Q: Everyone knows Glenn Letham The GIS User. But there is much more to what you do than GISUser.com, correct? Tell us about your other endeavors.
A: GISuser has been a fantastic journey for me and it has been really fun and interesting to manage for the past 15 years. About 3 years ago I got an itch to do more and join up with a “real GIS company” again so that was when I hooked up with GEO Jobe and took up a role in marketing and content creation for them. Recently that came to an end and that has enabled me to now focus on growing my consulting business, gletham Communications (gletham.com) to provide technical marketing, strategy, and communication services specifically for the GIS/Geotech industry. Oh, and I’m also going to double-down and start re-focusing on GISuser and our GIS Career resource, geojobs.biz, along with my business associate Allen Cheves — he’s also the founder and publisher of American Surveyor Magazine and the very awesome LiDAR Magazine – if LiDAR is of interest you gotta check it out! I still maintain and manage the online mobile tech news sites that I founded back in 2004, LBSzone.com & SymbianOne.com. I really enjoy DevMeetups and similar geeky events and have a real itch to organize one again sometime, perhaps an Ignite or DevMeet that coincides with a conference (In the past I’ve helped plan a few of them, including a GeoDevMeetup in Fort Collins with about 200 people – they were awesome!)
Q: What is the secret to a successful social media presence? A narrow, specialized, highly technical content, or broad content including technical content but also cultural commentary and the occasional political jab?
A: Social media really is a different creature for everyone I think. By that I mean, there really is no right or wrong way to do it and “success” is pretty subjective. I’ve definitely been a long time, early adopter of most of the original, big platforms but I’ve also had periodic moments of burn-out which I see happening to many others as well. I guess I’ve been somewhat successful at building a community of followers, the biggest challenge likely has been combining personal and business content into the mix. That can be a real challenge and can also be risky, causing followers to bail out and resort to blocking. I’ve always been a bit of an open book, posting some personal commentary and lots of photos and video. This means that my network doesn’t just view me as a GeoGeek or marketing guy, many also view me as a dog lover, baseball fan, and guy who appears to travel quite a bit, strangely living in Victoria or Fort Collins, CO! For me, this has been useful in building credibility and enabling people to get to know me as if we’ve met IRL. I’m lucky in that I have a fantastic network in the GIS and mobile tech community. This means that I receive lots of great tips, tricks, advanced news announcements and sneak peeks into the future. I think this has really helped to provide me with plenty of great technical content to share over the years. My goal is simply to try and build a reputation as someone who is open, honest, trustworthy, funny, and caring. I’ll admit that I have periodic Twitter “rants” where I’ll slip up and drop a political topic, but you have to admit, it’s tough at times these days to have complete restraint but I’m trying to chill with that! I’m working on trying to be more careful about those topics though as it really doesn’t do any good and simply contributes to division and conflict. I find LinkedIn to be increasingly useful and interesting (although the engineers messing with the platform tend to drive me crazy!) but that’s also where I am 100% business and try to focus solely on technology and business. If I had to describe my “success” I’d have to say it’s come from connecting with awesome people to build a vibrant network, trying to engage and assist/answer questions when possible, and just being myself. If your readers would like to connect with me they can find me on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/glethamComm/) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/glethamcomm/)
Q: GeoGeeks in Cars. Other than the obvious Seinfeld influence, can you tell us what inspired you to start this?
A: I’ve always enjoyed doing the “selfie video” thing, I believe the first time I tried that was in 2010 when I took a summer drive in my Mustang convertible on a little trip to the Apple store in Boulder, CO (https://youtu.be/Ude0D3uiShs). Fast-forward a few years and I decided that I wanted a more fun, visual way to interview GeoGeeks. I’ve been a tech journalist since 1999 but honestly, doing interviews has never really been my favorite thing to do in that role so I felt that mixing things up with video would be a great idea (note, one of my favorite episodes to date was this one with the entire Esri startup program team https://youtu.be/aGAZGxTQXZw). Apparently, it worked quite well as I frequently have geeks come up to me at events and say “hey, you do those geek in cars videos!” I believe my first true GeoGeeksincars episode was in Victoria, BC with my friend Karl Swannie, CEO at Echosec. The drive was fun, although a bit bumpy but I really found that both of us were at ease and just having a friendly, light conversation. We actually did go for coffee and it clicked to me that this could be something fun that people would enjoy. Overall, I’ve found it to be a fun way to discuss a topic, particularly as I’m not really interested in creating a podcast. Initially, I started out filming these with a smartphone but I’ve since updated the technology and the quality and continued to get better I think. The next thing I’d like to add is a second or third camera angle so people can see the scenery. Most recently, I rolled a few at DevSummit in Palm Springs, including this solo drive where I chatted about my new adventure (https://youtu.be/RoCILVzqz2Y)
Q: You were just at the Esri Developer Summit. Tell us something you learned there that you don’t think you would have heard about otherwise.
