When I was at the power company, one of the best ways to understand what was really going on in the field was to ride along with the folks who lived it—like Paul, a seasoned troubleshooter with a fancy bucket truck, quick reflexes, and a quiet stockpile of insider knowledge.
Paul’s job was anything but idle. He got the call when something went wrong. Paul was one of several troubleshooters who worked one of the twenty-four-hour shifts. A squirrel shorted out a line? A tree limb brought down a fuse? A car took out a pole? Paul was first on site. He’d assess the damage, fix what he could, and radio back what he couldn’t. If he could not fix the problem, he would radio the dispatcher, who could summon a line crew to the location.
He was good. Really good. But he had a secret.
Me, Myself, and My Maps
One day, we were out checking on a suspicious-looking switch. No outage had been reported, but something didn’t sit right with him. Paul hesitated. Then, with a sheepish glance my way, he reached under the seat and pulled out a hefty stack of old map sheets. They were hand-marked, redlined, and folded more times than a road trip atlas.
He had his own set of electric network maps. Paul also knew that I was the person who initiated the GIS program years ago. Thus the sheepish glance.
These weren’t just backups. They were Paul’s primary source of truth. Because while the company had a GIS and a mapping department, those maps were often out of date. Some assets were missing. Hazard locations weren’t always documented. Updates from the field took too long to show up on the official maps.
So, troubleshooters like Paul built their own systems. Their own intelligence. Hidden under seats and protected like trade secrets.
The trouble was that only Paul had access to his maps. The planners didn’t. The reliability engineers didn’t. Even the next shift’s troubleshooter didn’t. Everyone was flying blind except for the guy in the bucket.
Breaking the Paper Habit
Today, the game has changed. The GIS of now isn’t just a static map printer—it’s a living, breathing location platform. It’s a system for sharing, connecting, and updating information in real time, across teams, devices, and job functions.
If Paul were troubleshooting today, he wouldn’t be tucking redlined paper maps under his seat. He’d be using ArcGIS Field Maps on his mobile device—pulling up current feeder maps, capturing photos, adding notes, and redlining problem areas directly on the screen. With Tasks, he could walk step-by-step through inspections, guided and consistent, no memory (or squirrel) required.
And here’s the kicker: the second Paul logs an issue, everyone accessing the GIS platform can see it. The shift supervisor. The asset manager. The crew coming in at midnight. The dashboards back at the office light up with new data. Everyone’s in sync.
Everyone’s a Sensor Now
But it’s not just troubleshooters anymore. These days, with cloud-connected GIS tools, everyone in the ecosystem becomes a potential intelligence source—residents who see a sparking line. Firefighters responding to a downed wire. Vegetation crews spotting encroachments. They can all contribute data to the same system, with mobile tools that feed the platform in real time.
And with computer vision and AI-powered image recognition, utilities are going even further. A simple photo from the field can be auto-tagged, categorized, and flagged for follow-up, accelerating everything from damage assessment to vegetation management.
What used to be locked away under someone’s seat or in their glove compartment is now instantly visible to the entire organization.
Access. Awareness. Analysis.
In the GIS world, I like to talk about the three A’s:
Access – The ability to see and contribute data from anywhere, on any device.
Awareness – Real-time visibility into what’s happening, where, and to what.
Analysis – The “why” behind the what, powered by AI, data science, and spatial insight.
We’ve come a long way from paper maps and isolated knowledge. Maps aren’t just drawings anymore—they’re platforms. They’re how we communicate, collaborate, and coordinate across the utility.
The paper maps under the seat? They’re a relic now.
We’ve moved on to something better: smarter, shared, and sustainable.
Learn more about how GIS can improve a utility’s overall performance.