Charting the Unknown
How Computer Mapping at Harvard Became GIS
By Nick Chrisman
2006
This review is a bit like a post-modern piece of art, dangerously self-referential, but, hopefully, also 'true'.
I chose to work in the field of GIS, Geographic Information Services, shortly after completing a Senior Thesis on the subject of Higher Education and Economic Development. I chose the field upon becoming aware of some of the, uh, public-private 'business' practices around the economic development career track - I think a good choice, especially as I'd already had some exposure to the GIS field through government land use internships.
I wasn't actually aware that the software package I worked the most with, ESRI's ArcGIS, was a product of the same factors, and place, I studied as an Undergraduate. A such I found this book particularly interesting. This, also, is the first bit of dangerous self-reference.
The author, Nick Chrisman, was one of two GIS professors at the University of Washington Department of Geography a program I attended for a year - so this made it doubly dangerous, but also multiplied the personal attraction of this book.
Chrisman was on a sabbatical the year I was there, curiously at MIT, the number one computer economic development education engine in Mass.
Worse though was the fact that the chair of this department, Bill Beyers, was the leading academic on local economic development subjects (which the Econ department wouldn't touch).
I was hoping to be able to continue my economic development work academically while also furthering my professional credentials and skills. In retrospect what happened was the chair of the department freaked out and pulled a pre-emptive Nifong type attack on my credibility, destroying the economic development of my career and spreading the weaknesses of economic development into the field of GIS.
Dangerously, this provided me with an answer to some of the problems I discovered in my research, but that's another story. Beyers would go on to himself address the subject of high tech and economic development in higher education - I wouldn't call it plagiarism - but, rather, a supreme example of the stupid criminal - repeating the same mistake I discovered in research and spreading it in Washington State, rather than actually consulting a qualified expert on the subject.
The end result of this may well have been the complete corruption of much of the University of Washington.
As I said, dangerously self-referential, but still, true.
Chrisman seems to like Beyers - and he is, or rather, was, a well intentioned individual. He cites Beyers favorably in talking about the UW, but completely ignores the name of his fellow GIS instructor, Tim Nyerges. The best conclusion about what Beyers is about came to me from the Geography Demographer Richard Morrill. Like Beyers Morrill was also engaged in the outside world, but, unlike Beyers, he did it all for free.
We talked about this in the context of my career and he warned me about the risks of trying to make money from the personal knowledge of observing how Beyers ended up getting 'owned' by the legal forces that control public private partnerships locally. I think they are still friends, but Morrill, and adviser of mine, would resign from the UW within a year of my incident.
