What We Believe

At Latitude Geographics, we believe that geography provides a means to help people make vastly better decisions about the world around us. Our mission is to leverage the Internet to put the extraordinary power of geographic information in the hands of people in a readily usable form.

Our Core Values

We believe that by sticking to our core values, it’s possible to build a successful business without selling out. From ethical projects to giving back, we believe that we can build the kind of company we want to see in the world. 

There are three key values that guide our conduct and the business decisions we make:

1. The Golden Rule

   We treat one another and the people with whom we do business as we’d want to be treated.

2. Leaving the World a Better Place

   We want the legacy of our lives and careers to include leaving the world a better place than when we arrived.

3. Continuous Improvement

   As individuals and as a company, we take action to ensure ongoing improvement.

Our Technology Beliefs

There are some key beliefs at the heart of our technology approach that guide our decisions and have shaped our business model:

1. Technology should be about getting things done

   Some people mostly talk about technology, some people are geared around getting things done in the real world.  Sure we obsess about preparing for what’s coming in the future, but we’re also fundamentally about helping organizations actually get concrete things built to serve end-users who need the data and/or technology.

2. Worthwhile new technology eliminates old inefficiencies

   All worthwhile new technology capitalizes on eliminating old inefficiencies; rather than capitalizing on the old inefficiencies themselves. We seek to create product features that eliminate billable hours (especially our own!).

3. A good product-centric approach trumps custom code

   We believe that writing custom code or reinventing the wheel should be a last resort, not a first instinct. For a relatively complex application susceptible to change over time, a reusable and intelligently engineered product-centric approach can be vastly superior to custom code.

4. Commercial/proprietary software can trump freeware/open source

   We dig the spirit of open source, and it’s great for lots of applications (we've even contributed on occasion). We also believe some software requires proactive and aggressive R&D that can only realistically be funded by licensing and maintenance revenue. Amortizing development costs across many clients to create and support something everyone needs seems a sensible model to us.

5. As simple as possible (and no simpler)

   Through effective design, we strive to make the user experience as simple as possible for non-expert users. Sometimes it means saying no to a feature, even when we can say yes. Sometimes this principle is marginalized by inherent technological complexity or a client’s budget constraints, but we always seek to make optimal design decisions within given parameters.

6. Data only has value when it gets used

   There is enormous opportunity cost with data that sits unused due to access restrictions in the name of cost recovery or politics. For data collected by organizations on behalf of taxpayers, unless it contains confidential or truly sensitive data, it should be in the hands of the people who have already paid for it. And yes, we know the word data should be pluralized. It just looks funny to us.

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