Please share your story about mind mapping in the recession – and you could win a copy of MindManager 8
Jan 15th, 2009 | By Chuck Frey | Category: Discussion
During the current global recession, we’re all facing unprecedented challenges. In times like these, you obviously can’t continue to do things the way you always have. (Well, actually you can, but you may not last long…) You need to get creative in order to uncover the latent opportunities that exist in nearly every situation and challenge.
Mind mapping software is an awesome planning, brainstorming and decision-making tool that can help you to survive and thrive during these tough times. That’s why I’d like to announce a contest, which I’m conducting in cooperation with Mindjet, the developer of MindManager:
We’d like you to share your stories about how, specifically, you’re using mind maps to help you do more with less during these tumultuous times. I’m looking for 2 scenarios:
- Those of you who are still working, are managing additional challenges in your job as a result of the recession, and are using mind maps to help you work through them.
- Those of you who have been laid off from your jobs as a result of the recession and are using mind maps to either aid you in your job search, start a new business or figure out your next steps in your career.
Anyone who submits a story (100 words or so) will be entered in a drawing to win one of 6 free copies of the terrific new MindManager 8 for Windows. Please post your story in the comments section of this post, and be sure to include your e-mail address, so I can enter your name into the drawing (otherwise, I won’t know how to contact you!).
The deadline for submissions is Friday, January 23, 2009. Your comment must be posted by this date in order for your name to be included in the drawing for the licensed copies of MindManager 8.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Years ago when I was at school I managed information by creating separate Microsoft Word documents. I organized them into folders for easy reference.
When I started University, I progressed to utilizing Microsoft OneNote for managing all my information. Notepad is a great tool that allowed me to structure all my notes, images, links, files and other resources into easily recognizable Tabs. However, although I had this information organized, what was missing was being able to see the bigger picture.
Half way through my University degree I was introduced to Tony Buzan and the concept of Mind Mapping. He talked about computerized Mind Mapping in his book, and this lead me to Mind Manager 6. Mind Manager allowed me the flexibility of managing my information in a very similar fashion to as I had in OneNote. However, the major advantage I had here was that I could see the bigger picture. I could find relevant associations, links, and connections between different pieces of information that wouldn’t have been evident to me within OneNote. This truly opened my eyes, and ever since that time I have built my entire life around the process of Mind Mapping / Visual Mapping.
I utilize Mind Mapping software in the following ways:
- At the beginning of every year I create a Mind Map of my goals and objectives for that year. This Mind Map includes my Mission, Values, Beliefs, the Skills I would like to learn, Inspirational Quotes, Images of the things I would like in my life, Questions to ask myself on a daily basis, and specific (SMART) Goals broken down by the month. I refer to this Map on a Daily Basis, adjusting it, adding to it and making sure that I stay on track and moving forward to my goals and objectives. The advantage of this is that it keeps me focused on what I must do, and allows me to move forward with greater clarity. I honestly believe that I would not be able to do this using any other tools.
- I have another Mind Map / Visual Map I use to keep track of my learning experiences. I categorize them accordingly by Type and Date. Looking back at these Learning Experiences, helps me to learn from my mistakes and adjust my goals accordingly.
- In the past I used Microsoft Outlook to help me manage my tasks. I momentarily switched to Franklin Covey Plan Plus because it allowed me even greater flexibility. However, these days I keep a Task list within a Mind Map. This allows me to see the bigger picture and the great thing about the Task list is that it connects all my daily actions to my Yearly Goals and Objectives.
- On my Website http://www.blog.iqmatrix.com I create Graphically generated Mind Maps about Life Coaching, Business and Accelerated Learning topics. Many of these IQ Matrix Mind Maps are quite extensive and complex. I would therefore find it very difficult to piece them together by simply taking linear notes of the information I require to design them. Instead I piece all the information into a Mind Manager Map and adjust it accordingly by cutting, pasting and moving different segments of the Map around, until I have something that can be graphically generated. The amount of time that this saves me is extraordinary. I cannot imagine another way of organizing information.
- Another common way I utilize Mind Maps is for brainstorming. Sometimes ideas are difficult to generate. And in the past I use to sit on a chair and meditate trying to attract the Universal Creative energies into my Thought Process
. However, those days are long gone. Instead I either draw up a quick Mind Map on paper or work through one on Mind Manager and the ideas seem to flow naturally and easily.
There are a multitude of other ways I utilize Mind Mapping on a daily basis, however in the end it all boils down the effective and efficient Information Management, being able to see the bigger picture, and having the ability to quickly access, adjust and organize this information at a moments notice; is where the real advantage lies.
Mind Mapping helps me to not only manage my business, but also enables me to effectively manage my life, save time and create a deeper and a more rewarding living.
I use mind mapping to quickly and concisely capture and share vital information in an easily usable format. With the capacity to enrich the maps with simple symbols, pictures and icons I can engage people and accurately transfer complex knowledge in a more digestible form than plain text or list. To me this is critical as the most precious resource is peoples’ attention.
I live in South-Africa. Our country does struggle economically and are connected to global economic crisis in various ways. Mindmanager, believe it or not, helps me with this. For example, our petrol (gas) prices are sky-high. Now because Mind Manager has a “pocket” version that I run on my ancient HP Ipaq, I can plan my trips better. I keep a list of my errands, todo’s and shopping items on my computer using Mindmanager, it synchronises with my phone and walla!!! I have it ready whenever I pass the shopping centre and I reduce unnecessary driving. The big things are often tied in with the small things in life!
This year is a new and huge step for me: I left the security of teaching which I have been doing for the last 25+ years and moved into the world of freelance training in mind mapping both software and paper based. The whole of this ‘move’ was planned using mind maps.
I have been an avid user and promoter of the use use of mindmapping in all its forms simply by using them where appropriate in my teaching. What I don’t remember is ever being taught how to mindmap or who introduced me to the releasing powers of mindmapping.
I am now a Licensed Trainer of iMindMap and I will shortly be a BLI.
Today I am developing workshops for the ‘able, gifted and talented’ students in some of the York (UK) schools to develop creative thinking. I am particularly interested in combining software and hand drawn mapping. To see an example: http://destech.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/
Everytime I meet people and talk about mind mapping I am amazed by the number who use them and shocked by the number who don’t! What I really enjoy is when I meet someone talk about mind mapping and then get them mapping. This happened when I was working on a train recently. The passenger next to me was watching me working on iMindMap, after a while she asked me what I was doing, I started to explain. I ended up doing an inpromptu demo to a number of the other passengers! Wonderful, long may that continue!
In the current market situation it is imperative to do more with less.
Businesses need to learn, improve, innovate and evolve.
It’s nothing new to review the work you do and identify improvements. Most of the time we see this done through forms, surveys and other impersonal, analytical tools.
Currently we are doing this collaboratively and getting people to have conversations to nut things out rather than rely on isolated survey responses.
What better tool to use to record organic, intertwined conversation than a mind map.
Branches sprout where new directions are taken, cross linking to bring disparate topics together. Various formatting and imagery add to the effect helping people to understand the thinking and discussion that was going on.
Sometimes we provide a skeleton to start things off, talking about stages of a project or roles and responsibilities.
The people are then proud for us to blow up the maps to A1 and A0 size and put them up in the office. Some even framed.
Its official, we are in a recession. This recession affects my paying customers, hospitals and their paying customers, patients. Which in turn deepens my already burning desire to learn everything I can to make my services and time more valuable to my clients.
