mapping knowledge poetry in aid of

Mapping Knowledge: Poetry in Aid of Science and Business

Before moving on to the main body of this missive, my good friend,

Dean Landsman, kindly pointed out that the GEL posts have not been up

to what he calls my usual standard of writing. He said so out of

concern, and so please allow me to apologize here for any awkward

sentence construction -- these are all first drafts with quick spell

checks. I regret any lack of grace. I'm posting as quickly as I can

get the words down.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

The History of Maps: Both a Means and Result of Discovery

Katy B�rner, another inspirational speaker at GEL, explained her

passion for finding patterns within and among large data sets and

mapping the results.

Sound dry? In fact, the highly interpretive nature of the work -- how

to create connections among siloed ideas to create an intuitive and

yet accurate picture of existing knowledge -- demonstrates the

importance of art in scientific innovation.

B�rner began by discussing the history of science maps in relation to

their geographical equivalents. Each map represents a vision of

information and priorities based -- sometimes quite shamelessly -- on

a particular mapmaker's perspective.

Mapping Science

Within the field of science, B�rner includes the fields of math,

physics, biology, chemistry, social sciences, and so on. Each domain

of discovery (in this case, science) is distinct from the others often

in language/jargon, resources, personnel, education, economic market,

academic discipline, and often geography.

The questions B�rner asks: how can we make use of what we know

collectively so that we don't have to repeatedly reinvent the wheel?

What would a map of knowledge look like that illustrated density (both

overlap of ideas and outliers), detail (which can be got from search

engines), and a big picture? What sort of metaphors would be

appropriate?

Once You Build It?

B�rner's work has application for every knowledge domain. Since the

late eighteenth-century, Western thought has been increasingly

relegated to distinct disciplines whose value, to a large extent, is

predicated on its difference from other fields. Education follows a

with increasingly specialized disciplines of interpretation to prepare

practioners for their increasingly narrowing fields.

As B�rner mentioned, as technology develops, it's increasingly

difficult to keep up with the discovery and dissemination of

knowledge. Furthermore, the ability of one field to publish more

quickly than others creates a political imbalance among those in the

business of research and discovery.

Learning: By Way of Example

With so much noise, and so few interpreters among fields, knowledge

and learning processes are repeatedly redefined by practioners of

psychology, biology, higher education, by secondary education, primary

education, corporate training, new age systems, self-help industries,

and so on.

In fact, the overlaps are often more salient than the differences,

although the salaries for each field don't reflect it. Often, for

example, corporate trainers spend a great deal of energy reminding

adults that communication skills differ among individuals according to

background, expectations, gender, culture, etc. How much more do they

earn than Kindergarten teachers who spend much of their time on the

same theme?

As I mentioned early on, this blog was born from my own frustration

over the way in which education is handled. Three years of research

demonstrates that across fields, most professionals agree on the

components of effective thinking. However, practioners and researchers

of learning, creativity, and education rarely acknowledge each other's

accomplishments in a way that encourages further exploration of

similarities. The economics and politics of celebrity discourage

anything else.

What if overlaps among fields became a priority, and we mapped

everything that is currently known about the way the mind processes

information? What if everyone across age groups and fields worked from

that map?

What if all fields were mapped across topics and discoveries?

More on GEL in the next post.

More on B�rner's Work

Learn more about B�rner's work at her website and get in touch if you

have ideas about appropriate metaphors with which to map scientific