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The Map and the Territory: A Practitioner Perspective on Knowledge Cartography

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Knowledge Cartography

Part of the book series: Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing ((AI&KP))

Abstract

This chapter provides a practical perspective of knowledge cartography by drawing on an approach that has been developed and refined through the lead author’s experiences in facilitating workshops in diverse professional domains. The discussion focuses on the importance of developing a feel for conversational patterns and for understanding the kinds of questions that enable insights to emerge from dialogue, leading to an emergent design approach that combines the methods of knowledge cartography with other facilitation and problem solving techniques in a “fit-for-situation” manner.

Map-making had never been a precise art on the Discworld. People tended to start off with good intentions and then get so carried away with the spouting whales, monsters, waves and other twiddly bits of cartographic furniture that they often forgot to put the boring mountains and rivers in at all.

– Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.

– Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svaasbQIUEk for a demo.

  2. 2.

    See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19IV_QJQD0U for a demo.

  3. 3.

    See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKRwUGW_V48 for a demo.

  4. 4.

    See http://www.johnkay.com/1998/02/03/the-role-of-business-in-society.

  5. 5.

    Just to be clear, this is an analogy, we are not claiming that these are complex adaptive systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seven Sigma Business Solutions, Perth, WA, Australia

    Paul Culmsee

  2. Boehringer Ingelheim Pte Ltd., Kallang, Singapore

    Kailash Awati

Authors
  1. Paul Culmsee
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  2. Kailash Awati
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Culmsee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

    Alexandra Okada

  2. Connected Intelligence Centre, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

    Simon J. Buckingham Shum

  3. Sheffield Hallam University Centre for Science Education, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Tony Sherborne

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Culmsee, P., Awati, K. (2014). The Map and the Territory: A Practitioner Perspective on Knowledge Cartography. In: Okada, A., Buckingham Shum, S., Sherborne, T. (eds) Knowledge Cartography. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6470-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6470-8_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-6469-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-6470-8

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