Part of this commitment to learning includes reading. Right now I’m averaging a business book a week. I’ve just learned of Mind Mapping from David Allen’s new book ‘Making It All Work’. I’m using a 30 day trial of ‘Mind Manager 8′ and can’t bring myself to try anything else. It is a great product which I plan to purchase at the end of the trial.
As a programmer and report writer, I use Mind Manager to map out complex ‘back of the napkin’ designs. Until now, I’d performed this process on 4 x 6 note cards. Being able to link napkins (mind maps) and then re-purpose brainstorms into projects (to do lists) really enhances my productivity.
Like most programmers, I like the computer to do repetitive tasks for me; Mind Manager has excelled at this every time I’ve tried something. For example Mind Manager allows you to copy & paste items from documents, spreadsheets and other sources into your Mind Map. I understand that I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg on what’s possible here with ODBC connectivity and all the rest.
In a recession, the last thing you want to be doing is wasting money on products that won’t work for you; or wasting time learning tools that won’t positively impact your bottom line. As a programmer / small business owner, I can’t bring myself to try another product when this one is so easy to use. If you’ve used the Microsoft Office 2007 product line, Mind Manager 8 has a learning curve of 0.
P.S.: I enjoyed reading Adam Sicinski’s comments above and am finding his blog http://blog.iqmatrix.com/ informative.
One of the functions I perform for several clients is to respond to major RFPs (at least $.5B) and design internal training solutions for the client if they win the bid. As I read the training requirments section of the RFP I capture the details of each section in a mindmap. I use various color flags to identify what must be addressed and what could be value added. As I write the response, I check each item off of the mindmap as it is addressed. If we win the bid, I then use this mindmap to develop specific tasks that must be accomplished as well as the task details such as duration, resources and dependencies. Before I export this information into MS Project I use the mindmap to validate the tasks with the client and make changes on the fly (this is done over the internet as I work virtually). Once we agree to the tasks, I export into MS Project and send to the client. Using mindmapping I
1. ensure that all requirements are covered in the response
2. identify all of the required major tasks needed to accomplish the result
3. cut my effort and time by 10-15% over using MS Word and MS Project alone
Please contact me at my website if you would like to see an example of how I mindmap RFP requirements.
I work for a firm that designs and builds custom tradeshow, musuem and corporate solution centers.
I have always strived to stay abreast of the latest advances and tools available to inspire – streamline workflow – and promote productivity. This is why mindmapping has had such an appeal to me.
The challenge is that as one of the lead designers on these projects and trying to pitch to upper management the value of mindmap tools so far it has been a struggle to convey the value proposition until lately…
Here is the a real world example… we have been working on a 53 thousand square foot facility design for a corporate solution center for about a year now. I always take detailed notes and have since day one.
Well a few weeks ago the client wanted to fly in from out of state and review the designs and design process.
Naturally I thought “here is my big opportunity” – I spent time after hours pouring over a years worth of notes and dividing into groups by content, date, meetings, concepts, direction, input etc. and created a mindmap approx. 6′ tall and 4′ wide which I had printed and applied to one of our main design board walls.
Needless to say the client visited – loved the attention to detail and creative flow of the map which pinpointed details typically obscure and lost in the cracks.
Huge success! A winner that day and a push forward in the cause to implement a software base solution for our office.
I run a sound company where I’m constantly working with artists. They can be a very sensitive breed. That has been intensified with people struggling to get by in these tumultuous times. Because of this, I’m constantly reading books on human psychology, sociology, and general self-help issues. I find them way more valuable than reading up on the latest audio technologies and techniques.
Like so many things in life, human interaction plays a gigantic role in the success of my business. Mind Manager has been a very useful way to keep track of the books I’ve been reading on the subject. Just the act of organizing a map based on the themes of a book helps me remember what I’ve read. More importantly, it allows me to put that information to good use – sometimes transferring that information to other “action” maps.
I started using Mindjet’s Mind Manager Pro 7 (MM) last year for my information management needs at work. Where I really saw mind maps as an effective collaborating tool was during a team meeting where we needed to decide on a project strategy. By typing the thread of ideas flowing out of the meeting into MM and projecting the screen on the white board, everyone seemed to have a better feel and actually see the concept emerging. Then, I started to use MM to create our projects’ work breakdown structures together. This really helped the team visualize what needed to be done in order to complete the project successfully.
As I needed to plan projects with a geographically dispersed team, I saw that members that weren’t in the same room as me often had difficulty participating in the brainstorming sessions. So I started using a web service that allows me to show my desktop applications to others over the web. Then I’d open MM, quickly explain how mind maps worked and started typing, from each project deliverable, tasks that needed to be accomplished. Maybe not quite as effective as all being in the same room, but it was very good and my boss liked the fact that my travel budget was nearly zero.
Today, I’m using these tools and techniques to manage an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software implementation project in Slovenia. I’m based in Canada along with three team members but other team members are in Sweden, Germany and of course Slovenia. To reduce travel costs during these tough economic times, I use Mind Manager Pro 7 for brainstorming and planning with the team. Once the team planning session is over, I take my mind map and place a copy as a picture file onto our project collaboration portal and also export the mind map into a text-based version for our team minutes. I believe it’s also easier for my overseas colleagues since everything is written during the conversation, it’s easier for them participate in an English brainstorming session.
Daniel Goulet, P. Eng, PMP
Project manager
My applications for MindManager come from a different time & place. A little personal & professional background may be helpful. I served 26 years in aerospace with North American Aviation/Autonetics/Boeing in Anaheim, CA under the VP-General Manager with a staff of five. We worked in an engineering world daily building bridges to manufacturing personnel and continually fought the perceptions that we were an in-house 31 Flavors of Gimmicks. My title was Senior Staff Analyst. In practice we drove Quality & Productivity Improvement Programs through the ranks of roughly 4,000 employees and out-the-door to military customers (Navy & Air Force). Our internal products were guidance & control systems for ICBMs. During the 1980s we utilized the services of several renowned consultants (Lou Tice, Tony Buzan, W. Edwards Deming, etc.). I don’t need to tell you who introduced us to the fundamentals of mindmapping. In fact one executive from Boeing was flown in to show us how his team had made dramatic reductions in learning curves for junior engineers attempting to digest the materials in internal (to Boeing) technical manuals. As if that weren’t enough a time-cost study was made that showed a savings of $875.000! I took a closer look at Mr. Buzan’s published works and became a champion for this innovative win-win technique for documenting & assimilating information from raw data. Today, as a retired guy, I continue with mindmapping techniques married to the tools of Quality improvement. I apply them to personal Bible study methods in order to extract applications from complex passages. For instance in Genesis, first book of the Old Testament, I have practiced the old concept of “chunking” (introduced to me by Tom Peters) to illuminate the nuggets from surrounding soil. For instance: Genesis is composed of 50 chapters but broiled down to its essence there are just 4 key events & 4 key personalities that advance the storyline (I will spare you further details on this lest you consider me some sort of preacher) but you may contact me at kirbside@dslextreme.com if you wish any further elaboration. Also I will be among the first to praise the merits of mindmapping’s disciplines but also feel it is most effective in the context of other Quality improvement tools & techniques. I sincerely hope that my width & breadth of an explanation provides something of edification to you patient readers.
