Vic Gee, author of the Mind Mapping Blog, recently announced a contest that I wish I had thought of: He’s looking for BIG IDEAS that will help to drive exponential growth in the number of people doing mind mapping.

In a recent blog post, Brett Bumeter took Mindjet, the developer or MindManager 7, to task for not keeping pace with users’ changing needs. That, however, is not the focus of this post. Rather, what I’d like to do here is take some of Brett’s key points and issue a challenge to all developers of mind mapping software. I believe that he has identified some real needs here that ought to be addressed by them.

Thank you to all of the visual mappers who submitted entries for the opportunity to win a free copy of my popular e-book, Power Tips & Strategies for Mind Mapping Software. The stories were so good that it was hard for me to choose just one winner. That’s why I decided to choose three:

Lee [...]

Last week, I needed to create a diagram for a new e-book I’m working on. I needed to depict the flow of information into and out of a mind map, and I needed to get this illustration done in a hurry. Sounds like a perfect job for SmartDraw. So I opened up the new [...]

In my recent "Hot or Not" survey, the ribbon toolbar was rated the least popular of 19 features. In addition, based on what I’ve read in several online discussion groups, it appears that users have a love-hate relationship with this dramatic new productivity feature, which is available in MindManager and NovaMind.
I’m not quite sure [...]

In my recent “What’s Hot or Not” survey, I asked readers of this blog to rate a series of mind mapping software features on a scale of one to 10, where one equals "not hot" and 10 equals "hot."  Sort of like the popular site that enables visitors to rank pictures of men and [...]

2008 is off to a great start for me, and I’m in a giving mood today.
I have decided to give away one free copy of my popular e-book, Power Tips & Strategies for Mind Mapping Software Second Edition, to a deserving reader. It contains a wealth of ideas, strategies and best practices that [...]

It’s time to have a little fun. A popular website is HotorNot.com, where visitors get to rate pictures of men and women on a scale of 1-10, corresponding to how "hot" or "not hot" they are. I’ve decided to adapt this idea to mind mapping software, to get a feel for what features and [...]

2007 was an amazing year in the evolution of mind mapping software, and this weblog was there every step of the way, alerting you to the latest news, research, trends and best practices in this software genre. Here are some of the most important posts of 2007 from the Mind Mapping Software Blog:
January

I reviewed [...]

It is with great sadness that I must report that fellow technology blogger and mind mapping fan Marc Orchant passed away this morning, a week after he suffered a major heart attack. Details on funeral arrangements can be found here.
I remember Marc’s keen sense of humor during our one and only phone conversation, in [...]