Hindsight

I believe that in 20 years, people will look back on yesterday's tornados in Moore Oklahoma (and their predicted connection to global warming) and wonder how anyone could have advocated for more coal or "drill baby drill" when we knew these environmental problems were unfolding. "

I also think people will look back on Sandy Hook and wonder how anyone could have thought that the answer to the problem of gun violence was more guns." 

That's my forecast. I only wish we could all have the benefit of hindsight today. All we have to go on now is scientific facts!

Corporate Innovation & Particle Collisions

Particle colliders have been described as being like smashing two watches together to figure out how clocks work. It is at times a crude tool but one that has, none the less, led to real discovery. I've always been fascinated by the images created by particle colliders. The image of spiraling particles recently made me think of the process of corporate innovation.

Most big companies are like the pre-collision atoms, electrons and protons that feed the process. They are bigger, tightly bound, and have huge momentum in a specific direction. They are on a track and hard to turn even when the market is telling them otherwise.

Innovation teams follow a path that is more like sub-atomic particles colliding. The particles themselves are smaller and more nimble than the atoms from which they came and the collision patterns have distinct characteristics. Instead of staying "on track", they seem to arc away from the original path in different directions. This, to me, is a core requirement for innovators. New ideas come from explorations in new domains, away from the mother ship. Many ideas must typically be explored before viable ones are found. This is like the traces you see of particles spiraling off in multiple directions. As promising ideas are identified, explorations spiral inward on specific solutions, just like the paths of the sub-atomic particles.

Lastly, to be successful, the ideas developed by innovation teams must return to the company's core businesses. This is like the final stage in collisions where outward forces are overcome by attraction and bonding forces. The smallest particles that had existed for brief periods of time rejoin other particles and start to form the stronger bonds that held them together in the first place. In companies, smaller, nimble teams join product teams or perhaps, like an atom, move on to their next set of interactions with the rest of the world.

Why I am a Designer

I'm an introvert. I am reluctant to speak up in groups but I have always felt like I have something to say. Design, and visual design in particular, is a way of speaking or communicating. This was true in my early days as an exhibit designer and it is true in my work as an interaction designer. It is also the case for the presentations I've assembled over the years to visualize issues for clients and co-workers. I have always been as fascinated by the effort to communicate the idea as I am in the idea itself.

Maps are another example of my interest in design and communication. They are deeply immersive. They hover between the visual and verbal. They are words that we read and images that we view. As visual and language-using animals inhabiting a world we seek to understand, maps represent the pinnacle of media.  This is why I love creating maps.

Design for me is the opportunity to "speak" to people and to do it in a way that engages our visual and verbal nature. It is my attempt to find my voice.

"For many Americans, Sandy has highlighted the relationship between a warming planet and intensifying extreme weather. For others, it’s provided more fodder for jokes mocking the problem."

-- Stephan Lacey writing about Republicans joking about climate change before and after Hurricane Sandy 

A Map of the Hamlet of Cross River, NY as it looked in 1868

A Map of the Hamlet of Cross River, NY as it looked in 1868, a photo by amproehl on Flickr.

Another map in my "Lost Towns" series.

Sales 2.0 Notes

Data examples
"the rising cost of sales"

Sent from my iPad

A Subway Map of Maps That Use Subway Maps as a Metaphor

I thought of this concept a while back after noticing more and more subway-style maps being used to show other things. I finally got around to mocking it up. I still have more work to do on it but I thought I would post it before someone else comes up with the same idea. After finishing the first draft, I stumbled on the Cool Infographics page on Subway Maps which includes several more examples of concepts diagrammed as a subway map so I will have to add them in in the next version. Here are the links for all the subway-style maps I've found so far (the "stations" on my map)

Subways

Transit Map Directory - Too many to include (London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, etc.) and not the point

Railways

A Transit Map of Transit Maps, done by Mark Ovenden as a promo for his Transit Maps of the World Book. First discovered on Big Think 

Cameron Booth has done a number of subway-inspired maps including a map of Amtrak's train routes and France's railways.

Highways 

Cameron has also mapped a number of highways systems as subway maps including the US Interstate Highway System and Europe's major highways.

Buses

Stamen's "The City from the Valley" Project

Washington DC Buse Routes 

Skyways
Pan Am Flight Routes - Thanks to Cameron Booth for finding this reference for me.

I'm still looking for this example.

Land

US National Parks - Also covered here

Wine regions in France: Discovered on the Strange Maps Blog with the DeLong Wine original here. 

Rivers

Mississippi River: Created by Daniel Huffman who has also mapped the Colorado, Columbia, Yukon, and St. Lawrence Rivers (among others) on his website

The River Thames has been mapped, quite seriously as a subway-style map to show river buses, river tour companies and the piers where they stop.  

People

Human Body

Thinkers "The Great Bear"

Musicians

Scientists

Concepts

Literary / A Map of James Joyce's Ulyses

Web Trends by Information Architects

Movies

Microsoft Acquisitions

Please let me know if you know of a Subway-style map that I've left out.