I was intoroduced to Mind Manager about 3 years ago, having used papaer maps for several years to take notes from the books I read, and meetings and lectures attended. (I am a clinical pharmacist in the UK National Health Service). I persuaded my manager to purchase Mind Manager 7 for me so that I could create maps more easily and share them with my colleagues (6 colleagues have so far asked what the software is and how to use it).
This year (2009) I have managed to combine some of David Allen’s Getting Things Done principles with mapping. I have now reorganised my work office and home office to a similar layout and I use my home ‘dashboard’ and my office ‘dashboard’ maps to identify and track all the tasks I need to complete. Simple tasks stay on the dashboard, but more complex ones have a ‘task tickler’ map attached as a hyperlink. This allows me to identify the individual steps/actions required for each project. I have also started using the alerts to create my to do list with regular reminders. I can take my work dashboard into meetings etc. and add tasks/issues as they occur (improving my previous approach of a note on paper then adding it to a list)
I now have a map which is a single list of outstanding tasks and so feel both in control as I can prioritise items, and more productive (as commented on by both my manager and my work colleagues). Mind Manager really helped me do more in less time at work and at home. I wouldn’t be without it
[...] Frey, who publishes the Mindmapping Software Blog, has announced a competition for users of any mind mapping program. Chuck is looking for those [...]
As a Project Manager / Estimator for a large Mechanical Construction company, I live and die by the project schedule and deadlines. For a new hospital or office building a typical schedule needs to be limited to fairly large work units in order to be useful for the big picture. Mind mapping provides the micro planning view necessary to catch all of the details for a successful outcome. Mind mapping also is a more collaborative process; you can involve people unfamiliar with complex scheduling because they can easily follow the logic. (Not easy with a typical Gantt chart.) Mind mapping can actually be kind of fun because it seems to add a sense of creativity to an otherwise fairly ridged procedure. In these ugly economic times, the more creative you get, the more likely you are to satisfy your customer and still turn a profit.
I live in South Korea.
These days I often use mindmap to plan my plan. First of all, I drawn maps to make a yearly plan at the aspect of finance, family, health, private interest, work. I could make a boundary at the end of year. Next, I detailed my yearly plan to the monthly plan. I could see the big picture at once. Mind-mapping gave me a really help to concrete my dream and goal. I printed out the map and attached on the wall and my diary. everyday I see the plan and check the list. It helps me to manage my plans. I don’t have enough time to discourage. Rather, I am encouraged by my mind-maps that contain my future and excellent ideas.
Dear Chuck
I have been teaching how to make Effective Business Presentations for over 10 years in Colombia South America, after my retirement from J.Walter Thompson in New York City. I began using MM 6Pro shortly after it came out and eventually I saw it had great potential for my Workshop so I began to incorporate some of its applications in my classes. Today it is a fundamental center of the worshop for designing strategies as well as for the structuring of a persusive business presentation. The entire Manual I give the students I made with maps. Since then, mi business has increased substantially and last year I gave the workshop in Mexico City, Monterrey-Mexico, San José de Costa Rica, Lima-Perú, Caracas-Venezuela, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires-Argentina. Most of my clients are multinaltionals and the students are in management positions in the Technology area. They love the MM and end up with learning how to make their presentations work for them plus taking the MM concept and tool away as an added value. I look forward to using MM8. Hope to win it trough your offer!
Cordially,
Rafael Varón, Bogotá, COLOMBIA
I work for a small medical device company with an engineering staff of 4 people. We each handle multiple projects with very demanding time lines. I use Mind Manager 7 to organize and list all the tasks for each project. It is a useful tool to help visualize and prioritize the work needed to complete these projects. This task list then becomes my personal dashboard. From Mind Manager I can export the tasks to a MS project file to help ensure the milestones are met.
I run my own business around innovation: from idea generation to project management.
I use mind map for idea generation when I am capturing ideas and use the branches as clusters. It also helps the group to connect one idea to another- Specially when SCAMPER is used. Another way is to use metaphor for idea generation: I use a picture in the center and evolve to ideas from it. In my experience the use of mind map at this stage helps people to have a feeling of accomplisment and more freedom.
I use mind map when I prospecting new clients and/or developing new proposals. In one page key thoughts are captured, organized and memorized. This first page is equivalent to the project charter. One curious effect is that they keep asking me about what I am doing (the mind map) and how they can learn about it: and I had closed deals of training based on it.
I’m a software development manager and one the “nasty” tasks that fall on
my shoulders is the yearly preparation of Scientific Research and
Experimental Development submissions (SR&ED) to the government for
corporate tax credit rebate.
Using MindManager I import a raw list of task descriptions (easily
1500-2000) entries. The senior developers then collaboratively organize
these raw entries into projects and subprojects of related themes (about
15-35). These projects are then summarized and supplemented in outline
format during review sessions with the actual developers. MindManager’s
strong filtering and presentation support aids greatly in keeping the
meetings focused and ontrack. The resulting maps are then exported into
Microsoft Word and Powerpoint forming the rough draft for submission.
For anyone still doing this the “old way”… I highly recommend this technique.
The number of employees working in our department has been scaled down considerably to reduce costs, so I have taken on additional responsibilities. Prior to people leaving, I used mind maps to efficiently and effectively capture their knowledge (to both check my understanding with them and for later reference) and also plan my schedule for acquiring the knowledge and skills from my co-workers. Since they have left, I have used a single mind map in Mind Manager to stay on top of my increased workload, through prioritising, linking to email messages, adding key information in Notes. Perhaps most importantly, the colours, styles and images available have enabled me to raise my mood!
I needed a lean and mean tool for managing my team of 25 dedicated volunteers for the Inaugural Parade yesterday with our new President. The team was responsible for helping control a key area in the parade route for helping manage the hundreds of thousands of participants. I created a mindmap to help me logically plan and track all of the resources necessary to coordinate the team’s arrival in downtown at 5AM in under 10 degree freezing cold, plan all necessary tasks, goals and resourcing management requirements, and then utilize the information to make everything come into place logically, timely and concisely. A plain database or full text environment would never have allowed me to visualize the big picture of my overall mission and all associated elements that needed to be all fully successful to assure overall success to make sure my people could assist every person who came to the parade and to give every participant the experience of a lifetime!
Our company has a great strategic plan for 2009, but with the economic conditions there have also been big changes to areas I manage. The challenge is now “How do I do the projects on the plan AND revamp a core service with no additional resources?” Out came the markers, the graph/butcher paper and the voice recorder to map relationships between projects, schedule changes so they wouldn’t clobber one another, and make sure I didn’t overlook areas I could improve or remove. Then, as I finish out areas, I transfer online and poll our team for feedback. It’s a lifesaver!
I have been downsized, rightsized, rationalized, whatever you would like to call it twice since 2001. I was exposed to mind mapping while working in Germany in 2001 and have found it very helpful. I started a management consulting practice to help businesses and managers improve by eliminating the root causes of problems, make balanced decisions, and prevent problems.
Here are some of the ways I have used mind mapping (first using Mind Genius, now using Buzan’s iMindmap):
1) Working alone more than with others, I miss the opportunities for brainstorming. I use mind mapping to help me see my ideas better and present them to others for feedback. This makes it much easier to get more extensive ideas on any topic.
2) I used mind mapping to develop a business marketing plan. This showed my peer group how I was thinking and mad my ideas much easier to follow.
3) I have used mind mapping to organize the thinking around websites for clients and myself. The visual nature of the maps translate well into the design needed for developing web sites.
