By Bill Hinsch
I'll kick off my first blog post in bad form.
I've earned the right I figure.
Allow me to explain.
Recently I was sent a bullying letter from the lawyer
at the firm I helped found—Root Learning (now re-
branded "Root Inc"). They are the formerly great
company that released the wonderful learning map
form—in America. And trademarked that term. More
on that in a bit.
I mention "in America" because the learning map was
with us way before a RootMap existed—going back to
the early 1980s in Sweden. It variously was called
the ARBETSDUK, meaning Work-sheet or Work
cloth or Lärduk—a term which was coined by the
Foresight Group much later in 1995 or so.
Klas Melander is generally thought of as the originator
of the Work Cloth. He started his learning map work at
SAS Airlines forming a group there called SAS
Business Consultants and in 1983. The first learning
map practitoning was born. Jan Carlzon, the visionary
leader at SAS, amy have fired the first shot across the
learning map bow with his interesting “Little Red
Book” which had an airplane amorphized as a
customer who was instructing employees Mellander
then took the idea and formed a company called LMI
—for Learning Methods International—and began
expanding the concept to adjacent methodologies in
gaming.
The learning map first landed in America in a joint
venture with Tom Peters Group, SAS Business
Consulting Group, and Mellander’s LMI on something
called “Value for The Customer”. Mellander, along
with Göran Johanson and Micahel Pieschewski,
developed this seminal learning map launched in
America in 1990.
Meanwhile in Sweden, learning map work started to
come of age with great maps produced not only for
SAS but Volvo where the “Dialog Program “ was first
employed —giving a start to the dialogue techniques
later adopted at Root and others in the modern
versions of learning maps.
In 1991 along came Randy Root where he learned of the
Work Mat from the Foresighters—
misunderstanding the translation of the word Lärduk
he termed it “learning map” because he thought,
mistakenly, that Lärduk meant “learning matte”. He
then trademarked this around 1993.
Before that, Randy had shoe-horned his way into
Goran Johanson’s project with Preston Trucking
which had brought him to America where Preston had
been impressed with the SAS “The Challenge” project
under Mellander’s guidance. With Göran’s
participation, Randy was awarded the visualization
(only) part of the work, and later took over the entire
project from Goran who went back to Sweden to
practice the form up until the present day. Presto—
Root Learning was born with the Preston
implementation and a second project with Conrail.
They then went onto create many more hundreds of
modules using the tools and techniques that the
Swedes had invented and Root had adopted nicely.
After the learning map was introduced here, in quick
succession Paradigm Learning came out with
Discovery Maps as a spinoff (and interestingly owns
the www.learniningmap.com domain) , and Applied
Learning Labs came up with the Knowledge Map and
later the Conversation Map that its sister company,
Healthy Interactions, practices learning map
methodology with customers and end consumers
alike in the important Diabetes awareness area of
health care.
The technology then was re-adopted again in Europe,
only with the American overlay (where they refer to it
as lernen Karte in Germany, and learning map or Big
Picture Map in UK).
So this brings me back to the trademarking of the
term.
Root trademarked “learning map” in 1993 as best I
can remember. The term got so popular, that it has
passed into the public consciousness describing the
very thing it is—a learning map. Axel Meierhoefer
owner of the domain thelearningmap.com turned to
me to design the site, and was launched as an
informative place for promoting the general subject on
all things having to do with the learning map artform.
Dr. Meierhoefer has a wonderful pdf there that
explains many of the uses of the maps, including his
own invention, the Innovation Map which he co-
developed with Dr. Charles Savage around 2008-10.
In 1993 Root tried to trademark the term in Europe—
unsuccessfully since already it was recognized there
as being a mashup of common words in useage, not
distinctive enough to be trademarked. Score 1 for the
rest of us wanting to further enoble the form.
Root, ever conscious of perceived stealing of “their”
technology which they stole from the Swedes,
promptly fired off a threatening letter to me—not
knowing that Axel Meierhoefer owns the site and I am
just a fan! Shoot the messenger maybe?
I responded by stating the obvious—that the learning
map has become embedded in the language, and is
now a general term for all the various learning map
lookalikes out there, including mine, the Learning
Visuals learning map.
There is now the Collaborative learning map, the
Dynamic learning map, and Trainiac’s learning map—
all trademarked, eroding the ability to any longer
monopolize the term. In fact if you Google “learning
map” you’ll see Dynamic learning map before the
RootMap. It is interesting that Root, in some
foreshadowing, decided themselves to turn away from
the term they trademarked and toward the more
specific, and defensible—”RootMap”.
