"We know we can solve more together.”
That was something Maxar CEO Dan Smoot mentioned on the stage at GeoBuiz Summit 2025, and that message permeated the event. It’s indicative of a larger development that’s taken shape over the past few years, where more and more companies are aligning to create products greater than the sum of their parts, to the point that even competitive companies are regularly teaming up. Would a partnership between Esri and Autodesk have ever come together if larger industry developments weren’t in play?
That being the case, such talking points aren’t exactly breaking news, but they’re also not connected to the real value of being at an event like GeoBuiz. Because it’s one thing to hear that the CEO of Trimble is focused on innovation, partnerships, and community, but what kind of difference can it make when you ask Rob Painter how things are going with those community developments, or talk to members of the Trimble team that are in attendance about a potential partnership? Those are the types of connections and conversations that can make all the difference, especially when they can be connected to shifts in thinking that stem from discussions on the stage.
During one of a presentation about spatial computing, the concept of what it meant for the geospatial industry to further develop was explored, and it was illuminating to see how different stakeholders are thinking about the evolution of the entire sector. The "geospatial industry" as we know it could soon become the baseline of much larger market sectors and entire ecosystems, in the same way there is no longer a “dot-com industry” like there was at the turn of the century. Having a website and engaging with customers online just became part of how individual companies and entire industries operate.
Geospatial info might not be quite as fundamental to the way companies and industries will eventually operate, but location data can change the way consumers navigate a mall or decide which new restaurant they want to newly check out. But what does it look like to cultivate those changes in expectation - on both the consumer side and the technology side? Those specifics dominated conversations after the session was over.
Additionally, while I’ve read and heard a ton about how artificial intelligence is impacting everything, I haven’t given too much thought to changes that go beyond the mechanical. We can automate something that was a cumbersome manual process because of AI? Great. But can it change the fundamentals of how we communicate? Is writing to AI the new keyword stuffing? What does a decline in genuine human expression mean in the short and long term? Again, there were lots of discussions about that and how it needs to impact outreach to people who are and are not especially technical during the breaks.
Going into the event, I wouldn’t have expected either of these topics to dominate the conversations or what I’d be thinking about later, but that’s the beauty of these sorts of shows. It’s going to be the same with Geo Week, which is going to have a keynote that dives into the digital evolution of airports, and highlights what it meant to scan and document one of the world’s most iconic locations.
Ultimately though, that info can be captured and conveyed in a myriad of ways. But connecting with the DFW team to better understand how they’re thinking about aging utility improvement projects? Or talking with Pete about why he used one capture tool versus another? Those are the sorts of conversations that open up ideas and opportunities that aren’t going to take shape any other way.
“I yearn for the questions I don't yet know to ask,” is a famous quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson, and they’re words he comes back to whenever someone asks him about the topics or concepts he’s thinking about. It’s his succinct way of saying there’s more about the universe that he doesn’t know than what he does know, and that unknown is his focus.
It’s a similar answer to questions about what you’re going to get out of being at events like GeoBuiz and Geo Week. I’m not exactly sure, but I’m excited to find out. And there’s only one way to do so.
