Chances are good that if you are a Geo Geek then you already know it and likely refer to yourself as one. However, there’s many of you out there that may be on the fence and wondering… “am I a Geo Geek?”
Given that you’ve landed here and are reading this blog, you already may in fact be one, however, here’s a handy checklist to run through to help confirm if indeed you are a Geo Geek… enjoy!
- Your twitter location status is in displayed Lat/Long (BTW doing this will harm you in Grader when people look for popular Tweeters in geographic regions)
- You Strive to be a Mayor on foursquare
- You Brightkite check-in wherever you go
- You get offended when someone asks you if you drink Kool-Aid
- You pull out an atlas or place name database when you have to name your new puppy (or baby)
- You actually know your latitude & longitude (and list it in your email signature)
- You know what UTM zone you live in
- You have a map of site visitors on your blog
- You actually listen to Geospatial technology pod casts on your iPod or iPhone
- You sweat profusely when you go to a conference or are staying at a hotel and there’s no free WiFi
- Your 7 year old knows what KML is
- You’ve been to at least one event this year that has “Bar” or Camp” or “un” in the event name
- Your About page on your website has an embedded Google Map (not a static JPG image screen grab)
- You miss the TV Show the District
- You have all of your planned trips logged on Dopplr
- You maintain a GeeoRSS feed
- You have to score atleast one Geocache when you go on vacation
- You actually know how to geotag all your media
- You look at people’s EXIF metadata on flickr
- You actually use Google’s latitude service
- You have trouble deciding which T-shirts to pack when you go to a conference
- Your profile photo has yourself posing with either Jack Dangermond or Roger Tomlinson
- The first thing you do when you go away to a conference is scout out the Tweet-up or Geoblogger meets
- Your wife asks you to pass her the “News” and you give her the “ArcUser” Magazine
- You search for or have used the Twitter hash tag #GeoGeek or #Geonerd
- You read blog posts like this one!
I figure, if you’ve said YES to at between 1-5 of the above then you MAY be a geoGeek… if you said YES to between 6-10 then congrats, you are indeed a Geo Geek! If you said YES to all of the above then you must be Andrew Turner ;0) (no offense Andrew)
A few Twitter followers (GeoGeeks) offered up some ideas on what they felt made you a GeoGeek:
- @DaveGeo when you own a shirt that says “Nad83 we’re not in kansas anymore”
- @wonderchook when you drink a couple beers and argue map projections?
- #youknowyourageogeekwhen Your 7 year old corrects people when they say the Earth is round by stating “no its an ellipsoid”
- @Taliesn “You have replaced your wife’s job as navigator on family trips with 4 different techno gadgets that now do the job, and make java”
- @Kirrilian “you know your lat/long, all the time
- @jasonbirch “… you post on twitter for help identifying fellow geo geeks”
Who do you think is the ultimate GeoGeek or GeoNerd? Nominate a GeoGeek by posting the following on Twitter:
I nominate @person as the #ultimateGeoGeek
NOTE: a slightly expanded version of this post is on GISuser and includes my Suggested GeoBlog reading