Career planning can benefit greatly from mind mapping, because it enables you to view multiple perspectives and possibilities in a compact, visual format.

In this Mind Mapping Insider report, we’re going to take a closer look at how to adapt Reid Hoffman’s brilliant ABZ planning technique, which takes a simple but very creative approach to help you make the most of the opportunities you will face throughout your career. Hoffman was the cofounder of LinkedIn and created this savvy approach as part of his excellent new book, The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career.

Included in this “how-to” report is a convenient mind map template, so you can use what you’ve learned to create your own career planning mind map.

Members-only resource

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your life.

New reports and resources are being added to the Insider area every week. If you’re serious about becoming a mind mapper, why not check out the Mind Mapping Insider program today?

During the last year, Google+, the search engine giant’s aggressive foray into social media, has grown quickly. Along with that, mind mappers, bloggers and software developers in the field of mind mapping software have set up pages on Google+. If you click on the mind map above, you’ll be taken to clickable version of it which you can use to navigate to each personal and product page on Google+.

What’s surprising is the number of key people – and especially software developers – who are missing on this important new communication channel. While I can sympathize that this is another social media outpost they need to update on a regular basis, the fact is that having a quality presence there and excellent content that visitors give a “G+” to (their version of a “thumbs up” can play major dividends in terms of improved ranking in Google search results.

TheBrain Technologies, developer of the popular Personal Brain mind mapping and personal information management tool, recently released version 7 of the program, which has now been rechristened as TheBrain 7. It features enhanced ways to connect and link information within the program’s highly visual user interface.

According to the developer, TheBrain 7 contains over 50 new features and enhancements, including:

Animated, curved links, which make it easier to understand the relationships between pieces of information in your mind maps, plus expanded preferences for formatting topic links. Line widths of up to 15 pixels wide are now supported in version 7. I spent some time working with TheBrain 7, and found that the curved versus straight links of its predecessor don’t make that big of a difference.

Expanded linking and relationship mapping: Links in TheBrain 7 can now have arrows embedded within them to show directionality. Links can also contain notes and attachments, in addition to labels, colors and thickness attributes. This enables TheBrain 7 to be used for concept modeling and enables you to better understand how and why items are connected to each other. Advanced link properties, including direction, one-way links, notes, and attachments, are not available via the Web client.

Maximize plex button: TheBrain 7 workspace – which its developer calls the “plex” – now contains a 4-headed arrow in the upper right corner of the workspace. Clicking on it causes the program’s toolbar and its properties dialog boxes, which line the top and bottom of the screen, respectively, to disappear from view. This enables you to see more of your brain, which should be useful when working with large files or when using TheBrain 7 on a smaller screen.

Calendar improvements: TheBrain 7 can now display multiple-date events, with a black horizontal line spanning multiple days.

Improved integration between the cloud and the desktop program: TheBrain 7 offers tighter integration between the desktop and cloud-based versions of the program. When you first open TheBrain 7, it automatically connects with TheBrain’s online service, and displays all of your local and online brains in a single list, with a screen shot of each. Beneath the file name, TheBrain 7 displays whether a brain is located locally, online or both.

Improved performance and new database back end: Personal Brain never put any limits on how many thoughts a mind map could contain. Users have created maps with as many as 10,000 topics. For version 7, the software’s database back end has been rewritten for improved performance when users are working with large, complex maps.

Pricing for TheBrain 7

TheBrain 7 is offered in two editions: Free and Pro. TheBrain Free is offered at no charge and does not expire. Anyone can link ideas and web pages on their desktop and in the cloud. It doesn’t allow you to add file attachments to your brain, and only provides basic reports and no Outlook integration or printing capabilities. The Pro version offers greater options for formatting your maps, advanced search, secure cloud backup and more. TheBrain Pro is available now for US219; a Pro Combo option enables you to access the program’s cloud services, upgrades and a perpetual license at US$299 the first year, with $159 per year renewals.

Conclusion

If you are a previous user of Personal Brain, I’m not sure if I can categorically recommend that you upgrade to TheBrain 7. If you work with large files with thousands of links or need to create concept maps or other visual diagrams with more “intelligent” links, you may want to consider it. Otherwise, I’m not sure it offers a big enough leap in functionality and cosmetics to make it worth the investment. As I indicated earlier, I’m on the fence regarding curved versus straight topic links. I just don’t think it brings that much new to the table.

Mind mapped book summaries can be valuable, visual learning aids for your own use, as well as for sharing with others. But like other types of mind maps, book maps need to be created with clarity and brevity in mind.

