Get in touch

A BOOK WRITTEN IN THE OPEN

The Mapmaker’s
Tool Kit

Questions to a new world

Fifty-five essays, 2017 to 2021

Essays for the moment the map in your hand stops matching the ground: on freeing your mind of the habits it inherited, seeing the shifts under your feet, asking better questions, and learning with others faster than anyone can alone.

The contents

In four parts. Each essay opens on its own page; the year is when it was written.

Mental Freedom

  1. History’s myths2021
  2. No time to die?2021
  3. Breaking the binary on climate change and techno-optimism2021
  4. We have a social brain. Are we losing it?2021
  5. What does your frame make you see?2021
  6. How to re-wild your thinking and actions2020
  7. How to transform your worldview2019
  8. A short history of how humanity thinks2019
  9. The power of doubt2018
  10. How to spot and reject false choices2018
  11. Fixations are risky and costly2018
  12. How to bring deep-coded assumptions to the surface2018
  13. Leaders must become map-makers2017
  14. Three steps to innovate how you see things2017
  15. Grinding a new lens2017

Paradigm Shifts

  1. Does your power float?2021
  2. Is less more?2020
  3. Leading while lost2019
  4. The new future of truth2019
  5. Repurposing A.I.2019
  6. The now future of work2018
  7. Shifting paradigms of wealth and wellbeing2018
  8. How to think clearly about today’s A.I.2018
  9. Building trust in the post-truth era2018
  10. The radical new economic thinking of wealth creation2017
  11. Crafting new measures of progress2017
  12. Can economics grow beyond growth?2017

Better Questions

  1. Say no to simple truths2021
  2. Three big lessons of 20202021
  3. Spekaers announces2020
  4. Will we be wiser?2020
  5. Last year’s DMC was a blast2019
  6. Is China’s model best?2019
  7. Ending the oldest pretense in politics2018
  8. Mapping a shared reality2018
  9. Dare to define “progress”2018
  10. What do the techno-optimists omit?2018
  11. Violence, conformity and challenges to the status quo2018
  12. The biggest questions academics ask2018
  13. Finding firm ground amidst shifting social values2018
  14. The need for new social technologies2017

Learning Together

  1. Explorers’ Gym: a simple way to have deep conversations2021
  2. Explorers’ Gym: reaching out to bring together2021
  3. Explorers’ Gym: blunt stakeholder mapping2021
  4. Explorers’ Gym: how to host virtual Campfires2021
  5. Explorers’ Gym: dare to define diversity2021
  6. Explorers’ Gym: a cure for ‘imposter syndrome’2021
  7. How do journeys of transformation begin?2021
  8. New dates, digital venue2020
  9. How to nurture critical thinking in your world2020
  10. Why the world needs a New Geographical Society2019
  11. Branding in the age of social media2019
  12. How to create clear conversation on complex questions2018

Two maps from during the pandemic

  1. Map #51: an invitation to reflect upon the Great Pause2020
  2. Map #50: an urgent pause on pandemics2020

FIELD NOTES

Between the essays

The essays go out on Substack and LinkedIn. The Field Notes come to your inbox: a note from me now and then on what I’m seeing, to set beside what you’re seeing.