Imagine trying to play chess without a board. A game like chess relies not only on the meaning of the pieces but also on the ever-changing relationships they have to each other in space. The grid of the chessboard creates a meaningful space as cleanly and as surely as the grid on any map. Both the grid and the pieces are integral and essential to the game.
Just like every other game, chess creates a world that players can explore together. The chessboard (meaningful space) creates the boundaries of the world, and the pieces (artifacts) populate the world.
The rules of the game govern what is and isn't possible in the world. Chess players agree to enter the world in order to explore the possible permutations and combinations and try to achieve their goals, which, in the case of chess, are achieved at the expense of the other player. However, in gamestorming, more often the players share a common goal.
For the knowledge explorer, meaningful space can be created anywhere: on a whiteboard, flip chart, or piece of paper; on a tabletop or in a room. It's a way of framing any space to make relationships within it more meaningful. The grid, like the grid of a chessboard, is one of the most common and useful ways to organize space. You can see grids all around you; we use grids for everything from planning cities to managing the numbers in our spreadsheets.
Affinity mapping is a common method that uses meaningful space to sort a large set of nodes into a few common themes. It is a way to rapidly get a group of people aligned about what they are working on together. First, generate a set of nodes using the Post-Up game or some other node-generation method (see Chapter 4).
Next, create a meaningful space by dividing a whiteboard or other visual area into three columns. Ask people to sort the sticky notes into three columns that "feel like they belong together" without trying to name the columns. It's important that they not try to name the columns. Naming the columns too early will force them back into familiar, comfortable patterns. Remember that in creative work we are trying to help people generate and see new patterns. While people are sorting, you may ask them to try to eliminate redundancies by placing similar sticky notes on top of each other. Sometimes the sticky notes don't fit neatly into three columns and you may want to create more columns to accommodate the differences. You should do this sparingly, though, because too many categories will defeat your purpose, which is to find some common themes.
The three (or more) columns serve as a meaningful space, a set of "empty buckets" that people can use to sort their ideas, kind of like a cubbyhole desk or one of those change-sorting machines you see sometimes at carnivals.
Having a business meeting without artifacts and meaningful space is like meeting blindfolded with your hands behind your back. Yes, you can do it, but why would you want to?
