I love maps.
Ever since I pored over the early 70s edition of the Readers Digest Great World Atlas (and drew all over it) in early childhood, I’ve had a fascination with the way in which cartographers can tell a story not immediately discernible in the naked words and sentences
CityLab, a spinoff site of MIT Technology Review, now has a dedicated map newsletter. Ululation and jubilation.
As part of their end of year roundup, CityLab posted the maps that depict 2017. It’s a very US-centric view of 2017 (which would be my only criticism) but the maps are lovely. They show me why I prefer pictures over words: A map can depict a totality of a situation that no amount of centimetres of well-written prose can ever capture. They can get to the nub pretty darn quickly. Sure, they struggle with evoking emotion, but when it comes to facts, maps win.
I often wonder why we don’t use them more in business.
Every journey requires a map. Any business still around today that came through the technological nadir of Y2K (go on, click the link if you are too young to know what that was) has to reinvent itself for the reality of a world where further technological developments are going to challenge every paradigm we dragged along with us out of the primordial slime of the last century. (Software providers whose user interface hasn’t changed since then, please step forward…)
I do not believe that much will remain beyond 2030 of the firm Drucker, Peters, Taylor, and Collins documented so wonderfully. The journey to the future for older firms will be perilous.
Where are the maps?