4) I developed a networking mind map and presented it to a peer group to show them how I do business networking and giving them insights into what they could be doing.
5) I developed a career search map for colleagues (and myself) to organize their approach to pursuing new careers after being downsized. This leads to a more organized and structured daily schedule and goals for their searches.
6) Not wanting to forget about other aspects of my life, I developed a fitness mind map to lay out routines to keep my body and mind active and improving. This map includes strength, cardio, stretching, yoga, mediation, mental, and nutrition aspects.
7) I developed maps for several parties I have held that keeps me linked to other people. The maps get tweaked for different themes but one becomes the basis for the next one. This includes invitees, food, drink, supplies, music, and entertainment.
I developed the outline for a talk and materials supporting the topic “Improving by Contingency Planning” and “Maturing Your Business Through Systematic Problem Solving”.
9) I used mind mapping to brainstorm “What Turns Me On”. This helps me focus my career and personal life to be in alignment.
10) I developed a map to do the planning for a charity “Scavenger Hunt”. This made the opportunities and potential problems much easier to see and made the event a success. This was a great networking event for me and made me much more visible in the community.
The list goes on. Short and sweet or more complicated, the potential uses are many.
I use mindmapping in a variety of ways. I have a Dashboard Map that with branches that connect my whole life together. I manage business and personal information this way. I no longer use Microsoft OneNote or EverNote, but rather keep all my information available in my Dashboard Map.
One of the most helpful ways I use Mindmapping is to do research that involves interviews. I create a master map for the project, including background information on the project. I develop the interview questions in a map and then copy that map into several linked maps, one for each interview respondent. I use the maps to record responses to the interview questions. Using the maps for the interviews is very helpful because I have a visual of the entire interview on one page in front of me while doing the interviews. That allows me to jump around the questions depending upon the course that the interview takes. I also use ‘brainstorming’ on some of the questions. When I am through with all the interviews, I can copy and paste responses into one map that will summarize the survey. I edit that down to a final report and then export to PowerPoint. After some editing in PowerPoint I have a report and presentation for the client. I did this recently and found it to be a very good way to manage the project. It saved me time and the client money. The client loved the final report.
I use mindmapping in a variety of ways. I have a Dashboard Map with branches that connect my whole life together. I manage business and personal information this way. I no longer use Microsoft OneNote or EverNote, but rather keep all my information available in my Dashboard Map.
One of the most helpful ways I use Mindmapping is to do research that involves interviews. I create a master map for the project, including brances for background information on the project, goals, deliverables, contact information of respondents, etc. I record the interview questions in a map and then copy that map into several linked maps, one for each interview respondent. I use the maps to record responses to the interview questions. Using the maps for the interviews is very helpful because I have a visual of the entire interview on one page in front of me while doing the interviews. That allows me to jump around the questions depending upon the course that the interview takes. I also use ‘brainstorming’ on some of the questions. When I am through with all the interviews, I can copy and paste responses into one map that will summarize the survey responses. I organize the responses into clear topics and edit that down to a final report map. I then then export to PowerPoint. After some editing in PowerPoint I have a report and presentation for the client. I did this recently and found it to be a very good way to manage the project. It saved me time and the client money. The client loved the final report.
Dear Chuck,
My name is Eleder Aurtenetxe (1969, BILBAO) and I´ve been caught in this nice trap that takes me to play and share a bit about myself… and how I´m mind maps in this recession time…
Let´s start saying I discovered mind mapping through Robert S. Winter (University of Chicago) in the late 90´s when I met him in the University of the Basque Country. I was a teacher and he came to head the Total Quality Management work… a difficult task indeed, but what a great teacher, Robert!
Mind Manager 5.0 came to my way in my next job in the Biscay Administration as an organization technician through Jon Doncel (thanks!). That was year 2003 or so.
Both two discoveries supposed paradigm changes in my life and career…
I´m delighted to say that I succeeded in “failing” the exams for the administration “for-ever” job… and this has pushed me to follow my dreams…
Mind mapping and Mind Manager are key in my way. Some hints to reinforce this:
- Almost all my planning (life & job) is MMed. Hand and computer.
- I´ve just started training people to MM. Really successfully.
- This is the first blog about MM in Basque language: http://www.burumapak.com. I started it 2 months ago.
- All my radio interviews (http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz) are based in a MM sketch.
- If you ask any of my 4 small children (uuups! not the 8 months old, yet) “What does dad love doing?” they´ll, all in one, say: “MIND MAPPING!”. So, they may have the good luck to acquire it from the cradle…
- Lots of creative projects come to me all the time and they take their place in a MM and serendipity often happens. This has made me free from fear…
In a word: thanks (partially) to MMing my life has changed from looking for a job to un-jobbing. From fear about my job to joy and play around work, around life. Anything more important could be said?
I’m using mindmapping to have a place to put the seemingly overwhelming amount of input coming at me. I’m having to reinvent my business, any sloppiness in model can no longer be absorbed as the market tightens. The shifting is taking a lot of deep self reflection, with ideas and insights emerging in fits and spurts. I was drowning in post-it notes, yellow pads and assorted slips of paper. Mindmapping gives me a way to see the organic growth of concepts and understand the larger patterns that are emerging.
Complex times require tools to manage complex thoughts. The pieces emerge in forms that lend themselves to mindmapping perfectly.
My duties involve coordinating several Product Quality Improvement projects simultaneously, reporting achievements regularly to all departments within our organisation.
I’ve been using mind maps to organise all projects, linked directly to resources, timelines, meeting minutes, etc. This provides the ability to produce a comprehensive current report within minutes, if required.
Over the past six months, my Quality Department has “lost” four team members (retirement, alternative employment, sickness…). None of these colleagues have yet been replaced, leaving further responsibilities to be shared across the remaining team.
Knowing exactly how these resources have been used in each project allows me to initiate immediate action to fill the gaps created.
My maps also provide a history of achievements by department and team member, a valuable reference for appraisal talks and establishing KPI’s.
I got interested in Mind Mapping many years ago when I happened upon an article about Mind Mapping. While I was looking for a good day planner system, I came across a Danish company called Time Manager International (TMI) with offices in San Francisco, CA. The folks at TMI had a product called Brain Manager, which was (is as I still have it) a kit for drawing Mind Maps. It also included some rudimentary instruction. Since then I have used Mind Mapping for software planning, events, marketing, even taking notes. Now, I am teaching my children its value.
I haven’t been laid off. I don’t have a regular job or for that matter an irregular one. I am a trained actor. I decided to quit. For awhile.
Why? Wanted to write. Wanted to learn – how scripts are put together, about their foundation.
I bought books. Lots of them. They contained information. Lots of it. I used a pad of paper and lost some pages. I used a word processor and couldn’t keep track. I tried a note thingy and that was clumsy.
I needed organization. To see my notes, my ideas in one place, put together in an understandable whole. I read about mind mapping at the library. I found mind mapping software on the internet. I tried it. I loved it. I got organized. My learning curve steepened. I found my thinking improved. Not just with regard to writing but with other things. Daily organization. Gathering – news, daily events, the bits that make up life. I imagined I could actually feel my neurons firing, building new bridges, utilizing more of my brain.
I wrote a screenplay. It’s in production. What do I think about mind mapping? Bulls eye. Genius. Amazing.
Good blog, Chuck,
For me, mindmapping is great whenever I want to get lots of information into one page and see it in one go. It’s also magical to summarize things so they can be shared with others; simply explained.
