Dan Keldsen over at BizTechTalk has a post “Mind Mapping Tips from A Master” which includes an online podcast you can listen to:
This interview been myself, Dan Keldsen, and Phil Chambers, Founder and Managing Director of Learning Technologies Ltd (www.learning-tech.co.uk), and current reigning World Mind Mapping Champion, centers around how to get started in Mind Mapping, as well as what the typical stumbling blocks are to successfully *doing* Mind Mapping.
My recent blogging has been on subjects that involve mind mapping and digital photography workflow, two subjects that have occupied a good bit of my thoughts lately. The mind mapping has been associated with my efforts to define personal preferences in regards to efforts seeking new employment and the digital photography workflow interest is the direct results of having free time to pursue a love from long ago.
Mind mapping is a skill you get better at with practice. The more you do it the easier your mind free associates ideas with the central concept or theme. With first couple of mind maps it was a matter of pausing between capturing each idea. Now it’s being barely able to capture the ideas fast enough to keep up. I think mind mapping fits my own personal productivity style more closely then many other tools I have tried and I’m interested in expanding it in other areas of my life.
With some careful shopping around and bargain hunting I’ve been able to get a very good digital SLR camera, a Nikon D200 and a couple of lenses. This has inspired me to get back to photography. I took several film photography courses when I was in the military, but then marriage and children came along and there just didn’t seem to be time or money to pursue it. I’m looking forward to recapturing the love of the art that I use to have.
Since it’s digital I’ll be taking a lots of photos and I want to have a reasonable method to handle and manage them so that they’re easy to find, review, and save. Most of all I don’t want it to become something I hate to do! Therefore, I’ve been looking at Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom for their take on the suggested professional workflow.
I’ve done a number of reviews of mind-mapping applications here on Meandering Passage. Mind-mapping is a tool I’ve used often to organize my thoughts around a selected subject.
Recently there have been some strides made in on-line/Internet based Mind Mapping tools.
These tools don’t really support Tony Buzan’s free-form organic and colorful mind mapping techniques, but they can still be useful if you’d like to capture what you’re thinking about in a visual form.
On the Knowledge Mapping blog there’s an interesting post titled Software Evaluation Synopsis. This is a side-to-side evaluation of five mind mapping applications: FreeMind; Mind Mapper; Concept Draw MindMap; MindManager; and Mind Genius.
Some of the categories evaluated included:
System Requirements;
Display/Screen Views;
Flexibility/Map Enhancements;
Editing/Design Options;
Templates;
Import/Export Options; and
Print Options.
Knowledge Mapping: Software Evaluation Synopsis:
The tables below summarize my evaluation of the mindmapping software that I chose to assess and that I described in the previous blogs. It’s qualitative, my own impressions during the testing of various aspects of the software. A quantitative analysis would have required a more rigorous testing regime, but I’m not convinced the end results would necessarily have been any different. A quantitative analysis would have removed any personal bias; but what I have found over this past year is that choosing and using mindmapping software “is a personal thing” — if the software doesn’t “feel right”, it doesn’t matter how many features it has.
I’ve recently had an opportunity to evaluate ConceptDraw MINDMAP Professional. MINDMAP Professional is an application which aids the process of brainstorming and project planning utilizing mind mapping and outlining tools.
A mind map is a powerful graphic technique which provides a key to unlocking the potential of the brain. The mind map has four essential characteristics:
* The subject of attention is crystallised in a central image
* The main themes of the subject radiate from the central image on branches
* Branches hold a key image/word printed on the associated line - details radiate out
* The branches form a connected nodal structure
ConceptDraw MINDMAP supports both Windows and Mac. I evaluated the Mac Version 4.5.6 for this review.
When first opening the Mac version of MINDMAP you might notice that it doesn’t quite look like a native Mac Application. That’s not to say that MINDMAP has a bad user interface, I actually found it to be easy to learn and use. However, since the product is cross platform (Windows & Mac) as well as sharing much in common as ConceptDraw’s other products, there were compromises to be made. Considering the rich feature set, ConceptDraw has done a good job of making the interface as simple as possible.
MINDMAP performs all the normal functions of a modern mind mapping application. You can create the mind maps in either a graphical or outline view. Adding text notes, icons, or symbols is an easy matter. There are at least 3,000 standard icons supplied with MINDMAP Pro. You can also add call-outs to your map or have independent nodes.
MINDMAP supports task completion data in the form of a start and finish dates and can show percent of completion. This supports export to either Microsoft (MS) Projects or ConceptDraw’s own Project application.
The professional version has a very strong export capability. It supports most the image or picture types, PDF, html, and MS PowerPoint. In addition, outlines can be exported to MS Word. There is also export support for the Apple iPod. Outlines or text can be exported to an iPod as text and maps can be export as slideshows.
MINDMAP will import tasks from MS Outlook, outlines via OPML, and open MindManager mind map files.
As mentioned earlier, I found ConceptDraws’ MINDMAP to be easy to learn and use. I could see the strong relationship it has with it’s cousin, the vector drawing program ConceptDraw VI. This gives MINDMAP capabilities beyond mind mapping only applications. MINDMAP can be used to make flow charts and to chart business processes.
I thought it easiest to learn MINDMAP by letting it review itself. You can see below the mind map I created which serves as the framework for this review. This was an excellent way to become familiar with MINDMAP’s features and capabilities.
Summary:
ConceptDraw MINDMAP Pro is a strong and capable mind mapping package that excels in it’s ability to exchange data with other applications and in providing additional drawing, sorting, and node arrangement functions.
The finished product, either mind maps or outlines, are of good quality and easy to produce.
The only real issue is that the MINDMAP professional version may be a little expensive ($249) for personal use, especially since this is a very specialized application. However, when compared to other similar feature rich products it’s price is very competitive.
I understand that version 5 is being developed and will bring many addition features and improvements. It should be interesting to look at that version when it’s released.
Update: 2/28/07 - It’s been pointed out that there’s a Personal Version of MINDMAP available for $119.