There’s an art to extracting the key points and nuggets of knowledge from a book that may be several hundred pages in length and still end up with a visual summary that is understandable. In this new Insider report, we’ll take a closer look at 8 principles for creating an effective book mind map that will be memorable and useful for you and anyone with whom you may share it.

Members-only resource

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your life.

New reports and resources are being added to the Insider area every week. If you’re serious about becoming a mind mapper, why not check out the Mind Mapping Insider program today?

There are now at least 9 mind mapping apps available for the Android smart phone and tablet platform, with more on the way.

When I reported on mind mapping apps for Android two years ago, this smart phone platform was fairly new. Android tablets had yet to be introduced, and there were only two mind mapping apps available for this fast-growing platform. 24 months later, there are now 9, with at least one more due to be launched any day now.

A recent visit to the Google Play marketplace for Android software found these mind mapping apps:

• Mindjet for Android (formerly Thinking Space)
• MindMeister for Android
• Mind Map Memo (along with Thinking Space, one of the pioneers of this genre of apps)
• Endare Mind Maps Lite
• MindBoard
• SimpleMind for Android
• MindMapper Mobile for Android
• Mind Tux Map
• MindMemo

ThinkBuzan has also announced that it will launch an Android version of its iMindMap program in the near future.

In this new Mind Mapping Insider report, we’ll take a closer look at what works well in this mind map and what could be improved.

Members-only resource

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your life.

New reports and resources are being added to the Insider area every week. If you’re serious about becoming a mind mapper, why not check out the Mind Mapping Insider program today?

http://upyourimpact.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Up-Your-Impact-Book-Mind-Map.pdf

When it comes to developing creative ideas to enhance your work and life, there is one question that stands head and shoulders above all others. It alone is responsible for more human progress than nearly any other factor. And its the topic of this week’s Mind Mapping Insider report. It includes a resource mind map that you can use to generate breakthrough solutions, as well as instructions that explain what this question is and why it’s so powerful, as well as instructions on how to utilize the mind map.

Members-only resource

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your life.

New reports and resources are being added to the Insider area every week. If you’re serious about becoming a mind mapper, why not check out the Mind Mapping Insider program today?

Inspiration Software, a developer of mind mapping software for education and one of the pioneers of this type of program, has released an iPad app called Inspiration Maps. It offers a perfect set of features for teachers who want to incorporate visual thinking into their curricula, but it’s a little light weight for most business applications.

When you first open Inspiration Maps, you’re greeted with a template screen. Inspiration Maps gives you numerous templates to choose from. Many are educationally focused, but there are some business templates here as well, including:

• Cause and effect diagram
• Group project plan
• Root cause analysis

You can also create a blank diagram, without a template.

Creating a mind map in Inspiration Maps

Each topic in this app contains two buttons, located on alternate corners of the topic shape. The one in the upper left corner, which looks like a thought balloon, enables you to add notes to the topic via a bright yellow pop-over box – not the typical iPad dialog box – a welcome change! When you create a topic note, the button changes color from silver with a pencil to dark gray with document lines – a simple visual cue that it contains additional content. But it doesn’t scream for attention. It’s just right.

The other button, located in the lower right corner, looks like an arrow with a dotted line. Tapping on it creates a new sub-topic, joined with what looks like a hand-drawn connector line. Tapping once selects the sub-topic, while a double-tap enables you to type a name into it. This seems like extra work compared to most mind mapping apps I’ve reviewed. With other apps, when you create a new topic, the virtual keyboard pops up and you can immediately type a description into it. With Inspiration Maps, it takes an extra step.

Adjusting topic and map properties

You can change the properties of your map topics using an inspector button on the app’s toolbar. This opens a dialog box with tabs that enable you to change the topic shape (6 shapes are provided), the style of the topic (color, outline), topic text formatting and diagram-level settings (connector style, map background color). You can use a pinch gesture to manually resize a topic shape – nice!

One minor problem I ran into while editing a mind map is that sometimes I wanted to apply a style only to a single topic, but I inadvertently had several topics selected. That’s because the blue outline color Inspiration Maps uses to show that a topic is selected didn’t look much different on my iPad 1′s screen than the normal gray drop shadow color. Perhaps it’s more distinct on a newer iPad with the higher-resolution retina display, but I found it took a little getting used to on my “old” tablet.

You can also add images to your diagrams easily, Using any stored in the iPad’s photo library. This means you could use its built-in camera to shoot photos and then include them in your mind maps, useful in the classroom but I’m not sure how often it would be used in business applications. When you add an image, Inspiration Maps treats it as the topic shape, not as something you add to one. As with topic shapes, you can use a pinch gesture to resize images.

