Map Wars

The map war is on.  It is a war of the 21st century, not to be confused with those described in the book Rhumb Lines and Map Wars by Mark Monmonier.  In this new war, MapQuest enters as the undisputed superpower, but is constantly being challenged by Yahoo! Maps.  map24.com is another dog in the fight.  Newcomer Google Maps has pretty good graphics and one of the better location finders.  Not sure if Mappr! is in the same fight but it's a fascinating new map-related tangent worth exploring.

Map wars are great because, if for no other reason, I love a good map.  Somestimes I'll just pick (up) a map for the heck of it.  To each his own, right?  A good friend of mine loves hydraulics.  Anywhere he sees hydraulics in action, he is soothed.  When I was a kid, I was soothed with maps hanging on the wall of my room.  I had one of North America, South America, and even Madagascar.  Really, anything National Geographic would send would eventually end up on my wall.  Seems odd to think of it now.   

Even so, to this day, maps make me feel good.  Perhaps it's as simple as the feeling you get from knowing where you're at, where you're going, and how you might get there from here.  A map gives it all to you in one fell-swoop.

It probably all started when I'd navigate for my Dad on our yearly trek across the country to visit relatives.  I was his map-man, he'd say.  And, at summer camps, I always looked forward to finding my way in the wild, armed only with a compass and a map.  You might call these my own, personal little map wars.  One particular story sticks out in my head because it made me look like such a genius.

Short Story: My First War

In the hill-country, smack in the middle of Texas, about 30 of us sat, splintering our behinds on old wooden chairs.  We were all gathered on a large weathered porch that overlooked about 200 acres where we waited for camp counselors to give instructions for our next event.  We were surrounded by what once was a working cow pasture.  One or two cows lingered on after surviving beef market-row, free to live out their remaining days as landscape decor and tax breaks.
    The scenery was a open and beautiful.  Slow rolling hills of green and gold were crossed occasionally with dried up stream beds and old fences.  Islands of dark green cedar and oak trees gave noon shade for the mule-deer and the lucky cows.
    We got our instructions: Break into four teams of seven or eight people and use the navigational instructions to attempt to walk our preset course.  There were four slightly different courses; one for each team.  One of our favorite camp counselors, Mr. Marty, was ex-Green Beret Vietnam veteran and had personally setup and tested each one.  This was before GPS, so we had to use our precalculated ratio of number of steps per every 20 yards to measure distance.  My number was 25.  We had been taught how to point our compass using azimuth descriptions.  The trick was to find a large landmark that coincided with a particular azimuth and then head straight toward it, instead of stopping every few yards to resight your compass and recheck the bearing.
    There was no time requirement but the counselors estimated it would take us roughly an hour or two to navigate the several miles of the course.  Each team would start at the same point.  The team to end up closest to the magical little dot of earth Marty had picked would win the... ride in a four wheeler, or some trophy.  Maybe it was just a ribbon.  We didn't care what.
    As map-man, naturally, I took control of my little group.  That meant I had the compass.  We all huddled.  Three of us would count our steps in case one guy or, worst case, two guys lost count part way to a landmark.  The other two would recheck each azimuth and verify any landmarks we picked. 
    So, with a compass, a strategy, and a map, we were off.  We read our first bearing and shot an azimuth that happened to head us toward this huge oak tree, about a half a mile away.  Off we marched.  After 473 steps, we stopped and  shot the next azimuth from our list.  Each leg of our course worked the same methodical way.   
    About an hour later our little group had counted out the last step.  We ended up pretty close to the porch which, we thought, was probably what Marty had intended.  The arrival was anticlimactic and left each of us wondering if there wasn't somthing else we were supposed to do.  But there was nothing left but to stick our flag in ground.  So, we did it, publicly declaring our best approximation to "the" magical spot.  Then, we walked over to the shade of the big porch, hot, thirsty and out of breath, where we waited for everyone else to finish.
    After what seemed like hours (one group had to be rescued by Marty after tromping off-course by over a half a mile), all four groups were finally gathered on the porch.  We squirmed and chatted impatiently as the counselors huddled to discuss the big winner.   The Texas sun was getting lower and the evening meal was the next thing on the agenda.  The group that got lost couldn't wait to be released.  At least then they could be victorious over their hunger.
    Marty walked up to front, "This has been fun, hasn't it!"
    "Yeaaahhhh!"  Most of us yelled with unbridled gusto and camp spirit.
    "Well, we'd never done this before, so we weren't quite sure how it would go.  But I must say, I'm very proud of all of your campers today.  You walked several miles, using only what we taught you and each of you came verrry close..."
    Marty paused for a moment and and glanced my way.  It was one of those moments where you feel like you'll be picked out of the crowd but you're not quite sure what for.  It made me nervous, excited, and uneasy all at the same moment.  Then he looked away.  Maybe he wasn't picking me out after all.
    "... but one group shocked all of us counselors,"  Marty continued, "I was in the Army for 22 years and I've never seen a display of land navigation quite like what I saw today."  It looked as if he were trying harder than normal to find the right words to say.  "But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  Before I point them out, I want to say how proud I am of the third place team.  That prize goes to Jeremy Maybridge's team!"  Everyone cheered as they got up to get their ribbons and then made their way back to their seats.
    "The second place group was a little closer - they did a terrific job.   Sarah, J.R., all of you; get up here!"  Everyone clapped a little louder and longer this time.
    "Finally," Marty paused again.  "Again, I can't quite explain how surprised us counselors were by this group..."
    My team had to be the winner - the only other team left was the one that had gotten lost.  My heart was racing as I braced for the onslaught of public focus.  But Marty was sure making a big deal about it and I wished he would just announce it.
    "We set up this course and, I'm not kidding, we put a rock right...," he paused and walked down the two porch steps to the front and left of all of us.  We all leaned over in our chairs to see where he was pointing.
    "... right here.  I tell the truth, there was a rock right here minutes before you all set off earlier today on your courses."
    As if God had planted it himself, he was pointing directly at our flag!
    "Ben, Amy, Joy, Matt, all of you!  Get up here!!"  We all ran up and basked in the glory of camp fame that day.  I had never been so proud of anything in all the 13 years of my short little life.

