It's been a long time since I filled in a "skills matrix" - I remember doing so in high school and also in some online resume hosting job sites years ago. None of them had a list of geospatial technology related skills that was for sure. So where is the mystery in knowing what software and/or tools you are good? A post by Petter Batty last month got me thinking more and more about this topic of assessing geospatial/GIS skillsets.

The following is a abstract for a talk/paper describing how open source helps to enable professionals rather than just train them as users.

Enabling Geoprofessionals with Open Source Toolkits

Professional development is critical to training and retaining geospatial professionals for the next decade. However, professional skillsets are too often measured by what tools are at his/her disposal.

This is a proposal for doing a presentation that I submitted for the FOSS4G 2007 conference. It gives a brief glimpse of some of the ideas that will drive this website and its community.

Forging future generations of geo-architects

In an age of increasing demand for qualified geo-professionals, we introduce a framework for the development of an apprenticeship programme to help raise and support new Masters of the geospatial arts. We call it the Map Guild.