We have run out of time (link updated August 22, 2016).
Let's remind ourselves of what DebateGraph is: David's primary description of it is: "DebateGraph is an award-winning web-platform for visualizing and sharing networks [...] – and opening reasoning and action to collaborative learning and iterative improvement." The key word in this description is "networks". DebateGraph organizes itself, crucially, *spatially*. It lays out, in space, multiple linear narratives, *simultaneously* and allows you to cross-link them at will *and*, again, crucially, across different maps (as well as within a particular map).
1. DebateGraph helps us think faster. How?
Because we build maps in our heads all the time. We take items from the conveyor belt of time and slot them into the maps we build in our heads. It is our curse that we are surrounded by plodding, chronological representations of these maps: start reading at time one, finish reading at time two, books, ebooks and blogs. So taking those maps out of our heads and putting them on the computer screen allows us to start thinking *about the links between things.* Of the two components of a graph (used in the sense of a collection of nodes and links):
the most important component, in terms of thinking faster, is not the nodes, not the information we seek, but the *links*. If there were no links, there is no map. What we do with a map is follow links, like a bloodhound, faster and faster until we end up at our destination. Look at the map above. Can you imagine building that in your head? (The diagram is actually of the 21st Century Challenges map, displayed in Radial Graph, All, View.) The answer is, probably, "No." But it doesn't matter! Because with DebateGraph you *can* build such a map and you can navigate it, in the point-and-click interface of Outline View, very, very quickly, noting information on the fly until you arrive at your destination.
*Building* the maps is a thoughtful experience and can be fast or slow.
2. It helps us communicate complex issues in context.
By building maps of complex issues or stories and then tweeting or otherwise sharing individual elements of the DebateGraph we can provide both information and context. Nowadays, with the timelines of social media, cat stories share equal space with the latest arms talks and all disappear, merrily, merrily, in the same interval of time. Using DebateGraph to communicate issues can bring people into the broader context of the topic under discussion (and, let's not forget, this topic map can be built by a community of people: DebateGraph is designed for community).
3. It lets us see all the forests and all the trees.
We need a wholesale move from chronological thinking to spatial thinking (see the two sequences). Chronological thinking forces us to build maps of the situation under consideration in our heads, limiting our engagement and muddying the action points.
DebateGraph.org is a publishing platform for spatial thinking. By putting the maps we used to build in our heads on the computer screen DG allows us to step back and see the forest for the trees ... and other forests and the paths between them. It switches us from chronological thinkers to spatial thinkers, from local thinkers to global thinkers.
4. It fosters better collaboration.
By adding these features of these types of thinking to DebateGraph's community features we get a better collaboration tool as well.
So, to recap: We have no time left. We have to think faster and collaborate and communicate better. DebateGraph can help us do that. Go to.
If you'd like more information on (free-to-use) DebateGraph, please get in touch using this contact form.
Disclaimer: I don't work for DebateGraph. I've just been using it since late 2009 and appreciate it.
May 12th, 2016 UPDATE: Someone asked me: "What do we do once we've built the map, given the time frame is so short?" The answer is that within the map we focus on changing the system using the Moving Forward Matrix. See the post on the Moving Forward Matrix, cross-linked here. For an example in progress, see the cross-link to the "ISPS-US Moving Forward" map. Finally, see the cross-links "What I've learnt ..." and "A roadmap ..." which link this post to the "21st Century: What Do We Do Now?" map.
May 18, 2016 UPDATE: Plans for coal-fired power in Asia are 'disaster for planet' warns World Bank http://gu.com/p/4tqey/stw
edited, August, 2016.