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Yesterday I asked for a class or seminar on Information Mapping. Several
people (thank you) sent me a reply directing me to Information Mapping, Inc.
Web site(www.infomap.com). I also did a detailed Web search and found only
two companies that offer courses on the subject, Info Mapping Inc. and a
company in Europe.
At that point, I began to feel that info mapping was proprietary (controlled
by a few companies). I did a search on Amazon.com to see how many books
there are on the subject. When I searched for "information mapping" I
received 65 hits. From what I could tell, only 3 or 4 of the books dealt
with info mapping from a writing point of view and those books were either
out of print or special order. Most of the books listed focused on
Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I also did a search on "info mapping"
and turned up 3 books with only one valid hit -- again, out of print.
As a check, I ran a search for "indexing". In some ways, this is a topic
similar to information mapping. The search resulted in 506 hits. In the
first 25 hits I looked at, 14 of them dealt with indexing from a writing
stand point. I did not bother to continue adding them up.
My question to everyone is this: are the principles of "information mapping"
important in what we do (as writers) or has it been effectively marketed to
make us think we need it?
My own opinion is that "information mapping" is simply a copyrighted
buzzword that is based on a writing methodology that writers have used all
along.
What do you think?
Robert Nimchuk
Technical Writer
Northwest Airlines, Inc.
Tel: (612) 726-3109
Fax: (612) 727-4367
Net: robert -dot- nimchuk -at- nwa -dot- com
"When you take stuff from one author, it's plagiarism; if you take it from
many writers, it's research."
-- Wilson Mizner
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