In the last month, for example, I have written/shared/received probably a dozen maps. The most important were for a Charity of Crafts-people to capture the essence of a Board Strategy meeting we had; to see How a Software Firm could set it’s web-site plan for the next 12 months – to make sure that all the bases were covered; and in Action Learning (IFAL), to enable feedback to the wider group.
Mindmapping is wonderful. Collaboration is the way to forward!
Meeting and mindmap – participiant view.
Talking about using mindmapping in meetings, (usually) the first suggestion is to use mindmap as instrument of organisators of meeting. I have a story from”opposite” point of view.
Situation.
The Boss organizes the “activity overview” meeting. I am one of participiants. Start time: after 0.5 hour from “now”.
The “thematic area” of all participiants is too wide for listening all this in one meeting – seems wasted time for me.
Idea.
I don’t plan long speach – just creating one mindmap (1.level topics only – deep details are not needed), printing it to one A4 and I was ready for meeting.
In meeting.
I don’t tell anything – just show the mindmap (list of paper) to Boss. He looks it about 5 seconds and…
Boss: Thanks.
I (surprisingly): Maybe I go to whiteboard and explain this to you/others…?
Boss: No-no – not needed. All is clear. Thank you!
…
5 seconds versus at least 2 minutes (if I have to explain the ingredients of my mindmap to others) – there was no more wasted time of others because me.
I feel myself as winner – and it was good!
I was a slow starter when it came to mindmapping – it didn’t feel intuitive to me and I had to persevere, reminding myself to use Mind Manager to map out a project, idea or process.
As a response to the current market, we decided to refresh our brand and focus on extending our marketing and social networking activities.
We’ve recently used mind maps to:
• Design the navigation and content of our new website
• Create a ‘to do’ list for the office which is constantly being refined and improved
• We cleaned up our server at the end of last year and improved the file structure for the business. A mindmap of the new structure is available for staff so they can familiarize themselves with the new file locations quickly and easily. What a win! I’m now helping my husband do the same for his business.
• We designed an entirely new product at the beginning of December – a career development workshop. Creating a mindmap we could share with our partners gave us a way of fast tracking the process and we are running our first workshop on January 27th, with repeats in February and March.
• We are in the process of developing mindmaps to provide an overview of our products and services which we will use as a visual tool on our website
• And finally, we created a mindmap of our current and planned e-marketing activities, which we are using as a route-map to expanding our presence.
Its a great planning and tracking tool once you get into the flow of using mindmaps.
While I am still new to mind mapping I do find it very helpful in organizing my thoughts. I am using it to help me organize the dejunking of my house. Simplifying and dejunking are, for some reason, hard for me, so I am trying to both capture what needs to be done and my thoughts about why I find this hard to do. I hope to also use mind mapping for a new project at work where I will start with very little knowledge about the area and need to get up to speed quickly. I think that mind mapping helps me so much because I am a very visual person and need to, as someone above said, see the whole picture in a picture.
We recently started using the mind maps in an academic setting and the students have embraced the concept and approach! As examples –
1) When we organize programmatic meetings and discussions in advance, we find the mind maps are extremely helpful ways of organizing information from dispersed groups of faculty and administrators – eliminating the need to drive downtown and meet; with follow-up maps that detail the discussions, next steps and points of interest/details. This allows individuals who are unable to attend and be appraised of the meeting’s results, and participate in the aftermath. Files and links are included, and away we go.
2) We have also mind maps, particularly for group projects, to be submitted instead of a traditional academic paper. This is great because one can outline and update the map project as the semester unfolds. The thinking process behind map development is more flexible and adaptive, which is particularly valuable for our program (Masters in Healthcare Innovation at ASU).
If only you had a more robust Mac version…if I win, I will be excited and pleased to give the license to one of our windows based students!
Happy 2009!
I recently changed jobs and have been an avid Mind Mapper for many years and am currently doing my BLI training. Just as I moved into my new role the industry was hit by the economic downturn and the company went into restructure mode.
I created numerous mindmaps that enabled me to produce quickly a strategic paper for the group and whilst other areas of the business have been encountering cutbacks in staff, as I have incorporated mindmaps into the groups daily routine we have increased our numbers, our revenue and are opening up new opportunities daily.
As stated by Jennifer Goddard and Tony Buzan, “Mind Maps, the Swiss Army knife for the brain” how true
I was first introduced to mind maps back in my University Days (early 2000s). From my recollection, it was a perfect match with how my brain works! Sadly, the free trial expired and couldn’t afford to keep it (I was a student remember). Soon, I forgot about it and went back to cost-effective pen and paper or excel sheets for large events and projects.
In my previous job, my team used mind maps for almost everything we do; from status meetings with clients, to prospecting new projects, and organizing concepts for a certification exam. One of the most important benefit I found from using mind maps was keeping the team focused on the big picture while we discuss fine details on a particular requirement, which is important if we want to keep our meeting under 30 minutes!
Today, while I am no longer working with a formal employer except myself (☺), for the past few months I have jotted random notes of my goals, what I want pursue next in my career, ideas for my website and blog development, and all my other project ideas. Since I cannot afford to buy MindManager right now, I have gone through many notepads and also found myself resort to MS Onenote to quickly capture screenshots and keep a tab on all my research notes I find online. And since I switch between my Windows desktop and Macbook on an hourly basis (don’t ask!) I have made it slightly difficult for myself to stay focused on the big picture. Frustrated with what I am currently doing, I turn to mind maps – the once forgotten tried and true method that can help me organize my brain that just doesn’t wait. So currently, I am testing out using the free trials of MindManager (Windows) and MindMeister (web). I can sleep better at night now knowing everything is captured the way my brain sees it on one map, and I can easily go back to where I left off the next morning. The result of using mind maps in just 1 week is phenomenal: instead of wasting time organizing my ideas, I can finally find the time to execute them!
-hanna
I’m currently using mind maps as a tool to keep track of tasks and ideas. I use it primarily to help me stay more organized in business, but it also helps with keeping my personal life organized and for brainstorming new ideas in general. For work, I use it mainly to map out tasks for publishing my company’s magazine and organizing websites, as well as for keeping track of important clients and prospective new customers, which is becoming ever more important during challenging economic times.
I’ve started mindmapping back in the mid-nineties with a very simple program called MindMan (I believe this was actually the forerunner to MindManager), but I later switched to another program called Visimap, and as of lately, I’m using a combination of FreeMind and MindMeister (an excellent free online mindmapping tool). I’ve also been using a wonderful tool called the Axon Idea Processor for more than 10 years, which is incredibly versatile in terms of the types of maps and diagrams that it can create, but is unfortunately not the easiest tool to work with. I would look forward to trying out the latest version of MindManager because I’ve heard that’s it’s powerful and easy to use (…and winning a free version would certainly take away any excuses for not doing so!
I recently experienced what the industry now calls a RIF (Reduction In Force). I still call it laid-off. I was a systems developer and used Mind Manager for mapping out my functional and technical specs. The company where I worked purchased the license for a few of us. It was a tool that really benefited our QA (Quality Assurance) because of the ways we could map out the correlation between the business needs and IT capabilities.
Now’s another story…I am using FreeMind to brainstorm and map out job opportunities. It’s taken a little learning curve to make the switch and it’s been helpful.
Mindmapping itself specifically allows for a flow of thoughts and it’s been especially helpful to me right now.