I hope I don’t get further threatened here for typing
the term RootMap.
***DISCLAIMER: This is an informational article on
the subject of learning maps and is not intended to
win business for myself away from Root Learning
whom think they own the concept and no one else
shall practice it without retribution.***
In fact I honor Root. Anyone out there still wanting the
original secret sauce should contact them. On the
other hand if you want more innovative work contact
Helathyi (or me if you like). Milo Paitch (Globethink)
also does a mean learning map and I urge you to call
him. Ben Garrison is the best artist in the field, and
turns out learning map visuals like they are candy
when really that candy is pure gold produced on a
cost basis that Root can only dream about. Ben’s
company is called Grrr-aphics. (love that name).
But one thing that Root can hold it’s head up high—
they were the ones that really popularized the artform
and applied it as an organ of communicating strategy
to companies around the world—not merely Discovery
learning —but also directive learning. Discovery
Learning fell into tatters as companies wanted to
push agendas rather than utilize a Socratic approach
with open ended questions that elicit thinking,
rather than just planting dogma.
Sadly, much of learning map work today has devolved
to this lower standard away from the superior
approach of objectively achieving analytic critical
thinking via open ended questions and dialogue,
instead of rotely forcing changed behavior just tell
them to (albeit in a creative manner cynically
employing learning maps which only SEEM
objective).
Edventures still practices the socratic method nicely—
and their education sector maps are excellent—I’d
recommend them to school systems wanting to up
their games. As does Axel (AMC consulting) with an
additional benefit of PhD chops infusing the learning
he creates and imparting an extra value added
technique of active facilitating his maps—rather than
the Root stricture on that with merely passive
facilitation by amateurs.
Meanwhile, back in Sweden...
Klas Mellander went on to form Celemi, and their
learning map activities morphed into an exclusive
gaming concept that in turn was then copied by
Paradigm, BlueLine Solutions (later Blue Line
Simulations), and a few others. Paradigm has
become an American master at the gaming game.
They do maps as well but not quite as well recognized
as Root but cheaper to hire.
The true learning map companies now in existence
include Paradigm, Applied, Healthy Interactions
(Healthyi), Learning Visuals, Edventures, Xallax,
Dialogbild, Big Picture Learning, and of course the
original American company, Root inc. (apologies to
Tom Peters who never used the technique again).
With that, I close my first blog article with a thought
taken from an LMI circular back in 1990, nicely
expressed by Mr. Mellander—the true father of the
learning map:
John Naisbitt said: “Better information is rarely the
same thing as more information. We are drowning in
information, but starving for knowledge.”
Learning is discovery, and learning requires thinking.
The increased need for communication in business is
easy to understand. And investments certainly are
being made! The engineering industry in Sweden, for
example, currently spends the equivalent of 10% of its
wage costs on training. And in the USA, companies
invest more than 30 billion dollars per year in people
development. The goal is the same everywhere: to
create competitive advantages, through people. And
the medium is the message. The forms of training we
choose are themselves bearers of the message. If
only managers are sent to courses, this suggests that
training is not something for the staff. If, on the other
hand, an entire work group is asked to participate, it
suggests that this is important for that group.
Traditional lectern-style teaching often sends out the
message that “we’re in the know”. Any list of needs
should therefore also include some reflection on what
other messages the company wishes to disseminate.
The conditions for success—in integrating knowledge
into company operations—are also important. There
must be a simple and realistic method to reach that
goal”.
That was relevant then and is relevant now. And a
nice rationale for the learning map as a valuable tool
in businesses. The pioneers in creating learning maps
—myself included—should always remember what it’s
all about—and not worry so much if someone else is
using the term “learning map”. It’s a wonderful and still
vital artform that is owned by the world now and as
such should be employed to its highest purposes.
That’s where Mellander started and it’s where I want
to be today.
If you’d like to see examples of the first learning maps
in Sweden—which were excellent by the way—much
better than the ones I originally designed—please log
into this dropbbox folder and take a look.
The LMI brochure is also there for anyone to read, and
learn where learning maps began and what they looked
like originally.
Bill Hinsch is the original learning map artist and
developed many of the visual techniques used today
in delivering strategic visualization. He is president of
Learning Viasuals and can be contacted at
bill@learningvisuals.com
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