Maps have always been an important communication tool. Never more so than today. Our ability to map stuff, to bring order to the unknown, to derive a cosmos from chaos (’cosmos’ = Greek for ‘orderly arrangement’ ‘ornamentation’ or ‘embroidery’) has never been better, the craft of cartography more lively.
Innovators in different fields have mapped the genome, the ocean floor, your brain, your eyeballs, and every hair on Shrek’s body. We can re-map the shrinking perimeter of the Arctic Ice Shelf on a daily basis. Google Maps can show us what it would be like to walk up someone’s driveway and knock on their front door. Other maps can tell us whose door we’re knocking on. Lots of battles — legal and otherwise — are getting fought to establish the borders of these new territories. Over-mapping, it seems, could become an issue.
Business has gotten more map-happy, too.
GPS alone has impacted thousands of industries and products that rely on logistical accuracy. A business can map the precise locations of anyone who has ever bought its products. It can Mapquest directions to all its retail outlets. It can overlay maps of its markets with a thousand different statistical criteria. Age. Gender. Race. Education. Political or religious affiliation. By the number of cats you own. By the likelihood that you drive an alternative fuel car. By owners of Meat Loaf albums or eaters of meat loaf.
Tom Edwards formed Englobe in 2005 to help companies navigate the previously uncharted geographies of the Networked World. Edwards is a ‘Geoculturalist,’ a role he defined for himself while heading up Microsoft’s geopolitical strategy group from 1995-2005.
In a recent interview on the Gamasutra web site, Edwards, (whose bio says he’s a member of the AAG, ACSM, AGS, APCG, AWG, CaGIS, DiGRA, ICA, IGDA, NASAGA, NCGE, RGS and the SCIP — is it just me or does anyone else feel like they need a map?) points out the importance of geocultural sensitivity in allowing a global community to fully participate in games. “The geocultural dimension has a huge impact on games, but it’s usually perceived as a localization problem,” says Edwards on Gamasutra. “The truth is that most game localization usually does not account for the geocultural aspects of content, such as how the content will be perceived from a local political, cultural or religious viewpoint. He is referring specifically to recreational gameplay, but he could also be talking about business games. It’s important for the creators of any kind of game to establish rules and environments that foster participation, not limit or prevent it. As Edwards points out, game designers need to be aware not only of the Cosmetic and Meta information conveyed by their games, but the Emotional information, too.
Edwards recommends that geo-junkies investigate the just-released version 4.3 of Google Earth; The Map Room, Jonathan Crowe’s blog about maps; and the maps on About.com.
The mappability that’s at our fingertips today — an endless matrix of pathways leading to all kinds of fresh connections — opens up more routes that we might travel, personally, professionally, and practically every other way. The more routes we can travel, the more knowledge we can acquire and store along the way. And the more friends — or enemies — we have the potential to make.
Yet, despite the immense growth in the depth and quality of information about all the ‘geos’ we can explore these days, the most important questions facing any navigator of the new worlds are the same as they’ve been since sailors were afraid of sailing off the edge of the Earth:
Where are we going?
Why are we going?
How are we getting there?
Who needs to know?
And maybe the most important question of all…
How strong is our game when we don’t have a map to guide us?
Happy trails!
.
Tags: Arctic Ice Shelf, Cartography, Destination, Englobe, Genome, Geoculture, Mappability, Mapping, Maps, Networked World, The Map Room, Tom Edwards