Warmly,
Mark
I have been using mind mapping to figure out ways of cross training people and making them more versatile. Using mind maps as a primary teaching aid has helped employees comprehension and retention. I have also been using mind mapping to prepare tests for people to take after cross training is complete. I use lots of graphics and word descriptions in the training then remove the words for the testing. Basically creating a fill in the blank exam. Employees are sometimes surprised to realize how well they do. Many don’t even need the graphics to recall the information. I can ask them to explain a concept or process and they will recall all the information.
I fall somewhare between the two scenarios you identified – I have not been laid off, but have just left the local government advocacy organisation where I was CEO for 12 years. I made the decision to leave two years ago during contract renewal negotiations, picking a date that would coincide with council elections and the conclusion of the Board’s term. Of course I didn’t realise then that I would be leaving in the middle of a recession…. Having said that, most of what I have done could be used by anyone leaving a job, either voluntarily or as a result of the recession.
I am a very recent convert to mindmapping (and MM8) but have found it incredibly useful to manage the process of leaving and setting up my own consultancy. The first and still the most important mindmap I developed was a career plan which identified a number of options – including setting up a consultancy – and the actions required to pursue them. I have also used this as a resource to store all sorts of relevant information, such as useful websites and contacts and to help brainstorm the basis for a capabilities statement and marketing strategies. MM8′s ability to provide a combination of brainstorming, to-do lists and structured storage of resources in the one tool is very powerful.
In the month prior to leaving I also created a mind map to guide the process of leaving – finishing off outstanding work items, issues to be discussed with my successor, changing signatures and accounts, getting references and itemising my financial package, etc. I know many people who are being made redundant may not be given sufficient warning to do this, but if you have the opportunity its worth it.
Two other maps I have created relate to a project I want to pursue in conjunction with my consultancy – evaluating software options to run agenda development, meetings and the subsequent preparation of minutes for Boards and committees of NGOs and small government agencies. One map outlines the whole meeting process from start to finish as well as the steps in evaluating software (it also contains links to all the meeting-related programs I can track down); the other is a map of a sample agenda for such a Board. I know that there are already meeting templates for MM, but what I have in mind is a bit more complex than a simple project meeting. However, it is almost possible to use MM for the sorts of meetings I have in mind and this is one of the options I’m looking at.
I have also developed a mindmap to outline the issues and processes in developing a website for my wife’s business which I will also use in developing a website for my consultancy. The ability to view the range of options provided by website builders – including their ranges of templates – within the MM8 browser is very useful. This mindmap was also linked to a JVCGantt chart which gave us a timeline to complete the project – and deadlines we successfully met!
Another mindmap I developed with my son to help him look at options after his final year of school – basically to help him make an informed decison about whether to go to university or take a “gap year” before he starts. This map also contains links to information and resources about the different options.
Finally I intend to use mindmaps in facilitating meetings and workshops which are likely to form a major part of my consultancy work, as well as in managing specific projects. I have also started using GyroQ to capture thoughts and ideas as they occur during the day as well as useful websites I come across and transmit them to MM. In summary, MM8 has become almost indispensible in the process of changing my career.
I know exactly when I became aware of mind mapping: 24 March 1988: my wife’s birthday, I was away on a course and in the library of the Staff College was Tony Buzan’s Use Your Head for sale. The receipt is still the bookmark.
I must have mind mapped, but not openly. Fast forward to another course, starting 1997 and students were taking lecture notes in hand-drawn mind maps. “Getting mainstream,” I thought, so I went public to the course with mapping of group discussion of a video case study, using MindManager. Collaboration between attendances had meant getting internet connection and apart from communication, I started web searching, like you do. “Mind mapping” found sites with software to download, and Mindman 3.0 was one. I needed some advice from the software provider and found my contact a very helpful one. I purchased a licence and have tried to keep MindManager up to date ever since.
Now, apart from personal daily clarity I use it for minuting committee meetings, planning talks and collecting ideas, planning events with export to Gantt charts and in collaboration with others mapping speeches, discussions and activities at conferences, with colleagues providing photographs, audio interviews and video sequences the whole output goes to provide clients with web-published publicity post-events. Mapping on the hoof uses MindManager on Tablet PCs. Next are websites for me andmy business, to be planned and constructed using MindManager.
My strategy for keeping my job is to be as productive as possible—too productive to even think of replacing. With MindManager, I have managed, negotiated, and scripted hundreds of automated Internet file transfers in and out of my company.
My map template has five topics: Project, Contacts, Details, Status, and To Do. Project updates my Outlook Tasks. Contacts lets me contact anyone immediately. Details is an organized dump of all project information. Status holds time and date stamps with attached emails and notes recording what happened since the beginning of the project. To Do reminds me what to do next.
Faced with several concurrent projects in a day, I easily move between them by simply opening the project’s mindmap. Without MindManager, I don’t know how I could keep up.
Hi Chuck,
I’m from Quebec city, Canada and I work in french. I already use Mind manager 8 and I’m interested by mind mapping and visual thinking since a long time. Here is my story (in an imperfect english).
I’m a strategic planner. I’ve worked for important public insurance companies for more than 20 years. I ‘ve been vice-president or planning general manager and I’ve been mainly involved in organizations with big difficulties. As a strategic planner, I was in support of leaders who had to design a new vision for their organisation and mobilize stakeholders around their vision.
Very soon in my career, I’ve realized that words and text weren’t the best tools to design, share and manage a vision of change. I beginned to map a project of transformation on one page using images, colors, structures and very significant words. I’ve used mainly Powerpoint to do this and I’ve developped what a called “image-concept” to communicate and explain management concepts like quality management, innovation management, strategic communication, risk management, team work, technologic developments and so on. Really, I’ve had a lot of successes with this approach.
Four years ago, I’ve discovered mind mapping. I was Vice-president of an important corporation. That was the tool I was waiting for. I’ve used it for designing vision, brainstorming, managing project, briefing a new president, writing a to-do list and more. When I left this organization in december 2008, more than 250 peoples on 1100 were using mind mapping frequently.
Today I,m retired but still interested by mind mapping and visual thinking. I develop as a consultant strategic approaches called VIISIION. The 4 i are for: illustrated, integrated interactive and iterative. I’m working on a web site (in french for the time being) to promote this way of doing strategic planning. I really consider that mind mapping softwares (I use MM8) are for the strategic planners as useful as autocad is for the engineers.
Congratulations for your blog, it’s well done and very interesting. Continue your useful work.
I am the Training Officer for the fire department in my area, last year at this time I had 3 part-time and 4 full time personnel who reported to me. Budget cuts and a hiring freeze have trimmed my division down by over 50 %. Today, it is me and one Training Instructor with our Secretary doing just about the same duties. I began using mind maps several months ago and was skeptic at first. I am now realizing the power behind the process; I am juggling several major projects, including my normal job duties with less stress and more efficient use of my time, and a better end product as well. I have always been fairly good at time management, but by using mind maps I am literally getting more done less time. I use mind maps to teach classes, take notes, capture ideas of books, to study, plan curriculum, you name it I am applying my new skill. It’s an amazing tool that so many people don’t use; I want to share it with them because I see so many people struggling to keep up. I am spreading the idea through my area and plan to do the same in other areas of the department.
Do you Mindmap? Huh? “Do I mind that?”
