

When I joined the company a couple of years ago, I was pretty much fresh off the college campus with my liberal arts degree in hand and had never heard of GIS.  After my interview with GISi, I went home, got on the internet, and searched for “GIS.”  I was bombarded with a wealth of information and wasn’t sure where to start with my quest for GIS knowledge. 

I soon discovered that the best way to learn was through day-to-day observation.  I read project descriptions, listened to conversations about the technology that were going on around the office, and asked questions as I thought of them.  I picked up the lingo and a working knowledge of GIS after a few months.  And since my job is to market a GIS company, I looked at how other people were doing this by perusing GIS news sites, visiting GIS blogs, and seeing what other companies were displaying at tradeshows.   

Though I still have much more to learn about the GIS industry, I feel comfortable being a voice for a GIS company.  The only times I tend to have trouble explaining what GIS is occurs when a friend or relative asks what my company does.  Explaining the industry to a person who—much like me two years ago— has no idea what I am talking about has not gotten much easier.  Does anyone else have trouble with this? 

So keep in mind when you read posts by me in the future, that they are from the perspective of a right-brain, non-GIS person who is still trying to figure out what this GIS stuff is all about.