Kroots: mapping a graph nobody else could see

The page is called a map of content, and it looks like nothing: a title, a mission line, and four short lists of links. It is the closest thing my kids’-media project has to an org chart. There is no team to chart. There is one person and a folder of notes that had to behave like a company anyway, so the map is standing in for departments that don’t exist yet.

The first cluster is the one a founding team would usually split three ways: a foundation document that states what the company is for, a go-to-market strategy, a page of competitor and market research, and an application to a startup accelerator. Four different jobs, four documents, one person writing all of them in the same week. Nothing about the map hides that. It just lists the four links side by side and lets you notice.

The second cluster is where the map earns its name. It holds notes on two established kids’ properties, studied for structure rather than admired, plus a note applying a bestselling framework about how ideas spread, and then, one link away, the actual copy for a launch newsletter. Research and shipped material sit in the same cluster because they are the same activity. The map doesn’t separate a research phase from a production phase — it never had one to separate.

The other two clusters are smaller and that’s the point of looking at them. Marketing & outreach holds a campaign plan, a school-outreach draft, and one partner meeting. Feedback & partners holds notes from a mentor, a partner meeting, and an impact-investing conversation. Three links each, thinner than the first two clusters by a full document. A folder wouldn’t show you that difference; scrolling past three files feels the same as scrolling past four. The graph shows the gap as a gap.

What the map is actually for isn’t remembering where things are — a search box does that. It’s seeing the shape of the work from above: which cluster is dense with real documents and which one is three thin links because I keep finding reasons to work on strategy instead of outreach. The map doesn’t fix that imbalance. It just refuses to let it stay invisible.