GIS at a Glance
The true power of GIS, and specifically a dedicated freelance GIS specialist like the Map Nerd, is the ability to take many disparate pieces of information that all have geographic components to them… and combine them in a meaningful, informative way.
Even though GIS is immediately recognizable as a term, its use and effects are everywhere to enhance our day-to-say lives: from city planning, crime detection, and disaster preparedness… to navigating to a friend’s house with your phone.
At its core, GIS allows you to visualize information that loses its meaning as text.
For example, a list of residential addresses and their respective home sale prices tells you very little about those places outside of that concrete info. But with a GIS real estate map, you can see so much more of how they relate to each other, and the physical attributes of their environment. This is perfect for, say, determining whether or not you should invest in a home as your ideal place to live… or invest in it to flip it and grow your home-sale revenue.
Like any tool, GIS is only as good as the person wielding it — after all, much like a saw won’t cut wood on its own, GIS on its own won’t just hand you answers. To get the most out of it, you need a GIS consultant with extensive knowledge of demographics, statistics, data collection, census methodology, political geography, cartography, and design — a.k.a., a Map Nerd.