A Geospatial 2.0 Business Voyage of Discovery

I’ve been on a quest over the last 6 months. A Geospatial 2.0 voyage of discovery. That has led me to talking to as many Geospatial 2.0 companies as I can find. It’s been an incredible journey. I’ve been ever amazed by the depth and breadth of the solutions on offer. Geospatial 2.0 is truly a world-wide phenomena; my conversations have taken me from New Zealand to India, from Africa to Europe (Germany, UK, Romania, Poland, Luxembourg), to the US and Canada. What I am finding is too valuable to not share, see my regular LinkedIn and Twitter updates and my Top 100 Geospatial 2.0 Companies list: that list just keeps growing!

Two take-homes have come out of my journey within the Geospatial 2.0 world:

• First, that the 2.0 world is filled with incredible geospatial technology talent. I’ve spent much of my career in the 1.0 world, embedded in the technology. But the technology I have been exposed to in the 2.0 world has as times taken my breath away. Incredible innovation.
• Second, that the biggest challenge for emerging Geospatial 2.0 solution providers is not the technology: its having the right conversations with the right customers.

Let me expand on this second point. The business of Geospatial 2.0 need now be front and centre. This has been an increasing focus of my group at WhyofThere. As a Geospatial 2.0 solution provider, there are 5 questions you need to carefully consider:

1)   Will customers want to talk to us? (Value Proposition)

2)   Who should we be talking to? (Target Market/Persona)

3)   What should be at the heart of the stories we tell? (Messaging Strategy)

4)   What problem-to-solution stories are we telling? (Content Generation)

5)   What are the results of our engagements with customers? (Execution)

Two words: planning and execution. This is an iterative process. Questions 1-4 above are part of the planning process. We make assumptions, then test those assumptions by answering question 5.

An increasing part of my focus is to help Geospatial 2.0 companies answer these 5 questions. The ultimate goal of this exercise is to drive leads and generate sales, by understanding what works, and what does not work. That means engaging in the right conversations with the right customers.