It is clear that mapping is transforming government agencies. Now it’s time to ask the question: How are maps themselves being changed by the agencies using them?
I came across this interesting take on this issue from the New York Times Bits Blog: The Business of Technology.
Check out the article here. My favorite part? This example on why we need better maps:
That giant tub of information is also consumed by people from diverse backgrounds. Theoretical researchers and repairmen both use General Electric’s electrical data. So how do you make it useful to both? When the data shows something going wrong with, say, a wind turbine, “a Ph.D. looks at it as a sign of a system failure and wants to think about mistakes in his calculations,” said David Cronin, the director of interaction design at G.E.’s Big Data center in San Ramon, Calif. “A field engineer thinks about fixing something.”“We’re looking for ways to augment human perception to help in complex decision making,” he said.
What do you think? What kind of map could benefit your job?