Scotland’s Technology Council 2025-26 Report Knowledge Map

Firstly I need to preface this section by saying this knowledge map is not in any way intended to replace the official, published report document, but to be a companion piece to it. For example it….

• links back to the PDF and online published versions in the central topic, and links back to the online version throughout.
• mirrors exactly it’s logical hierarchical structure of the chapters, sections, headings and sub-headings in the layout of the branches and the sub-branches, with the content text and images attached to them in a note.  

.
So what does our knowledge map ‘bring to the party’? 

Speeds up initial assessment of the report – The visually structured & labelled outline enables the viewer to get an ‘instant feel’ for the contents of the report and whether or not it’s something that they can engage with – How ‘big’ is it? Where is the bulk of the content? What is the logical framework and does it make sense to me (hint: it’s in the branch titles folks)? Are there any ‘visuals’ to aid my understanding, or is it ‘all just a lot of words’? Are their clearly articulated recomendations for action or other ‘takeways’ that I can immediately engage with? Is there at least an Executive Summary? etc. etc.

Brings in a bigger, more diverse, and more engaged readership – The visually structured nature will immediately encourage viewers that are otherwise ‘put off’ by traditional linear documents (no matter how well crafted) to explore & engage with the content. Whether that be for ‘brain function’ reasons like dyslexia, neuro-divergency etc., or just the ever decreasing attention span of the great digital unnwashed (as my granny would have said 😉

Brings out the full depth of the logic – If fully pursued, the logical hierarchicial structure of the map branches mirrors that of the report down to the ‘page level’ of sections, sub-sections, sub-sub-sections etc. (and that extra heading level that annoyingly was only required in that one, particularly long sub-sub-section 😉 ie. it brings out the level of logical detail usually missing from the Table of Contents – usually the only, vaguely visually structured indication of what is to come for the unwary reader – at the front of most reports (even the ‘detailed ones’).

 Can’t help but spark further thoughts & ideas about the subject in the viewer – This is for 2 reasons….

• Because it’s a mindmap (most important) – though it doesn’t follow the classic ‘radiating out from the centre in all directions’ layout, and has the logical structure of an external document rather than just your thoughts, viewers are still subject to the ‘mindmap effect’ – your brain can’t help but be stimulated by the ‘logical relationships’ (ie. the ‘lines between the things’) it sees in the map in front of it, and tries to think of more things, and further connections to add to it (see the contents of the ‘Background’ tab in our Map Guide for information on how mindmapping & mindmapping software etc. ‘works’).
• Because it makes things more visual and accessible – if the map is well designed the contents of the report, especially visual thinking aids like diagrams, graphs etc., are more visible and discoverable within the bigger picture context, which therefore helps the viewer to think about the subject in a visual way (ie. the way your brain works). It’s not just an ‘alternative presentation format’ to the standard linear document, visual layout = visual thinking 🙂

.
Enables / Facilitates discussion in a group setting – Here’s a question for you – when was the last time you were in a group meeting to think about the implications of a newly published report for your team / organisation / community, with the actual, final, published, standard linear layout document (as opposed to a slide presentation about it that somebody’s had to create over and above) projected in front of you all to facilitate the discussion? I’ll guess never, because standard linear layout documents of mostly words spread over multiple pages just don’t support the ‘group think’ process. But a ‘single canvas’, expandable / collapsable knowledge map that everybody can gather round, point at and talk at, that shows the big picture but also has the fine detail that can be drilled down into for ‘the devil in the detail’ discussions on the other hand…. 😉

Quickly gather responses and create a response document – If looking at the report map in MindManager software, it’s a simple matter to quickly add comments and responses to the appropriate branches ie. to the different parts of the report itself in real time as they are encountered. This reponse map could then be saved as a resource for future reference, for example in more detailed discussions of individual aspects of the report, where it could then be further amended / repurposed to create a strategy / plan map without having to start from a blank page. There are also tools available to turn the map into a standard linear document (eg. export to Microsoft Word) at any stage. 

Etc., etc. (there are loads more things that we could mention but we’ve got to get on….)