I adore maps. This weekend I read You Are Here, Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination.

Few of the 150 or so maps in the book describe roads and highways. These are maps of the anatomy, human emotion, memory, morality, health, chronologies, perspectives, politics, history, fantasy, and imagination.



I've decided to map the topic of Workflow Learning, itself a journey through performance, communications, convergence, enterprise, standards, competition, globalization, outsourcing, power structures, the Net, cognition, process models, and more. Without a map, it's an easy field to get lost in.

This afternoon I was delighted to come upon this map of knowledge by Don Clark.


Maps appeal to me because they show connections and proportions; size indicates importance; getting the lay of the territory is rapid -- a gestalt experience. Finally, maps are here to get you where you want to go, a nice meme in a confusing world.

It's a pity that signs aren't generally as friendly as maps.