Grow your geospatial skills
Being a geospatial professional is about embracing your passion. We ask: “how can I impact the world with spatial insights?”, and then build a career that supports that mission. Spatial Stack helps you grow your career both through skills but also practical insights to help you work better and do more.
Spatial Joins: A Comprehensive Guide
This is a pretty long post that I published today all about spatial joins. Here is the tricky thing about spatial joins: They are the backbone of spatial analytics. Understanding how two (or more) things relate to each other is a foundational concept in geography and being able to do them efficiently is key. They can be a pain in the neck. If you had a desktop app crash or a Python script running forever but you never knew when it would end, then you know what I am talking about. But how well...
What Geospatial Technology Got Right and Wrong During the 2025 LA Wildfire Season
In early 2025, Southern California endured yet another devastating wildfire season driven by the notorious Santa Ana winds. Fires ravaged Pacific Palisades and Altadena, burning thousands of acres, destroying local infrastructure, and displacing entire communities. This tragedy underscored the importance of geospatial technologies and remote sensing in disaster response and recovery. The Role of Santa Ana Winds Santa Ana winds are a defining characteristic of Southern California’s wildfire...
😟 I got it wrong (or why spatial thinking matters)
In a recent post (see below), I emphasized Python, SQL, and Cloud as core skills for GIS professionals today. Yes I still think these are critical skills but there is one thing I would fix about how I positioned that. Full post here However, some pointed out that I seemed to overlook the fundamentals: spatial thinking, methodologies, and the foundational practices that underpin our field. Let me assure you, these are integral to everything we do. I guess I sort of assume that there is some...
We're back (The Spatial Stack Podcast)
I'm thrilled to announce the return of The Spatial Stack Podcast, your go-to source for long-form conversations with leaders and innovators shaping the spatial data landscape. This time, we’re expanding our horizons and delving into how spatial technology intersects with industries far beyond core geospatial fields. From mobility and climate to retail and disaster response, The Spatial Stack will highlight the ways spatial data transforms decision-making and creates value. These are not just...
🤨 Is Esri finally catching up?
I wrote a post a few weeks back on the position that Esri has taken around modern GIS equating to web GIS and while going through their materials I found something interesting. ArcGIS Pro now supports...DuckDB! Look it isn’t uncommon for ArcGIS to support new tools, particularly databases. But it begged the question: is Esri starting to embrace the future of GIS? Look Esri doesn’t have to do anything if they don’t want to. They have a product for everything inside their ecosystem, and if they...
😢 The hard truth about learning GIS and programming (and how I did it)
Here are the two questions I get asked most often by people online or at events: How do you have the time to create so much content?(Short answer: organization in Notion; long answer: 🤷🏼) How did you learn all these different tools? Here’s the unfiltered and direct answer to the second question: it took almost a decade, and I’m still learning. Today, I want to give you a transparent look into my journey—from my first attempts at learning to program to the things that made a real difference....
Modern GIS is way more than Web GIS
Modern GIS is way more than Web GIS This is a longer one so please bear with me all the way to the end. Look I have been talking about modern GIS for about three years now (a full three if you count this post). And the adoption of the term has grown significantly since my first full article on the topic in January 2022: But in the past year or so something caught my eye from a specific company that says across multiple content pieces that says “Modern GIS is Web GIS”. Long story short, no....
"Atomic Habits" for learning modern GIS
In the last few weeks I have been reading (or rather listening) to Atomic Habits by James Clear. While I am certainly not productivity obsessed or focused on rigid habits, I do always look to optimize the way I work. For me there are a lot of things I want to do, and I want to find some optimal ways to balance that. I use a second brain I built in Notion which helps a lot, but ensuring consistency, or habits, is another thing all together. After listening to most of the book I thought that in...
🐍 The 7 things I wish I knew about Python before learning Python
It’s more than likely that Python is going to become a fundamental skill in all areas in the coming years, just as Excel did in previous decades. Its applications across many domains and ability to automate processes make it one of the most popular languages today. It’s more than likely that Python is going to become a fundamental skill in all areas in the coming years, just as Excel did in previous decades. Its applications across many domains and ability to automate processes make it one of...
Why I joined Wherobots
This past week, I started a new path in my career for the first time in 9 years over with the amazing team at Wherobots. There are a number of reasons why I am excited to join (the technology reasons will be explained below) but the first is the amazing team members I met this week at FOSS4G NA and those virtually as well. Even for a new company with lots of work ahead, there is already a great culture of collaboration and alignment around the vision of where we are going. Some of that has to...
Being a geospatial professional is about embracing your passion. We ask: “how can I impact the world with spatial insights?”, and then build a career that supports that mission. Spatial Stack helps you grow your career both through skills but also practical insights to help you work better and do more.