Last week, the Esri Partner Conference 2020 was hosted in Palm Springs, California. It was a great opportunity to meet and talk with members of various teams at Esri, as well as several members of the Esri Partner Network (EPN). The experience was amazing.
It was delightful to see so many people passionate about GIS and what we can do with it gathered together and sharing ideas. Coming away from the conference, I was left inspired by the sense of community in GIS. Like any community, its strength comes from the people within it and the work they do together.
Esri understood the power of collaboration early on, which is why they started the Esri Partner Network. In their own words, Esri describes the program as “a rich ecosystem of organizations that work together to amplify The Science of Where“. Amplify is a really important word in that definition. GIS is a powerful tool in its own right, and you can do some really amazing things with it. It grows and becomes even stronger when people start working together, bringing in their different skill sets, backgrounds, and experiences. A great example of strong partnerships and the solutions they bring is when GEO Jobe partnered with GeoMarvel to bring MapLapse to life.
Ecosystem is another key word. That’s what the GIS community really is, and the Esri Partner Network is a core part of that. After all, we aren’t just partnered with Esri, we’re partnered with each other. We all exist together and impact one another. As more of the world comes to understand GIS, recognizing that ecosystem, and building on it, will help all of us find better, more efficient solutions.
In a lot of ways, I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to attend the Esri Partner Conference this year. It was a refreshing and inspiring experience that made me glad to be a part of this community. As one of my colleagues and I discussed, “the GIS community is a big tent, but it’s a close family”. So reach out to some of your colleagues, and find out where implementing The Science of Where and the Power of Partnership will take you.
Don’t know where to get started? Explore some of the existing partners in the Esri Partner Network and see what they have to offer. Learn how to join the EPN, or check out this case study on how we partnered with Mapillary to leverage the power of the ArcGIS Marketplace.
