The Mapping Specialist

Vol IX, No. 1 - Summer 2001

Contents | In Focus | Mapmaking | Profile | Historical Atlases

PROFILE
Product News

The growth and maturation of a business and the development of a child into an adult parallel each other very closely.  There's the birth and the excitement it brings.  The terrible two's (reaching that 5th-year mark in business) and its struggles.  The stage of experimentation and the valuable learning experiences it brings.  All of which contribute to the final development into a self-sufficient adult or viable company.  As we all know, along this journey many forks in the road are encountered.  June of 2000 brought Mapping Specialists to one of these forks.

For 16 years Mapping Specialists has gone through the typical growth stages of a business.  From its founding in June 1984, MSL has supplied custom contract "work for hire" cartographic services to map and textbook publishers.  The business model for the growth of the company was built around providing these services.  Through the development of these services, the loyalty of a core group of customers, and a dedicated management team and staff, MSL has grown to what it is today -- a viable, profitable business with a very good reputation.  Then came June 2000.

When you have a staff of 40 cartographers and are located in a city with a rich cartographic tradition, sooner or later the question of when MSL is going to produce its own map will get asked.  While the question was asked long before, June 2000 is when the question was taken seriously.  It was then that MSL faced the proverbial fork in the road.

For the preceding 16 years MSL had only ventured into the map-publishing arena one time.  That was to produce a map of the Middle East at the start of Desert Storm.  While the map was well received, it was a failure from a business standpoint.  This was due to the fact that the selling/distribution window for the product was so short.  Though a financial failure, many valuable lessons were learned.  We found that no matter how good a product was, if there was not a prolonged window and a good distribution/sales network in place, the product would fail.  Nine years later these lessons were implemented.

Last June, Mapping Specialists decided to create its second product.  This product would be one of local interest and one that had been asked for countless times.  The product would be a street-level map of Dane County, Wisconsin (the county in which our office and the city of Madison are located).  We decided that the base would be produced at a scale of one inch equals 0.64 mile and contain as much information as possible.  Two guidelines were placed on its creation: 1) that the map must be accurate, and 2) through the map's creation we would develop techniques and processes that would benefit our clients.

The first task at hand was the production of an accurate map.  Various digital sources were used to create the raw base.  DLG and Tiger data sets were extracted, merged, cleaned, paper source information applied, and then plotted for review.  It was at this point that we decided the only way to guarantee accuracy of the map was to drive the roads in the county and verify locations and names.  Along with the verification of the roads, a simultaneous check of points of interest was performed.  Starting in July the research team (one driver and one compiler) left Mapping Specialists' office daily and traveled various parts of the county.  Seven weeks and 4700 miles later, MSL had the most current and accurate map of Dane County, Wisconsin.

Interesting things were discovered during the field check.  In the Fall/Winter 2000 issue of The Mapping Specialist we ran an article titled "Fact or Fiction" that discussed discrepancies we encountered.  The article highlighted the fact that no matter how current the printed source material is, it does not necessarily depict the truth.  We often found street names with conflicting spellings, different street configurations, and cemeteries located in the wrong place.  Our theory that the only way to be error free is through field checking proved accurate.

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce John Felten as our Director of Sales.  John has been with MSL for three years as a Cartographer and Senior Cartographer.  Holding a degree in geography with a minor in geology from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, John has experience in production cartography with an emphasis on GIS development and database creation.  John will assist Dave Knipfer in the marketing of MSL's services.

We have created three products for retail sale from the base map.  We have an 86" x 54" wall map of the entire county, a 54" x 54" wall map of the Madison Metropolitan area, and a 66 page four-color street atlas.  All of the products are manufactured at our office. Here we fulfilled our second goal of developing techniques and processes to benefit our client.  We have engineered a cost-effective way to produce wall maps through the use of our software programs and printing capabilities.  We are able to print wall maps on demand, bypassing the need for film/plates and large-quantity print runs.  The same holds true for the atlas.  The pages are printed internally on 8.5" x 11" paper, collated, and bound in a three-ring binder.  This permits us to print the atlases on demand and supply our clients with replacement sheets instead of a new atlas when the base map is updated.

We're very pleased with the products we've developed.  Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.  The "fork" chosen has been good for us as a business and will be good for our clients as well.  Now that we're headed down this path we're anxious to see when and where the next "fork" is reached.

- Dave Knipfer

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