Mapping Information
Here is a simple question: Is a map information? Keep in mind I am not trying to get too tricky here, and am especially wary of becoming too academic. For the space of this article I want you to consider dressing up information in working clothes.
Information is only germane in the presence of a decision to be made.
— Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker; The 500–Year DeltaAs you ponder whether a map is information, consider a paper map and electronic ones. You may dash off a map on a scrap of paper, marking only the course to be traveled and a few landmarks. An electronic map in your car can show you this, and also chart your position in relation to these points. With some systems, audible feedback keeps your eye on the road. And some maps overlay onto this real time traffic conditions, recharting your course to avoid delays.
Perhaps all three are information, but that’s for the academics to argue. You have better things to decide, like the best way of getting from point A to point B.
Where Decisions And Data Meet
Information systems earn their keep by providing decision superiority to users. When processing data about the status quo is mistaken for information work, the company stagnates. Competitive advantages either slip away or are obsoleted by the technical and business advances of more nimble competitors. Map developers and map users compete for decision superiority in an information ecosystem. So paper maps give way to electronic maps as prices drop. Drivers dynamically route around traffic jams and dangerous road conditions, so trucking firms realize lower insurance and equipment costs while more deliveries arrive on time. Where this dynamic produces a competitive advantage, an information asset results. Information workers would be part of this, but many more should get reacquainted with an old term: data processing.
It’s Data Unless Proven Otherwise
Radial graphs fit a lot into the small space. The reader can
instantly see the data which belongs to the correct region,
which reduces a source of possible error.
In The 500–Year Delta, Taylor and Wacker say it well, “Information is only germane in the presence of a decision to be made. To know that 200,000 people are likely to wear gabardine shirts on any given day or that 2 million people prefer their frozen broccoli topped with cheddar cheese is less than useless.” Information ties statistical trivia to your business and its objectives; an actionable way for a restaurant to increase business gets you from point A to B. The human result of interaction is the defining factor. Drawing the line at every document churned out via computer only makes the word information meaningless.
For a map or any document to cross over into information, the human interaction must be visualized. Human information interaction in the form of decisions feed back into the design of future documents.
Information is just as much the human response to a document like a map, a dynamic which can’t be assumed to exist or take care of itself. A technical artifact, like a document, can not be labeled information but gains that status through the context of use. This, and only this, puts information on a dimension above data. Data, in contrast, can exist apart from users or their objectives. Data processing never ceased to exist — it simply became untenable with repeated cycles of technology investment.
Resources
- Most maps avoid the issue Travel–time Maps takes on “These are much more complicated questions than those about individual journeys, but one thing they all have in common is transport: can I get to and from the places I’'m considering quickly and easily?”
- If your business centers on travel, you may offer online travel planning. Mapping an itinerary along scenic routes and key landmarks can enhance the customer experience of a hotel or travel agency. The savvy interavtive desinger will see mashups as an opportunity; developing a walking tour of prime New York shopping destinations, for instance.
- Situation Awareness and how it can help drivers is a good introduction to what is mentioned here. And check Sensor Fusion in Context Understanding for the more technical how situation awareness gets done.
- Situation Awareness: For teens, a black box system for the car warns and logs unsafe driving behaviors. By visibly and overtly monitoring drivers and providing feedback, these devices can do everything from compile business records
- A traffic flow map and trafficgauge mobile traffic map. One way nearly any web site can improve the maps they display is to have peak traffic and off peak routes. a Flash demo of the Dynamap.
- Liveplasma maps the relationship between musical artists, movies, actors and directors. Kart00 is a visual searh engine mapping the connections between the results of a query.
- Topic maps, “the GPS of the information universe” allow you to find the way in the age of info (data) glut.
- The Map is not the Terrain; the Sim is not the City brings up a good point. To my more pedestrian idea of information work, the perfect is the enemy of improvement from baseline mediocrity. A SIM is often the only interface making visible the assumptions driving activity and giving it context, a cognitive map of sorts.
- Paul Strassmann on mapping business performance to IT, “Because return on equity, return on assets and every other traditional financial metric ever studied have failed to yield a positive correlation between business performance and IT investment, says Strassmann. And that gave rise to the productivity paradox; nobody could tell why some companies succeed, with IT investments yielding revenue growth, and other companies fail.” The Meaning of Value Gets a Fresh Definition