Spatial Connections… Online?

If you’ve been attending conferences during COVID, you’ve probably noticed something: most virtual conferences lack a decent “networking” platform. I don’t know about you, but I generally go to these events with the intention of meeting at least a couple of new people and getting to know them, and this year has mostly been a bust.

It’s not to say that I haven’t met anyone new as the result of a virtual conference, but it’s been a challenge to really get to know anyone in any depth. At an in-person conference, I always try to meet a couple of people and talk to them at least a few times during other parts of the meeting. It’s easy when you are walking around and you see someone you recognize on the escalator or on line for coffee. When you’re sitting in a room by yourself or with your kids playing Legos on the other end of the table while watching a presentation, it’s just not the same. Text chatting with someone from across the globe is interesting, I guess, but there is so much lost by not seeing that person’s face and hearing the words spoken. Not to mention, some of the platforms out there aren’t particularly conducive to actually meeting people.

Juliana McMillan-Wilhoit of Tabulae Spatial and I have decided to use our passion for connecting people and our combined experiences in COVID conferencing to bring an amazing, live networking event to the GIS Community that will fill this networking gap!

On GIS Day, 2021 (November 17th), Juliana and I are hosting Spatial Connections Online. It will be a 2-hour networking-only event, where we will support you in your effort to build a community that matters to you! I hope we will see you there!

Thanks to Directions Magazine, SafeGraph, Project Geospatial, and Critigen for their generous support of this event and our vision for community.