Systems Atlas

Atlas Map

Atlas Map — Systems Atlas

Six atlas layers

Layer 1

Ecosystems

/ecosystems/

Maps of real civic, institutional, and physical systems. Shows actors, relationships, infrastructure, and coordination environments in specific places.

Madison civic Transportation Housing Climate Watershed Workforce

Layer 2

Coordination Hubs

/ecosystems/madison/coordination-hubs/

Profiles of organizations, agencies, and intermediaries that connect multiple systems. Shows where coordination actually happens in the real world.

UW–Madison Madison Metro CARPC Sustain Dane Yahara WINS

Layer 3

Organizational Landscapes

/organizational-landscapes/

Maps of how specific institutions coordinate internally and externally. Programs, departments, responsibilities, and cross-functional relationships inside real organizations.

Dane County DHS Public Health MDHC Madison Metro Transit

Layer 4

Organizational AI Use Landscape

/organizational-ai-use-landscape/

A focused landscape for understanding how AI adoption spreads across departments, roles, and governance environments before formal strategy exists.

Entry Points Departments Governance Training Risk

Layer 5

Design Layer

/design-layer/

Coordination structures that could plausibly exist. Reusable prototypes that respond to visible gaps — not proposals, but structural possibilities grounded in mapped gaps.

Information Coordination Hub Models Participation Standards Procurement AI

Layer 6

Topic Layers

/frameworks/flow-alignment/ · more coming

Non-geographic lenses that map structural patterns across any environment. How selection, flow, and coordination work across digital and organizational systems.

Flow Alignment Selection Environments Structural Misalignment Growing

How the layers interact

Ecosystems → Design Layer

Ecosystem maps reveal coordination gaps. Design Layer patterns are the structural responses to those specific gaps.

Ecosystems → Coord Hubs

Ecosystem maps show what actors exist. Coordination Hub pages show how specific actors connect across multiple systems.

Org Landscapes → Ecosystems

Organizational Landscapes zoom into a single institution inside an ecosystem — showing its internal coordination from the outside view.

AI Landscape → Design Layer

The AI Landscape reveals gaps in AI governance, training, and coordination. The AI Coordination patterns in the Design Layer respond to those gaps.

Topic Layers → Ecosystems

Topic Layers provide non-geographic frameworks that can be applied to any ecosystem — revealing structural patterns that place-based maps alone can’t show.

Design Layer → Org Landscapes

Design Layer patterns can be applied inside an organization. Organizational Landscapes show whether those coordination structures currently exist or are missing.

How to read Systems Atlas

I want to understand a real place or system

Start with Ecosystems. Browse the Madison layers or use the Atlas Map to find the relevant environment.

I want to understand an organization from the outside

Go to Coordination Hubs or Organizational Landscapes. These show internal and external coordination structure.

I want to understand how AI is entering my organization

Start with the Organizational AI Use Landscape. Entry Points and Departments are the best first pages.

I want to find structural solutions to coordination problems

Go to the Design Layer. Browse by category or start with Common Coordination Gaps to find patterns by gap type.

I want to understand why similar efforts produce different outcomes

Start with the Flow Alignment Ecosystem. Selection Environments explain why the same work succeeds in one context and fails in another.

I want to work with someone on this

See the Work With Me page. Engagements cover ecosystem mapping, AI landscape mapping, and coordination landscape briefings.

Systems Atlas

Atlas Map

A navigational overview of Systems Atlas. This page organizes the atlas into major layers so the growing system can be understood at a glance.

Explore ecosystems View full sitemap

Major atlas layers

Systems Atlas is not organized as a single list of pages. It is made of several interacting layers: ecosystems, coordination hubs, organizational landscapes, design prototypes, framework pages, and internal registry infrastructure.

1. Ecosystems

Maps of real-world civic, institutional, and physical systems. This layer includes Madison transportation, housing, watershed planning, climate strategy, public health, workforce, and related ecosystem maps.

View ecosystems

2. Coordination Hubs

Profiles of organizations, agencies, utilities, departments, and intermediaries that connect multiple systems. These pages show where coordination actually happens.

View coordination hubs

3. Organizational Landscapes

Maps of how institutions coordinate internally and externally. These pages help explain departments, responsibilities, programs, and cross-functional relationships.

View organizational landscapes

4. Organizational AI Use Landscape

A focused landscape for understanding how AI adoption appears across departments, roles, governance questions, procurement decisions, training needs, and leadership visibility.

View AI landscape

5. Design Layer

Coordination systems that could plausibly exist. This layer includes prototypes for information coordination, participation pathways, procurement alignment, standards layers, hub models, and AI coordination.

View design layer

6. Framework Pages

Method and explanation pages that define how Systems Atlas works structurally. These pages help keep the mapping system coherent as it expands.

View full sitemap

How to read Systems Atlas

Start with ecosystems when you want to understand a real-world environment. Move to coordination hubs when you want to see which organizations connect different systems. Use organizational landscapes when the focus is institutional structure. Use the Design Layer when exploring coordination systems that could be built.

Ecosystems Coordination Hubs Organizational Landscapes AI Landscapes Design Layer Framework Pages

Madison civic atlas

The Madison civic atlas maps local systems, cross-system relationships, and coordination environments across public agencies, infrastructure organizations, civic institutions, and participation pathways.

Madison Systems Overview

The primary entry point for understanding the Madison civic mapping layer.

Open overview

Cross-Ecosystem Connections

Shows how Madison systems overlap across housing, transportation, climate, watershed planning, public health, and economic development.

Open connections

Participation Pathways

Entry points for understanding how residents, organizations, and institutions can participate inside civic systems.

Open pathways

Design Layer categories

The Design Layer organizes possible coordination systems into reusable categories. These are not proposals or advocacy pages. They are structural prototypes grounded in observable coordination gaps.

Information Coordination

Visibility, shared knowledge, decision pathways, program status, civic memory, and implementation awareness.

Open category

Participation Pathways

Resident, volunteer, partner, advisory, workforce, and public problem-solving entry points.

Open category

Procurement Alignment

Funding, grants, contracting, vendor visibility, shared purchasing, and implementation resourcing.

Open category

Standards Layers

Shared definitions, reporting alignment, documentation standards, data standards, and civic vocabulary.

Open category

Hub Models

Coordination backbone structures, implementation support hubs, convening layers, and project incubation models.

Open category

AI Coordination

AI procurement, training alignment, risk governance, shared use case visibility, and civic AI interface layers.

Open category

Registry and infrastructure

Systems Atlas uses registry pages to preserve canonical structure as the site expands. These pages are internal navigation infrastructure for maintaining consistency across hundreds of pages.

Use this page as the atlas control panel.

As Systems Atlas grows, this page should remain selective. It should point to major layers and entry points, not attempt to list every page.

Work with me