Cartographic clout (part 3 of 3)
Systemic type mapping can communicate complexities inherent in the system under study, which allow enrichment to stakeholder understanding (especially when dealing with diverse team members). As example, team members believing the project to be simple, will allocate far fewer resources, compared to team members who think it is a complex task. Merging or aligning these views are called sense sharing. Sense sharing hold practical consequences when looking at the different sensibilities we have regarding factors like bias, time, cost, quality, effort, and resistance to the projects we undertake. Our mechanistic legacy and our obsession with quick fixes for complex challenges create a lack of discipline to investigate and truly understand problem contexts. It is common today, for consultants and vendors to apply the same solution to a host of different contexts1, 3. This cut & paste mentality, is still common, and based upon mechanistic orientations, devoid of systemic viability like ecologically integrative considerations.
Considering that multi-disciplines or transdisciplinarity are inherent to complexity body of knowledge, the future need of these tools and insights will only grow1, requiring investment into these services and tools today, so that we can build these capacities. The systemic body of knowledge have influences from many disciplines like engineering, evolutionary biology, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, soft systems, hard systems, and more recently from architecture or design8. It adds to systemic knowledge by promoting design-centric visualisation in mapping processes and communications, like Giga-mapping - a broad map of multiple layers and scales8, useful on many levels. It also reveals inherent complexity and wickedness of real life problems8. It can be seen as an architectural variation of soft and hard system tools like: rich-pictures, concept maps, process maps, mind mapping, etc. Rich pictures are useful in building an overview, ordering and simplifying complex issues, whilst Giga-maps tend to be used to communicate design artefacts in itself8, helping to re-align and arrange complex information throughout the design process7. Systemic mapping tools help us all to understand system boundaries, which are vital in scientific theory and practice as it frame’s the system or intervention - notion of system-in-focus1. Because of systemic tools, we are better able to map, work with and engage in complex problems1, and considering that perfect information is a Newtonian flaw and mechanistic assumption that leads to divergent outcomes1. Systemic maps also tie into continuous learning1, whilst allowing expert knowledge to be accessed by laypersons as a form of self-development1, 8.
References
1. Udemans, F., 2008, The golden thread: escaping socio-economic subjugation: an experiment in applied complexity science, Authorhouse UK;
2. Barness, J., & Papaelias, A., 2015, Critical making: Design and the digital humanities, Visible Language 49.3, the journal of visual communication research, special issue, December 2015;
3. Schon, D., A., 1984, The reflective practitioner, New York, NY: Basic Books Inc.;
4. Jones, P., and Jeremy Bowes, J., 2017, Rendering Systems Visible for Design: Synthesis Maps as Constructivist Design Narratives, Journal of design economics and innovation, Tongji University and Tongji University Press, Elsevier B.V., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/;
5. Kanarinka, 2006, Art-machines, Body-ovens, and map-recipes: Entries for a psychogeographic dictionary, Cartographic perspectives, Number 53, Winter, 2006;
6. Wikipedia, 2018, Mercator projection, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mercator_projection&oldid=862917060;
7. Firth, R., 2015, Critical Cartography, https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=13771, The Occupied Times of London (27), Retrieved 16 February 2018;
8. Sevaldson, B., 2011, Giga-mapping: Visualisation for Complexity and systems thinking in design, Conference Paper, June 2011, ResearchGate;
