Spatial Stack with Matt Forrest

In this episode of the Spatial Stack, Matt sits down with Maggie Ma, tech content creator at @maggieindata and former geospatial data scientist.
Maggie left her corporate data science role last year to become a full-time content creator across Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok. She's a 3x LinkedIn Learning instructor and an AI educator helping people break into data science, learn coding, and stay current with AI.
We dig into the GIS title trap (and why the same job pays less under a different title), the seven internships that got Maggie into geospatial data science, cold-emailing professors and police departments, and how she positioned herself as the spatial person on non-spatial teams. We also cover the push and pull factors that led to her quitting corporate, what day in the life looks like as a full-time creator, and how she actually uses AI in her workflow today.
Whether you're a GIS analyst wondering if you're underpaid, a geography student trying to land your first role, or a working data scientist thinking about going full-time creator, this conversation is full of specific tactics and honest reflections.
Connect with Maggie:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggieindata
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@maggieindata
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggieindata
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maggieindata
CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 – Intro
00:01:08 – Welcome and Maggie's Background
00:03:26 – Statistics, Psychology, and Discovering Human Geography
00:06:39 – First Job: Geospatial Data Scientist in Logistics
00:08:08 – The GIS Title Trap and Salary Bands
00:11:33 – Cold Emailing Into Crime Analytics and Hospital Research
00:14:16 – Starting to Create Content as a Working Data Scientist
00:18:50 – Push and Pull Factors for Leaving Corporate
00:21:28 – Adjusting to Life Without a Job as Input
00:27:33 – Vibe Coding: Lovable, Warp, and Claude Code
00:29:08 – The Hidden Risks of Vibe Coding (Security, Data Leaks)
00:32:08 – Using AI in Content Workflows
00:36:19 – Final Advice and Where to Find Maggie
📊 FREE: The Modern GIS Skill Map
The 5 skills that actually matter in modern GIS (and what you can stop learning). Based on a survey of 1,400+ geospatial professionals.
➡ Get the free training + PDF guide: https://forrest.nyc/go/training/
CONNECT WITH ME
📸 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/matt_forrest/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbforr/
📧 Newsletter: https://forrest.nyc
🌐 Website: https://forrest.nyc

What happens when you give an AI the ability to see and understand the physical world? In this episode, Matt Forrest sits down with Yael Maguire, GM and VP of Google Maps Platform and Google Earth, to unpack the massive platform shift happening at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and geospatial technology.
Yael pulls back the curtain on how Google is transforming its massive corpus of 280 billion Street View, aerial, and satellite images into a searchable, interactive database. Discover how developers, urban planners, and creatives can now ask quantitative questions about physical infrastructure, monitor disaster response in real-time, and even generate hyper-realistic, location-grounded videos using tools like Nano Banana and Veo.
Whether you're building digital twins, tracking climate impact, or revolutionizing the advertising and film industries, this conversation reveals the exact tools Google is rolling out to help you build the future.
In this episode, we cover:
- How "Ask Maps" is changing consumer and enterprise search.
- Using AI to instantly audit city infrastructure like power lines, hydrants, and potholes.
- Grounding generative AI models (Nano Banana and Veo) in actual Street View imagery.
- Google’s partnerships for real-time disaster response using satellite AI.
- The launch of Google Earth AI and what it means for developers.
LEARN MORE
Full Announcement: https://mapsplatform.google.com/resources/blog/three-new-ways-to-build-with-real-world-imagery
More Google Next Announcements: https://mapsplatform.google.com/resources
00:00 - Intro
01:20 - Meet Yael Maguire & Google Maps Platform
03:18 - The AI Platform Shift: Unpacking the New "Ask Maps"
08:48 - Street View Insights: Querying 280 Billion Images with AI
11:12 - Real-World Use Cases: Digital Twins & City Infrastructure
14:04 - The Sky-Down View: Satellite AI & Disaster Response
16:33 - Scaling Solar APIs & The Importance of Temporal Data
18:58 - Unifying Street View, Aerial, and Satellite Data in BigQuery
21:49 - Generative AI Meets Reality: Grounding Models in the Physical World
26:19 - Democratizing Creativity: The Future of Film & Simulation
30:35 - What’s Next: How Developers Can Start Using These Tools Today
33:33 - The Vision for Google Earth AI: Merging Weather, Energy, and Ag Models
36:11 - Outro: The Future is Spatial
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🚀 Join The Spatial Lab:
Stop guessing at your career path. Get direct mentorship, advanced training, and a roadmap to these high-value roles inside The Spatial Lab.
👉 https://forrest.nyc/spatial-lab/
📰 Daily modern GIS insights: https://forrest.nyc
CONNECT WITH ME
📸 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/matt_forrest/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbforr/
📧 Newsletter: https://forrest.nyc
🌐 Website: https://forrest.nyc

