Finding One’s Place

Some years ago, I began to identify my place in the cartographic world. Being surrounded by so many skilled colleagues can be intimidating. If I walk into a room at NACIS (or open up my social media), I see so many people doing things that I cannot do — we all have different workflows, specializations, employers, etc. Then come the nagging voices in my brain that sometimes say: you should be able to do what they do. Why don’t you work harder? Why aren’t you good enough? Knowing one’s niche is helpful to avoid getting rattled. This includes understanding what one is good at, but also what one has decided not to focus on. And I have learned two important things about my cartographic self over the years: I am a first-rate technician, and I rarely have any idea (or want to decide) what to make a map about. Let’s start with the latter. I get envious of colleagues who publish beautiful map books, or interesting spatial stories in newspapers and magazines. I sit there and think, “Why didn’t…

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