Here’s a look back at the most popular posts on the Mind Mapping Software Blog for 2011. It provides important clues on what’s hot in the world of visual mapping.

As a big thank you to the readers of this blog, I’ve decided to hold a special Christmas week sale on my e-books – 50% off.

The nature of work is changing. Most business leaders and pundits agree on that point. But how it’s changing isn’t always obvious; nor is how we need to respond. So I created a visual representation of this transformation to help clarify what’s happening and how we can prepare for it.

Mind mapping is only one flavor of visual thinking. Here’s a challenge to “think visual” – to engage in out-of-the-box thinking to further your career and your life, using more of the tools at your disposal.

Apple’s 1997 Think Different ad campaign celebrated creative people in all their rebellious glory. Part of that campaign was a manifesto, which is represented here in the form of a colorful mind map.

What is your personal competitive advantage? Are you following orders and checking your brain at the door, or trying to bring real creative, expansive thinking to your work?

Wouldn’t you like to cultivate the same type of thinking, insight and advantages that Steve Jobs and Wayne Gretzky were able to create?

In this new video report, I explain how to set up a mind map to capture blog post ideas and manage them throughout their life cycle with a simple workflow process.

Linkedin has evolved into a popular platform for forming groups where professionals can ask questions, get answers and discuss topics and issues of mutual interest. Here are 7 worthwhile groups focused on mind mapping and visual thinking.

Want to add some hand-drawn elements to your mind maps? Then check out this new collection of over 700 hand-drawn symbols, called Doodlekit, which is compatible with many of the major mind mapping programs for Windows.