Bad maps, unlike bad press, do not garner the sort of attention that can be capitalized upon. Bad maps are strong impediments to gaining mind share, and represent a significant risk to depleting mind share. Why? Bad maps are a visual, i.e., strong, communication method and convey incompetence and poor judgment.

To many of us this is obvious, but we consistently hear from people who are professionals who have to make maps.  Though most would not describe themselves as cartographers or mappers, they want us to help them make a case for better cartography in their organizations.

The typical lead-in we get is something like:

'My boss saw these addresses mashed up on ____ Earth, and decided that's all we'll ever need for maps. Well, I'm a <planner, environmental scientist, conservationist, etc.> and I know better; but, I'm no ambassador for cartography and don't know how to make the right pitch to my boss. Give me some ammunition.'

I have yet to meet a manager who, when confronted with the news that a poor map is representing their part of their organization didn't want to fix that map as soon as possible. The key in that situation is education--how did that manager gain the understanding that the map was bad?  The ____ Earth street and image maps work great for some purposes, like mashing up geocoded points. They work less well for many other tasks, and not at all for even more tasks. 

The fact that the hypothetical boss above got the mashed up points map needs to be contextualized. First, it's an audience of one. Second, some pre-existing knowledge conformed to expectations, i.e., the boss already knew the location depicted in the map, and had been told what the points meant or were representing. Third, consider how the boss learned about the map's existence--likely it was in response to the boss asking for that information; so they knew it was coming. Fourth, dots on maps as a mapping method is on the low end of low-tech; tangentially a dot on a map has a rather limited capacity to convey information compared to lines and areas, much less well-designed symbols for dots, lines, and areas. (Granted dots on maps are opening up whole new worlds to neogeographers, which is something that absolutely should be encouraged. Think of the boss as a neo-geographer; they've just discovered their organization can make lots of maps--and that is good.)

Eventually the boss will want to impress either their boss or the organization's customers. This is the point at which the 'dots on a map mash-up', as a cartographic design, can critically underwhelm the audience. (Remember that neogeographers have discovered making maps is now easy, and these maps work amazingly well within their tight social and professional circles. But, get outside those circles, and the reliability of communication rapidly diminishes, as does the 'wow' factor.)

Educating the leadership in your organizations is important. When our cartographically-knowledgeable customers tell us at ESRI about the poor maps we've produced, and explain the implications for them as customers, the leadership at ESRI has consistently responded by both working to fix the immediate problem and taking steps to educate the staff and management who were involved.  Why?  Because it is good for our business to have good looking maps, just as it is good for our customers to have good looking maps.

[Note: I updated the hyperlink in this post at 3:15 p.m., 12/19/08 to point to something quickly useful about neogeography--the previous hyperlink went to mappinghacks.com where I had misconstrued a lack of search results for something useful.]