Brainstorming mode

One of my favorite features of Inspiration for PCs and Macs has always been its brainstorming mode, which lets you quickly add a series of ideas to your map, using only the keyboard and the Enter key. I’m pleased to see that the developer has included it in this iPad version, complete with the distinctive lightning bolt icon.

When you tap on the lightning bolt to enter brainstorming mode, a cloud appears over your map’s central topic (see the screen shot) and the virtual keyboard pops up. The “return” key changes into a “next” key, encouraging you to enter another idea. Each time you type and tap the “next” key, Inspiration Maps adds a new topic with the text you just typed. In this mode, the app doesn’t give you control over topic placement. It just creates room for each topic and places it on the screen. It’s up to you to arrange them the way you want after your brainstorming session.

In short, this operating mode is a very efficient way to add content to your maps quickly. I enjoyed working with it. I can easily see a business executive or a teacher, with their iPad connected to a projector, soliciting ideas from the people in the room, and then adding them quickly to the map on their iPad.

Outline view

Of course, Inspiration Maps has an outline view, just like its big brother on the desktop. This app displays a hierarchical view of your map against a tan looseleaf paper background. The layout is Spartan, but very functional. The left side of the screen displays arrow icons that can be used to expand and collapse the levels of your outline. If any topics have notes, the “filled thought balloon” icon is displayed to the left of the topic text.

When you tap on a topic to select it in outline view, a control bar pops up that enables you to indent or outdent it one level. A plus icon enables you to quickly add a new topic at the same level of your outline. And a globe icon enables you to navigate any hypertext links in your topics. Tapping on a link opens the iPad’s Safari browser and takes you to that URL.

On the far right of the workspace is a drag icon that enables you to move topics up and down the outline. This design is very smart, because it actually prevents you from accidentally dragging an outline topic to a different location in the outline.

Exporting

Inspiration Maps gives you a number of options for sharing your maps:

• You can send them via e-mail
• Save them as images to your photos folder
• You can print them, using the iPad’s AirPrint capability
• You can store and share your maps on Dropbox and iTunes

If you’re outlining a writing project (a common application for Inspiration in schools), you can export your map or outline to word processing apps, such as Pages. On my iPad, iA Writer, DocstoGo and iThoughtsHD also showed up on the export menu.

The one thing Inspiration Maps doesn’t do right now is produce a file format that the desktop version of Inspiration can open and edit. I tried this with a map I created on my iPad. After exporting it to my Dropbox account, tried to open it with Inspiration 9 on my PC, but it gave me an error message.

This isn’t surprising, considering that Inspiration 9 was developed prior to the iPad version. Presumably, the desktop version of the program would need to be compatible with the output of the iPad app, so it can properly interpret its file format and ignore any unsupported features. Perhaps in Inspiration 10? I’m not sure if this would be a priority for the developer, considering that they are completely focused on the education market.

Conclusion

This is a very attractive, easy to use mind mapping and outlining app. As one of the pioners in the mind mapping space, I’ve always had the deepest respect for Inspiration Software. So I Was very excited when I heard that they were working on an iPad app. It’s perfectly designed for the education market, but is perhaps a bit too light weight for business applications – especially considering that in most cases, you’re going to want to create a map on your iPad and then utilize its content in other software, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation.

Still, Inspiration Maps is an impressive debut. I can’t wait to see what the developer does with it in the coming months and years. It should be great.

The app is available in two versions: Inspiration Maps Lite is free, but limits you to creating only 5 mind maps and doesn’t support file sharing with other apps or online file storage services. The full version costs US$14.99. Both versions are available in the Apple AppStore.

SWOT, a popular business planning technique, can also be a powerful tool for identifying ways in which you can add value to your work and life. And one of the best ways to do this type of exploration is with a mind map.

In this new Mind Mapping Insider report, I provide members with brief instructions on how to utilize this thinking technique and how to mind map the results. I also provide links to a mind map containing 80 questions that you can use to analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) in your work and life – in 6 popular formats:

• MindManager
• MindGenius
• NovaMind
• XMind
• OpenMind
• iMindMap

Members-only resource

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your life.

New reports and resources are being added to the Insider area every week. If you’re serious about becoming a mind mapper, why not check out the Mind Mapping Insider program today?

ThinkBuzan has launched a new integrated approach to go-anywhere mind mapping that it has christened iMindMap Freedom. Along with an all-new online map storage and sharing service called ThinkBuzan Cloud, the developer has released new mind mapping apps for the iPhone and iPad, with versions coming in the near future the Android platform and Blackberry Playbook tablet. These apps can seamlessly share mind maps via ThinkBuzan Cloud, which also includes a web-based version of iMindMap.

