Most data can be traced back to someplace on Earth. Esri Netherlands makes GIS software to unlock this data the smart way. Esri’s customers – including network operators, municipalities and large construction companies – can manage data, create insight through analysis and share information with others. To inspire (potential) customers and inform them about the possibilities, Esri publishes a thrice-yearly online magazine. Bureau Tekstschrijvers interviews Esri’s customers. It is on this basis that we wrote part of the articles for this issue.
The world of geographic information systems was new to our agency when Esri knocked on our doors in 2019. Since then, we have all read well into the night, and we dig a little deeper into the subject with every interview – and of course, each interview has a different topic every time. We also keep asking follow-up questions until everything is perfectly clear. We learned about the combination of BIM and GIS, the ArcGIS StoryMaps, APIs and the possibilities of the Software Development Kit. It was all very technical, but technology also has a social side, too. For example, we wrote a story about the implementation of data-driven work, which was a major cultural change within the organization!