The future is spatial, but how do we actually make sense of the data? In this episode, we sit down with Emily Lisle from Dataplor to discuss the current state of location intelligence and how to overcome the biggest location intelligence challenges facing businesses today.
We dive into the data foundation, exploring the massive complexities of scaling geospatial data, consumer data, and POI data on a global level. Emily breaks down the gap between simply having access to millions of rows of location intelligence data and actually turning it into actionable business strategies.
To solve this, Dataplor launched a new location intelligence platform. By making it easy to visualize location data, non-technical teams can finally execute complex spatial analysis in gis without waiting on a data scientist.
We also explore powerful location intelligence use cases and location intelligence applications. Learn how real estate investors and CPG brands are using this data to fuel their global expansion strategy and retail expansion strategy by identifying market gaps and tracking competitors.
Finally, Emily shares how AI location data integration and AI analysis location data are changing the game, and why establishing a verified "ground truth" is more important than ever.
LEARN MORE ABOUT DATAPLOR
Learn More: https://www.dataplor.com/solutions/global-platform/
Follow Dataplor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dataplor/
Book a Demo: https://www.dataplor.com/contact/
Key Takeaways
- The End of the CSV: How the industry is moving from massive, hard-to-process spreadsheets to visual spatial analysis software that answers specific business questions instantly.
- Finding "Ground Truth": Why relying on a single mobility signal isn't enough anymore, and how layering alternative consumer data ensures high-quality insights.
- Winning Global Expansion Strategy: Real-world examples of how CPG brands and real estate investors use location intelligence platforms to spot market gaps and track global competitors.
- The AI Data Revolution: How AI location intelligence and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) are transforming how we consume and personalize geospatial data
00:00 Introduction to the State of Location Intelligence & Its Challenges 03:14 The Foundation: Scaling Geospatial Data & POI Data Globally
06:48 Bridging the Gap: Location Intelligence Solutions & Analytics
09:06 Overcoming Location Intelligence Data Privacy Roadblocks
14:50 Building a Location Intelligence Platform to Visualize Location Data
22:42 Location Intelligence Use Cases: Global Retail Expansion Strategy
28:44 Validation in Spatial Analysis Software: Finding the "Ground Truth"
34:37 The Future: AI Location Intelligence & Model Context Protocol (MCP) 41:42 How to Connect with Dataplor
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📰 Daily modern GIS insights: https://forrest.nyc
CONNECT WITH ME
📸 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/matt_forrest/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbforr/
📧 Newsletter: https://forrest.nyc
🌐 Website: https://forrest.nyc

A viral LinkedIn post called "Something Big Is Happening" by Matt Schumer has been making the rounds and for good reason.
In this episode, I break down why the pace of AI development should have every GIS professional paying attention, what I'm seeing in the geospatial space right now (from Claude Code in ArcGIS to AI-specific job postings), and the four things you should be doing right now to future-proof your career. Whether you're mid-career or fresh out of school, this one's for you.
Original Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/something-big-happening-matt-shumer-so5he
00:00 — The Article That Went Viral
00:40 — AI Coding Tools Are Changing Everything
01:51 — What I'm Seeing in Geospatial Right Now
02:30 — Step 1: Understand the Landscape
02:49 — Step 2: Start Learning the Tools
03:18 — Step 3: Architect Projects, Don't Just Prompt
04:09 — Step 4: Broaden Your Skill Set
04:43 — Advice for Recent Grads and Early-Career Pros
05:51 — Will AI Actually Wipe Out GIS Jobs?
06:42 — Wrap Up
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📊 FREE: The Modern GIS Skill Map
The 5 skills that actually matter in modern GIS (and what you can stop learning). Based on a survey of 1,400+ geospatial professionals.
➡ Get the free training + PDF guide: https://forrest.nyc/go/training/
📰 Daily modern GIS insights: https://forrest.nyc
CONNECT WITH ME
📸 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/matt_forrest/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbforr/
📧 Newsletter: https://forrest.nyc
🌐 Website: https://forrest.nyc

If you are still trying to run your entire geospatial workflow on a local desktop, you are fighting a losing battle. The "Modern GIS Stack" looks chaotic at first glance with dozens of logos, cloud formats, and new databases. But once you strip away the noise, there are actually only a few key layers you need to master to make it all work.
🚀 Don't navigate this shift alone. Join the Spatial Lab: https://forrest.nyc/spatial-lab/
In this video, I break down the architecture that is replacing the traditional GIS model. We move beyond Shapefiles and Geodatabases into the world of Cloud-Native Geospatial, showing you exactly how Storage, Compute, and Analytics have separated—and how you can use them to scale your career.
📰 Daily modern GIS insights: https://forrest.nyc
00:00 - The Modern GIS Chaos
00:34 - The Shift to Cloud-Native Formats
01:14 - Why Storage Buckets Replaced Hard Drives
02:07 - Essential Formats: GeoParquet, COGs & Zarr
03:57 - Adding Intelligence: STAC & Iceberg Catalogs
06:07 - Transformation & Orchestration (GDAL, dbt, Airflow)
08:30 - The 3 Engines of Modern GIS
08:48 - Engine 1: The Processing Layer (Sedona, Wherobots)
11:19 - Engine 2: The Transactional Layer (PostGIS)
12:38 - Engine 3: The Analytical Layer (BigQuery, Snowflake, DuckDB)
14:54 - Mapping Modern Layers to Traditional GIS
16:29 - The Application Layer: Analytics & BI
17:35 - Connecting QGIS & Python to the Cloud
18:30 - Modern Web Maps (Felt, Mapbox, DeckGL)
20:24 - Conclusion: You Don't Need to Learn Everything
CONNECT WITH ME
📸 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/matt_forrest/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbforr/
📧 Newsletter: https://forrest.nyc
🌐 Website: https://forrest.nyc