Quickly deconstructing what was said I instantly break down the conversation into some basic components thus creating a real time mindmap or so it was explained to me later. It was 1999 and my friend has introduces me to the world of mind, paper and electronic mindmapping. Over the years, many great lesson’s in communication, learning and presentation would follow as we tested and played with many of the different tools.
In late 2008, I’d sat in my home office bootstrapping a startup. I’d finished mapping the business strategy plan when my son walked in. You see, funny thing happened when you have kids. You see things differently because they do. I have two kids. The big one can talk, he’s 21/2, speaks two languages pretty well. Puts me to shame because I don’t. At the dinner table he translates for me when his mommy speaks in her native tongue. Its endearing but worrisome for any dad that could miss out on a major part of his son’s development.
My son is listing the milk bottle attributes in another language. His Mammy pop’s in and begins translating and smiling, happy with the daily progress and accomplishments that our son is making. Big Carton, white milk, red lettering, picture of farm. Two languages . And, then it hits me. Duh!!
How did I miss this simple solution. Quickly, I start to build an organic language map that works for me and I’m learning the same language within 5 mins. After an 8 year delay, my vocabulary has improved considerably and I’m speaking another language as well as any 2 year old with a caring Mom:)
So now I’m building and reorganising the organic language map with my 2 year old every other day. We both love it. Great fun and great Craic. I’ll keep this version until he turns 3 and start a new one.
Using Mindmapping, bootstrappers have the power to rapidly build a startup & find ways to bring your family closer together one word at a time…
It does not matter if times are good or bad. With mindmapping software you can have it all in the same “picture”. All the problems, downsides, issues – but at the same time you can record all the other things too – opportunities, good news, possibilities, new paths etc.
Without messing it up mind mapping software gives you a chance to balance your world. And to be able to include all sides of the situation.
This is extremely valuable to me. Especially when I have problems, or consider time to be bad. Being able to start include the opportunities in the “dark” picture often create spin offs and more opportunities and while keeping the problems in sight the oportunities grows and possibilities spawns.
Almost magic how a mind map can help you see opportunities – even when problems are all around you.
I am leaving in France and I use Mind Manager for 4 years. I own a PhD in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering and I am retired since December 2008.
I work, on a voluntary basis, as a consultant for the Technology Park of Pau (South of France) called Helioparc. I have created the Geosciences Club of Pau to help SME’s to develop their business in the area of Geosciences and Petroleum Engineering. I have introduced the team to Mind Manager and we use it to manage our projects.
I am also a teacher at IFP-Training (a subsidiary of the french institue of petroleum in charge with training in the oil industry) and I use Mind Manager to manage my presentations to break the bullet presentation style of MS Power Point.
Last but not least I am a bridge player and I teach this card game on a voluntary basis. I use Mind Manager to manage 5 years of weekly courses using a personal Web site automatically generated by Mind Manager.
As a consultant I do use the Mindjet Mindmanager Software mainly as a BRAINSTORMING and STRATEGIC PLANNING TOOL to find solutions for the present challenges due to the recession, both for my clients and for me.
Very helpful are the ready-to-use Mindmanager templates on the Mindjet Website for brainstorming and strategic planning: 5 Whys, SWOT Analysis, 6 Thinking Hats, Fishbone Analysis, Risk Assessment, Identifying Solutions, etc.
Additional other brainstorming and creativity tools enhance the creative, innovative thinking process. It is important for me to ask as many questions as possible to get my thinking juices flowing, and to analyze the present situation for both, my clients and me:
1. What are the additional challenges in my job as a result of the recession?
2. What are the additional challenges for my clients as a result of the recession?
3. How would I rate and prioritize my own challenges and risks?
4. How would I rate and prioritize the challenges of my clients?
5. What questions should I ask my clients through a Survey to receive their feedback?
6. What are my “felt needs”? What are the felt needs of my clients?
7. What possible ideas and solutions could address the felt needs of my clients?
8. What possible ideas and solutions would address/solve my felt needs?
9. What are my unique opportunites in times like these? My clients opportunities?
10. What additional skills and resources would I need to offer solutions?
11. etc. etc
Beside Mindmanager I also do use ThoughtOffice and ProjectKickstart. The ProjectKickstart software has an export feature to transfer the results to MindManager. Additional I use Gyronix Gyro Q add-in for MindManager. This tool assists me to record spontaneous thoughts that come along during my other work in front of my computer. A simple voice recorder and a notebook assist me to record spontaneous ideas “on the go”.
MindManager is a unique tool that builds on my visual learning style and facilitates my brainstorming capacity. Mindmaps also help me to compose complex thinking scenarios with a variety of factors that all play somehow together. Mindmaps also help me to communicate the complexity with simplicity.
We live in challenging times. The pace of change has accelerated. Assessments and planning needs to be updated in shorter intervals to anticipate the future and adjust present decisions. The final outcome of the recession journey is not clear yet. Important skills are fast-forward thinking, anticipation and innovation… and Mindmapping is a method of the hour.
Hi,
Seems I’m not laid off yet, but yes, I use mind maps (Mind Manager 6 Pro in this case) to prepare for the job hunting (well, I use maps for brainstorming, reports and presentations preparation and so forth, too). For the last 2 months I have browsed a multitude of web sites and blogs devoted to CV creation and job interviews. I drop all the interesting key words and phrases to one single mind map. If the topic itself requires any additional explanations, comments or examples, they go into the text notes (and references to the original web page are stored as hyperlinks). I do similarly for the books I read or listen to.
Topics are organised by the general area (CV, letter, phone call, meeting etc.) and by the source. This is a kind of a natural order I would use as well in any other tool, be it word processor, spreadsheet or note-keeping app – the point is to store the info quickly without getting distracted too much. Needless to say, this map in time becomes enormous, chaotic, incomprehensible and repetitive (though quite far from the all-web-catalogue still), as this way of organisation, very useful for adding information, becomes the main obstacle to retrieve or grok it later. So, the map requires periodical weeding.
And this is really when mind mapping applications start to shine. On the mind map it is just a matter of drag and drop, click and delete or a similar easy operations. 15-30 minutes and I’m done – the map is in the great and useful shape again, and on the way, I had a chance to refresh my memory on it contents. While searching for a good location to place a topic, I simply do have to read (and refresh in memory) other topics (note I will read/refresh just ideas, without the stuff behind). And this is still just a simple map with only few images, links, icons and tags. Nothing fancy like task and resource information.
I cannot imagine doing all this in any other application. Well, I can, I used to do that in the past, but they have all proven pretty useless.
Remember what they say about the Lisp programming language? “A language such as APL is like a diamond. It is perfectly symmetric, and shines brightly. However, if you wish to add a new feature to the language, the symmetry is smashed, and the diamond cracks and shatters.
Lisp, on the other hand, is a ball of mud. Essentially shapeless, you can easily add new extensions and ideas, and all you get is a larger ball of mud ready and able to accept more and more. Lisp is infinitely extensible (…).”
The same stands for a mind mapping program. You can create two perfect separate presentations in PowerPoint (or reports in Word), but merging them into a new one, or adding significant amount of new content, will be a nightmare and will take much longer than expected. With a mind map, it is a matter of minutes.
I live in Romania, Bucharest, where I’m running an auto detailing business. I am working to create a national chain of detailing shops all over the country. My huge challenge in achieving this goal is to have the capacity to train as many people as I need in the shortest time possible.
