Happy New Year! As we ring in the new year, we all reflect on the year that’s gone, how it could have been better and simultaneously, and subconsciously set goals for the upcoming year. Some of us are proactive, starting the new year with a formal goal-setting session, and for others, it’s a new enthusiasm that reflects in every move we make. Whatever your style of goal setting is, you do it for all areas of your personal life and work-life in general. Eat well, exercise more, sleep more, spend time with loved ones, connect better with colleagues, learn to code, learn ArcGIS Pro – whatever that might be, we hope that you set your goal and achieve it.

We’re talking to you – yes, you, the GIS Champ at your organization who built the program from the ground up. Or you, the one-person GIS Army at your organization – having supported your team through the last couple of years through the pandemic. Or you, the quintessential part of an incredible GIS team trying to figure out how you will make sure that your team has its A-game on. Whatever your role is at your organization, we appreciate you as the unseen force that enables your operations, engineering, and management to get the job done – managing your enterprise GIS, integrating AMS, AMI, CIS with GIS, editing data, and keeping it current, or just providing printed maps if that’s all the operators want. We are glad you are dedicated to doing your job so that your utility agency services the public efficiently. We are explicitly addressing wet utilities here (water, wastewater, stormwater).

So, what are your goals for your GIS program at your organization for 2022? Or your own career goals for leveling up?
Let’s talk about what the #1 goal should be and why? If you have been using the Esri ArcGIS platform to manage and maintain your GIS, you already know what we are talking about. (If you are not using the ArcGIS platform – please call us – we must talk).

You are at the start of a wave called Utility Network – something like this hasn’t happened in the last 20 years and will not again for at least ten years. This is the time to think, plan, strategize your move to catch the wave, ride like a pro into the future of the Utility GIS. Think of it as a modular vehicle that allows you to trace through your system efficiently, integrate with other systems and give you the analytics on the fly.

If that is not a compelling reason, there are several more – as illustrated in this graphic.