When President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel
Peace Prize on December 10th in Oslo, Norway he took
a map developed and published in Amherst,
Massachusetts. The Carter Center chose ODT's new
Hobo-Dyer map to display the 68 countries around the
world in which the Center has worked since 1982.
Carter Center's Sarah Fedota, Assistant Director
of Publications, explained she found the Hobo-Dyer
Map while searching the web. "When Sarah asked to
use our new map, I was flattered and honored," said
the map's publisher, Howard Bronstein, president of
ODT, Inc.
World maps come in a variety of projections and
the Hobo-Dyer is one of the family of equal
area…maps with land masses presented in true
proportion to each other. Published in August of
2002, the Hobo-Dyer has an additional advantage of
being much more shape-accurate than other popular
equal area maps, like the Peters Map. (For
additional information and details go to ODT's home
page.
"As good a map as the Hobo-Dyer is, the central
message of the image is even more important: it
takes many points of view to see the truth," said
Bob Abramms, ODT founder and developer of the new
map. "That's probably not the reason the Carter
Center picked our map, but it is a reason that the
Hobo-Dyer should be in every classroom on our
planet!"
This recent international attention is not the
first time ODT's work has made headlines. In
February of 2000 the Peters Projection Map was
prominently featured on an episode of the hit TV
series, WEST WING. Like Fedota, West Wing creator
Aaron Sorkin found ODT's map resources while
searching the Web. He ordered several sets of Peters
Maps, which ODT distributes exclusively in North
America. Since then, ODT has published a new book,
SEEING THROUGH MAPS, the "What's Up? South!" World
Map, and has two new provocative maps under wraps
for release in the spring.
"Maps came to us. We have gone from management
consulting and training to provocative map
publishers. The central message of both businesses
is the same: We are expanding people's perspectives
and trying to provide as many points of view as
possible," said Abramms.
