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.
Technology has expanded the mappable universe to include virtual and conceptual geography. It’s incredible how much this has changed how we go about our business. It’s not so much that technology has changed the game, as much as it is that it has created an environment in which so much change is possible.
Think about how GPS has changed industries and products that rely on logistical accuracy. FourSquare maps our whereabouts like we are pieces on a global game grid, or correspondents in our own media networks. We can map the world according to Age. Gender. Race. Education. Political and religious affiliation. Adoption rates. Genealogy. Ornothology. Etymology and entomology. By concentrations of Meat Loaf fans and by frequency of meat loaf eaters.
The question is what we do with all of this.
It is a new arena. Correction, it’s a lot of new arenas. And each arena demands a different kind of performance.
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 SCI–where’s my acronym 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 entertainment gameplay, but Edwards could be talking about business generally. Game creators and managers both have the responsibility to build games that have clear structure, and at the same time are flexible enough to foster participation, not hinder it.
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 opens up more routes that we might travel through Physical, Virtual and Conceptual dimensions. The more we travel, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more possibilities we create.
The most important questions facing any navigator of these strange new worlds are the same two humans have been facing since the Flintstones had to decide where to meet the Rubbles for dinner.
Where are we going?
And why?
Yabba-dabba-doo!
.
Tags: Arctic Ice Shelf, Cartography, Destination, Englobe, Genome, Geoculture, Mappability, Mapping, Maps, Networked World, The Map Room, Tom Edwards