I'm still processing what I heard and saw at #mapcamp#map18 ... everything was on a scale I hadn't expected. I mean when you're listening to people talk about mapping saving lives and the UN talk mapping, it's ... #mindblown -
... then add a good pinch of @liammax explaining how Maps have helped changed UK Gov with the odd throwaway line of a few hundred million here or there -
... and then @SalFreudenberg blows my cognitive load with a breathtaking exploration of mapping, collaboration and cognitive load ... I think this is the point I started to just mumble incoherently -
I really don't know what to say. I thought #mapcamp in 2017 was magical but 2018 has blown my mind. I am fearful of trying to organise 2019 ... how on earth are we going to do better than this?
For now, I'm just going to put those fears aside and enjoy a moment of what was.
However, with all that said ... the one thing which burns my mind more than anything else is @GoAgileGov statement that mapping saved lives -
X : Can you make a map of my industry?
Me : Let me guess, mapping is hard and you need to apply strategy to it?
X : Yes.
Me : I can make the map.
X : Excellent.
Me : Alas, you can't apply strategy to it.
X : Why not?
Me : You can't map. You don't know what strategy is.
... to explain, it's a bit like someone who has been playing Snap for a decade wakes up to discover the world is playing Chess. It doesn't matter how much "Snap" strategy you've developed over the years - it's meaningless. Most corporate strategy is Snap i.e meme copying.
I count every year of "strategy" experience that I had prior to learning how to map as a negative i.e. a source of inertia, bad habits and old models to overcome.
Me : All maps are imperfect. This is a necessary requirement in order to be useful. A perfect map of France would be the size of France i.e. it would be France.
It would be useless ... as a map and a mechanism of communication.
... it is not perfection that makes maps useful. It is the ability for people to communicate, learn, navigate, challenge and explore that makes them useful.
Hidden in that is a concept that space has meaning. You start with a blank map, you fill it out as you explore and communicate with others. We can navigate with it through anchor, position and movement. Even a blank map has this and the first thing we do is draw the anchor ...
X : Why are you going on about sustainability in tech - change.org/p/sustainable-…
Me : Do you have $1bn in the bank?
X : No, and what has that got to do with anything?
Me: You're a muppet. Look, VC's might be dreaming of escaping on spaceships but you're not on those ships.
... less than a $1bn then you're an outsider, a nobody. You're not in the rich set. You might think you and your family are escaping the future damage we're causing to the planet but you're not. No escape for you. No Star Trek Federation. We either fix it or we wallow in it.
At least 500 signed up, it's a start. They'd probably have got more if they said they were going to shave a cat rather than try and save the planet. But we're the generation of apathy. Why fix things when we can just ignore it and let it become someone else's problem.
Listening to #bbcqt and how "big government is bad for the economy" ... hmmm, someone better explain that to China who is currently going around the globe knocking the stuffing out of these neoliberal fantasies.
I must admit, I'm looking forward to the future neoliberal narrative that tries to explain how China is a neoliberal fantasy of small government ... I'm not sure how they're going to try and hoodwink that one, should be funny to listen to though.
It'll have to be something truly twisted, an epic reality distortion of doublespeak proportions e.g. "it's not so much big Government, it's lots of small Government" or something like that.
Going for an early morning walk in London, passing an Estate agent. Oh lordy. £1.25m for a tiny one bed flat in Bloomsbury and it's not even freehold. That's 3x the price of my entire 4 bed detached freehold house. The rents in London are also eye watering.
It must make living in London very hard and stressful. Having a smoke and chat with a lovely chap Jim. Poor fellow, living on the streets. Really? We're supposed to be a wealthy country but then GDP is distorted with rents, debt revenue etc rather than productive work.
If this is the best our society can do, then it's clearly not working. Capitalism has some merits but it's a pointless system if it leaves people behind. The focus must always be the many not the few.
X : Do you have case studies on Wardley maps?
Me : No.
X : Will you?
Me : No. Others can talk about their experiences.
X : It would help me to justify it to business.
Me : You need to justify to business why looking at the landscape might be good?
X : Yes
Me : Change business.
X : That's not very helpful.
Me : I think it's excellent advice. Seriously, do you expect me to spend a nano-second on a business that doesn't understand why observing the competitive landscape it operates in might matter?
X : But they think they have maps.
Me : Do they?
X : What?
Me : Have maps?
X : Not your sort of maps but other kinds, yes.
Me : With position, movement and anchor? Maps you can navigate and explore with?
X : No
Me : Oh. So, non mapping sort of maps that you can't navigate with?
X : They think they're maps.