The four stages of digital revolution acceptance
In case you haven’t noticed, pretty much every job you do now involves some kind of automation or AI. Indeed, the digital revolution has shifted into a higher gear lately, and this can mean anything from digital order devices taking the place of waitstaff, to full-blown automation of document review. Today you can even click and prompt imagery and voiceovers that replace the need for photo shoots and voice actors.
Writing all kinds of articles about drones and what they are used for today, I think it’s also time I wrote to you, dear surveyor. Because, as a writer, I’ve had to open up and embrace generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT. And I see that you are also in the midst of a wave of change that you may not realize is better to embrace than ignore.
So where are you in the following stages of acceptance? And how might looking at them head-on empower you to step into all of this digital progress further and faster than you imagined you could? Knowing these stages, it’s my hope you will pass through them more quickly.
Stage one: Fear and denial
Fact: More and more companies and service providers turn to maps based on drone data to analyze everything—from volumes of dirt moved on a mine site, to daily project views on a solar farm construction project, to cadastral boundaries and land use. So naturally, you might think that your job as a ground surveyor is under threat.
We’ve been there. Grocery store workers surely gasped at self checkout machines and I, as a writer, side-eyed ChatGPT and found the mention of it like nails on a chalk board.
But underneath those reactions, we all have come to realize that there are two choices: Move in the direction of the transformation, or take the off ramp and miss a huge development in the way everyone in the world is working … and fall behind.
It’s scarier to imagine what would happen if your profession started to outgrow you due to new tech, than to admit that this tech can boost your career if you’re open to learning a few new things … and adding a trustworthy drone to your toolkit.
Stage two: Trying it all out
That deep wisdom to move in the direction of digital transformation is also a survival instinct. Because unless you are sitting on a trust fund or brazenly apathetic about your career or business, you know this is the direction to take.
In fact, over the last decade, more and more businesses and service providers have started adopting drones as a serious tool for surveying. They started with lower-cost models, particularly quadcopters. And they found that even these kinds of UAVs sped up survey data gathering a lot compared to boots on the ground. Features like real-time kinematic and post-process kinematic tied the aerial data more tightly to real coordinates on the ground.
Indeed, aerial data capture with even the most limited quadcopters reduces the number of surveyors needed in the field and provides accurate survey data a whopping two to three times faster.
On top of this, drone data offers much more information via data-rich, photo-realistic maps. So when you think about it, you save even more time, because if the deliverables change, you can just consult the same map without having to go back to the field and collect more data. You can also offer life-like views and analytics to stakeholders so they don’t have to travel to sites as often. And businesses are doing just that.
Drone surveying instantly blows up the possibilities of places you can capture data—places you couldn’t imagine before because of sheer scale for time constraints. There’s no way you can walk and take points for seagrass growth measurements with boots on the low-tide ground pictured above. You’d sink in and spend days!
With so many solutions unlocked, the field of drone surveying has evolved already—as surveyors push the boundaries of the tech, and the tech develops to expand those boundaries. In fact, after using quadcopters, surveyors working on larger projects looked for other kinds of UAVs to cover more ground and get more insights faster. They started adopting fixed-wing then VTOL drone tech to do everything easier, more efficiently and safer.
And here’s the kicker about aerial surveying: you don’t have to sacrifice accuracy. In fact you can deliver more of it and in a life-like context that any stakeholder can instantly recognize.
Finally, you’ll also realize this: amidst the advancements of these tools, surveying skills and insights have still been vital to executing the projects properly. The knowledge about ground truth, the way checkpoints need to be placed around terrain and other key factors still require skill and judgement. And even as ground setup gets easier, you are the one who will quality control the results and validate the accuracy.
Stage three: Reframing your relationship to drones
With a little experience with drone surveying under your belt, you start to realize that all of these new technical advancements popping up are sitting on a kind of buffet. So your job is now changing.
The survey you used to conduct over days, with a team, is now done in an hour with a drone. So now, you can cover more ground, faster, more often, and even run quality control and provide other survey-consultation services in a much more impactful way. Your experience doesn’t just matter; if you embrace what’s happening now, it actually elevates your skillsets above ticking off deliverables and troubleshooting in the field.
Stage four: Mastery, evolution and flow
As you start attending conferences, talking to colleagues, asking about the latest solutions at demos, using software trials, testing systems, and making investments, you participate in the evolution of technology that is truly revolutionizing what is possible in terms of capturing and using GIS data.
You are sitting now in a radically different position, but no less dependent on your skillset. Instead, your skillset drives the wisdom around which systems you are choosing—to get the data to your site manager or customer faster, at a higher accuracy, and with more analytics and sharing possibilities for less overhead.
It’s a super exciting time to be a surveyor. If you haven’t jumped in, Wingtra has some good news: no matter your experience level with drone tech, and no matter your experience as a passionate surveyor, our end-to-end system is designed as a one-stop-shop that eases adoption of the tech. We are here to help you get into the flow and get to the master level without all the trial and error in between.
