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There is a basic ingredient for significantly improving decision making that involves the location, distribution, or impact of people, places, and events in the world. Proximity of customers to a store location, the routing of emergency vehicles to an incident, and the change over time in a habitat all share the common component of geography.
Just about anyone or anything can be associated with a known location in the world...a street address, a service region, a climatic zone, a voting district, a latitude/longitude coordinate. Geographic information systems (GIS) software is the ideal tool for extracting the patterns and trends inherent in location-based information.
Mapmaking and geographic analysis are not new, but a GIS performs these tasks better and faster than do the old manual methods. And, before GIS technology, only a few people had the skills necessary to use geographic information to help with decision making and problem solving.
Today, GIS is a multibillion-dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. GIS is taught in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the world. Professionals in every field are increasingly aware of the advantages of thinking and working geographically.
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