A: I think, overall, I was most struck by how the products are [finally] coming into alignment and offering a similar experience for the user. I’m far from an ArcGIS Pro “guru”, however, curiosity always does get the best of me so I really do like to dabble, test, and try to break new technologies as they come out. I’m also fortunate in that I’ve had access to the software courtesy of Esri and some of the companies I’ve worked for — Esri also does make available software for non-commercial use to developers as well, so this is a great way to access the tools. But back to where I started, I was impressed with what’s coming from the Story Map technology, Web AppBuilder and Survey123. Esri has evolved these solutions using a new architecture and is providing the same, familiar experience which is also very simple to use and can also be very useful to those of us (like me) who don’t code. I really like what I’ve seen recently and I think the users will as well. As an example, I chatted with a Survey123 staffer at the show and he walked me through creating a form and publishing out as a mobile app and feature service. The scenario was a tree inspection app and it took us about 10 minutes in total to create — I was pretty impressed!
Q: More importantly, how did you do in the dodgeball tournament?
A: I’ll be honest, I sat front row and enjoyed a couple of IPAs while the event took place. It really is a blast to watch and is a great team-building activity. Last year I joined a team that was short a player and sadly we were knocked out immediately so my dodgeball career was very short-lived!
Q: When you met Kenneth Field, did he have any cheese on him?
A: No such luck there but that would have been totally awesome! We do know that he likes his cheese and the cheese board map and others that he’s created are truly awesome!! See his blog on creating the cheese board map — our meetup in Palm Springs was pretty cool though. Ken was doing a lightning talk in the DevMeet “Speed Geeking” event so I got Ken for 5 minutes all to myself. His quick talk was very impressive and entertaining — and I did indeed learn a ton about cartography, a real treat! Funny thing, he gave me a signed copy of the amazing “Cartography.” book and the following day he mentioned he was disappointed I didn’t connect with him to roll a geogeeksincars drive. That was my bad as I assumed he was so busy, then he told me he was really looking forward to doing one. Talk about a missed opportunity.
Q: Team Shapefile or Team Geopackage?
A: Haha, I know that many of your followers will groan a bit but yup, I’m a bit old-school still and likely best described as being on team Shapefile — oh, and I do have some of the highly sought after “I heart SHP” buttons!
Q: Team ArcGIS or Team QGIS?
A: Well, I have a couple of ArcGIS Online accounts and am still a big fan of Story Map technology and web app builder so its team ArcGIS.
Q: Team Vancouver or Team Fort Collins (and which has better beer)?
A: Bazinga!! Actually, technically it’s Victoria (the BC Capital on Vancouver Island) and that’s a tough call. FOCO is my home-away-from-home for now, however, it may become home in the near future. The sunshine in Fort Collins is totally awesome but overall, the weather and scenery is likely better in Victoria (particularly in summer) and I definitely am at home close to the ocean — I still get nosebleeds when I hit Colorado even after all these years! On the upside though, the people in Colorado are really amazing and the tech scene kicks butt too. As for the beer, Fort Collins has sooo many options and many breweries, plus you can use the patios all year round (except for when a blizzard blows in for a day). The quality and selection of brews in FOCO is better for sure, however, Victoria is up there and you’d be surprised to know that the cost of craft beer in Victoria is much less than in the US and best of all, the Canadian pint is a whopping “proper” 20 ounces — a huge win!
Q: Not too many people know that you were an early GeoHipster advisor. The Poll that launched the site in 2013 was your idea. Having said that, do you consider yourself a geohipster? Why or why not?
A: That’s funny and I had forgotten about that. I recall that and was impressed by how you ran with the idea — I think at that time I was simply too saddled with work and life, in general, to take on something else. Am I a hipster? Hmmm, I suppose I am (maybe Hipster-Lite). I do dabble with a number of open source solutions and am a huge proponent of open data. I’m a meetup, devmeet, hackathon junkie and attend whenever I can make it happen so these attributes might help group me in with the crowd. Oh, and I do ride my bike frequently (when the rainy season ends) and I sport a beard 3 months of the year! Interesting side-note, I was instrumental in organizing the first Ignite Spatial events and Esri DevMeetup which took place in Fort Collins, CO – pretty hip eh?
Q: On closing, any words of wisdom for our readers?
A: Hmmm, well, if you blend personal and professional personas on social media try to stay away from politics, guns, and map projection discussions… you’ll likely get into a war of words! Build a focused online network of connections because you never know when you’ll need them. While doing this, be sure to listen, contribute and help others — that will go a long way. Finally, if you share news/PR with journalists, please don’t do it with a PDF!! Shameless self-promo, and if you need some tips, advice, or assistance, feel free to hit me up @gletham
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