Michael Lissack Science may benefit from analytical thinking, but management and government are based on the art of synthesis. In the Western world, pre- dominantly monotheist over the past two millennia, the search for the one truth has been the driving issue in discovery and innovation. in the East, the concentration has been on what is done and for whom, rather than on what is believed, no matter when. Western thinking is analyt- ical, whereas Eastern thinking is synthetic. By the middle of the twentieth century, the Western concern for truth gradually ceased to be an asset and turned into a liability. As societies move through time, discoveries are made, new functions and sociopolitical arrangements are instituted alongside the old, and the complexion of how natural resources are harnessed undergoes change. The results are frequently laid at the doorstep of man's cultural enterprise. New institutions emerge, requiring expression through architec- ture; some severely tax or transcend traditional practice. For example, the modern auto oriented city presents institutional arrangements and rituals of movement that are materially different from those of cities of earlier times. In our age, the personal computer was the beginning of the end for the old world view. The computer allows everyone from secretaries to senior executives to work directly with technology and take advantage of the many benefits it could bring. Standard software packages that support PC hardware make the technology easy to use. The personal computer gives people direct ac- cess to technology tools and a level of data such as never before seen. In this sea of data, old views, old frames for seeing the world just don't work. The quantity of what we are faced with overwhelms and the day-to-day workings of the world demand something else. Our ability to perceive is clouded by the manifold objects and facts we are asked to see. You cannot perceive anything without a map. The standard forms of communications we use can be seen as maps. They enable us to get be- yond our own ideas to those of others. They enable us to find new infor- mation. We trade our perceptions and ideas through the currency of maps. Theoretically, a map can be a language, a symbol, a stick, or a drawing in the sand. A map is anything that shows you the way from one point to another,
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