The New War

It's no surprise that I excelled at land navigation in the Marine Corps years later.  To this day, my sense of direction is hard to beat.  I get a quiet laugh out of knowing my current work involves the ongoing necessity to provide world-class business mapping software to our customers.

Because of this, I pay close attention to anything related to software and mapping.  XPath, XQuery, XSLT, application-internal mapping, webMethods Developer mapping, Altova, Contiva, whatever.  Along the way, I've learned that business software mapping can definitely learn from the map wars of today.  Take a look at look at map24.com, for instance.  The ability of this map technology to preserve your birds-eye context while zooming in and out is remarkable.  The principle of context-preservation is a critical one if we're going to make our software usable.

The latest in-car nav system installed in the Acura RL is GPS linked, voice activated, and can suggest alternate routes based on traffic conditions.  How cool is that?  It's so practical and doesn't burden you with information and options you don't need.  Yahoo! Maps now also reports traffic conditions.  It's only a matter of time before Google and MapQuest add it as well. 

Google Maps has great "You are Here" graphics.  I'm still trying to realize the value this has compared to the traffic report feature.  Yet, as Graham would say, we should never underestimate the power of doing the simple things extremely well (and make them very  appealing).  Getting me from point A to B is another of those things.  Recently, I used Google Maps to guide me from Northern Virginia to the Whitetail ski area in PA.  They were right on. 

Eventually, as we walk around, I'm sure we'll all have the option to pop-up any map we choose.  They'll appear on screens seen only by us, invisibly manifested in the neurons of our brain.  Until then, I'll keep writing business mapping software and look for the rare excuse to dust off my trusty compass.