Here’s what’s new, and my impressions from working with these new tools:

ThinkBuzan Cloud online mapping and storage

This all-new online workspace (pictured above) features a slick new design that is very easy to use. I created a simple map using the application’s webified version of iMindMap, and found that it delivers the same organic experience as the desktop version. New branches are dragged out from existing ones, and can be easily repositioned in the workspace using the blue ring at the tip of the branch – very familiar to users of the PC and Mac versions of ThinkBuzan’s flagship mind mapping program.

A simple toolbar across the top of the screen provides access to common commands such as text font, size, color and decoration (bold, italic formats) and text alignment (right/center/left/justified). Drop-down buttons enable you to add box branches and relationship lines to your map, while an insert button enables you to create floating topics, add images and boundaries. Above it, a set of text-based drop-down menus give you access to still more features.

On the right side of the workspace, a vertical panel with “window shade” sub-panels enables you to access the app’s icon library, search an extensive image library and add notes to your map (confusingly located within a sub-panel called “properties” – a minor complaint, however).

On several occasions, I tried to leave my mind map without saving it. Amazingly, both times I got warnings that my map wasn’t saved, and gave me an opportunity to do so – great attention to detail!

iMindMap HD for iPad

Next, I updated the existing iMindMap app on my iPad, hoping that would automatically upgrade it to iMindMap Freedom. Alas, the process wasn’t that easy, but it was easy to follow, thanks to some clear, easy to understand prompts from the app’s developers. Once my copy of iMindMap HD was upgraded, I was asked to login to my ThinkBuzan Cloud account. As soon as I did that, I received a message stating that I would next be taken to the AppStore to download a new version of the app, one specifically designed to work with ThinkBuzan Cloud. That installation process went smoothly, and within minutes, I was up and running.

This new app, which is still called iMindMap HD for now, operates much like the last version, with some noticeable improvements. For starters, when you select a topic, two arcs, one blue and the other red, appear at the end of the selected branch (like c-shaped segments of a circle, facing each other – see the screen shot above). This is the iPad adaptation of the concentric rings in the desktop version of iMindMap, which make it easy to move a branch (blue) or add a sub-topic (red). My gut feeling is that the developers discovered that it’s hard to tap and drag objects on the iPad’s screen with a high degree of precision, so the model of the concentric rings didn’t work well in this tablet environment. Placing these icons next to each other, on the other hand, works very well.

Buttons in a toolbar at the bottom of the workspace enable you to select from four kinds of branches: normal, box branches (which enclose their text in a rectangular box), freehand branches (where the shape of the branch follows your finger as you drag it across the iPad’s screen) and relationships.

Branches also have control points, which means you can reshape them at will. You can also drag controls points along the length of the branch, giving you another level of flexibility in shaping branches. I didn’t see any option to add control points, however – not a big deal.

iMindMap HD gives you a great deal of control over the appearance of your map branches. You can add icons, change branch type and color, adjust the font size, decoration, color and alignment, and create topic boundaries from within a convenient multi-tabbed dialog box. You can also add notes, audio, links and task data to selected map branches via a separate “attachments” button.

In addition, you can add images to your maps – either from iMindMap’s provided collection or from your iPad’s image gallery – nice! Finally, tapping and holding your finger over a branch invokes a context-sensitive menu, where you can cut, copy, delete and collapse it.

At the map level, this app enables you to select a background color and whether or not SmartLayout and shadows are enabled.

I was able to synchronize iMindMap HD with my ThinkBuzan Cloud account, open the map I created in its web client and work with it. When I was done, I closed my map, and looked for the changes online. Nothing. Same old map. So I tapped the synchronize button in iMindMap HD. Viola! An updated mind map. It would be nice if this synchronization process happened automatically, but that’s OK – remember, this is a new, integrated product for ThinkBuzan. Perhaps this will be offered in a future release.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I found iMindMap HD a delight to use. It synchronizes quickly and reliably with ThinkBuzan Cloud. The development team has done a marvelous job of creating an enjoyable, easy-to-use app that translates the organic approach of iMindMap from the desktop to this popular mobile platform.

Perhaps the biggest change is that ThinkBuzan is offering its new iPad and iPhone apps for free. When I looked back at a post I wrote in September 2010 announcing the first iteration of iMindMap Mobile HD for the iPad, ThinkBuzan gave it a list price of $32.99. I think they have come to realize that it’s best to enable more people to try mind mapping on their mobile devices, which means some of them may upgrade to ThinkBuzan’s desktop mapping software in the future.

An annual subscription to iMindMap Freedom costs US$13.99, very affordable and well worth the investment, considering the “freedom” you get to work with your maps on multiple computing platforms simultaneously.