Before the recession affects us, I used to have a crew of trainers for every new shop I opened. They had to train new people between one and three months. These trainers used to cost me a lot of money, which now I can’t afford any more. This world crisis made me to think about and create new tools of training.
Another challenge is the profile of my employees at the entry level. They do not know a thing about auto detailing. They have not the habit of reading, learning and memorizing things, knowledge.
On the other hand, my business standards are very high. So they have to read, learn, understand and retain a 300 pages manual.
This was my assignment. Huge challenge: I needed to create a 300 manual easy to memorize and to retain. So may plan was to learn mind mapping and to get a course for memory improvement. Both helped me tremendously and made my goal attainable, and to face the problems of recession.
Now, there are a lot of new data, concepts and techniques that my people have to understand, memorize and practice. I will give you further 3 examples of abstract concepts turned in compelling mind mapping elements.
At the beginning of the course a draw on a board a branch from the main issue and at the end of the branch I draw an importing cargo ship full of green ants. This cargo is importing ants. Do you think my people will understand this picture, do you think they will ever forget it?! You bet they understand and would never forget it!
This green branch with a ship full of green ants stands for IMPORTANCE of the issue we discuss about and the ecologic impact of our procedures.
Then I draw another branch which has at the end the following picture: on the left side, a hand wearing an working glove giving an human eye to another hand, on the right side, which has an expensive wristwatch, also giving to the left hand her own eye. The two eyes have different colors.
Did you get the picture? I hope so! But if you did, you will never forget it. This stands for INTERVIEW, the process through the selling person find out the points of view of the customer about his car and its needs, demands. And the customer (the hand with the wristwatch = the man with the money) find out the workers professional points of view about resolving to upgrade the condition of car surfaces.
The interviews with our customers are decisive for our business.
The third picture: a blackjack dealer behind a gate is giving to you a cheque. This stands for: DELEGATE THE COMPETENCE. On this step, the selling person who made the interview with the customer has to choose the right detailer for the customer’s demands and for his car’s needs. The cheque stands for the procedures card, which has to be followed in order to “cash in” the money for the service.
As you may imagine, I made the long story short and took only 3 simpler examples. But to get the whole picture, you may learn that an interior service has at least 47 procedures, which are standardized steps for completing the service.
Now, with this new manual and its mind maps I am able to train as many people as I need in one session. More than this: if antecedently the training for a new employee took between 1 and 3 months, now I am able to get a good trained employee in less than 10 days! I couldn’t do this ever without mind mapping. Thank you Mind Mapping Software!
Sincerely,
Cristian Pop
Greetings,
While I love the opportunity to participate in your drawing I don’t own Mind Manager yet. I’m an overworked executive with less than computer literate subordinates. I’m a baby boomer that actually depends on his computers to accomplish the overwhelming flood of new responsibilities being forced on productive people. I’ve watch executives the same age as myself avoid the change and push away technology. I’m the old guy in the office that really uses his computer. My associates just complain.
10 years ago I had a secretary and an assistant. Now I have a laptop and a blackberry. If you’re like me this transition slowly took all my spare time and eliminated the people we were training to assume our responsibilities as we move up the ladder. There are two kinds of people in the work place now. Those like me who grasp new technologies and those who refuse to do so. I see mind mapping as the next logical step for me. I’ve mastered Outlook and use a tablet PC in conjunction with my desktop.
I’m sure I’m not qualified for your drawing but I think you should give a copy to one of us who haven’t yet been able to commit to the mind mapping world. Mind mapping is exactly how I think and I would love to try to move my personal organization to this new and exciting platform.
I enjoy your blog… good luck with the drawing.
Mark
I was introduced to mindmapping several years ago when I read a book called “Wishcraft – How to get What You Really Want”. The author’s method was to start at the goal and work backwards. I started doing this on paper and it helped clarify the path to the goal really well. The only problem was doing it on paper. Sometimes I would have 4 or more pages taped together.
Since I discovered MindMapping software the task is much easier. I begin with my goal and ask two questions: Can I do it today? If not, why not? Each “why not” is then branched from the goal. Same questions are asked again of each new object added to the map. When I get to an object that I can answer “Yes, I can do this today” my plan is completed. I now have a complete map of what needs to be done and in what order to reach my goal.
This system has worked well for me in both personal and business matters. I don’t know how I existed without it!
In the process of transitioning to retirement, I find myself in information overload. With the recession, I’m having to re-think my post-retirement plans by investigating other avenues of income. Being a life-long learner, I’ve accumulated so many interests/talents/skills that it’s like herding cats to keep track of everything. In steps mind-mapping tools… I organize my information into categories that correlate with interests and connect them to potential second careers along with job postings, contacts and related articles. Mind-mapping works for me in that it corrals all my random directions so that I don’t lose sight of the details.
I face two challenges: working more efficiently (with less cost to clients) and developing new business. I expect existing business to be scaled back and is likely to produce less revenue. I am beginning to use mind maps to identify and organize various tasks related to projects and to keep an overview at hand. The larger view provides a means to prioritize tasks, especially in relation to deadlines since much of my work involves pursuing two somewhat divergent alternative goals. With respect to business development, there are ideas requiring development and plans requiring substantial costs with no guaranties and no chance for any economies of scale. Mind maps help me take the ideas and develop them as time permits and keep working on them until they are workable. Because there are usually multiple ideas to develop, they can all be worked on and when ready, the best can be selected. Hopefully the results of the mind maps will help me weather these difficult times.
Dear Chuck,
I’ve obtained initial knowledge concerning MindManager 7 from a very experienced creaffective blogger Florian Rustler (www.creaffective.de) who is certified as Mindjet MindManager Trainer. Thank you! Low Health Literacy (which can be defined as a person’s ability to find, understand, integrate and act on health information) is one of the most unheralded yet critical threats to public health during these tough times. If the world is moving toward a recession period, an accumulation of disintegrated health information is a negative signal. Health Literacy refers to more than reading and writing. It refers as well to the powerful skills that make it possible for people to organize and integrate health information. Additional challenges in my job as a result of the recession could be balanced by effective and efficient Information Management. The most important contribution to date has been Mind Mapping, a very successful method of ordering my Health Literacy information in a systematic way. Now, when using MindManager, I’m practically only limited by my own creativity. My brain suffered much from informational overload and I can’t continue to do things the way I always have. Now, without stress or informational overload I’m organizing my knowledge and projects concerning Health Literacy in an optimal way. There are lots and lots of possibilities for what MindManager can do to help me to survive, so I use MindManager Lite 7 in a variety of ways. Especially, MindManager helps me in promoting innovative educational technologies by creating distinctive educational programs designed to meet the needs and interests of specific groups of students, medical doctors and patients in my efforts to advance individual and public Health Literacy. Using MindManager I’m more creative, could see the bigger picture (A Multidimensional Model of Health Literacy) and awesome ideas may pop in from my brain. This is so if and only if I first understand the general, overall educational concept, and that is why I have built my creative job focused on Developing Health Literacy around the process of Mind Mapping, it becomes my second nature. More than this: Mind Manager as a tool for advancing Health Literacy could become an important collaborative public health issue that, if implemented in this domain, will greatly contribute to the health of people.
Warmly,
Lev
MindManager helped me to discover myself.
Over past year, I have been using MM7 together with Gyronix GyroQ to collect various information. Anytime I was reading, watching or listening something, I was asking myself whether I am learning something new that improves my understanding of the “universe”, or whether there are some actionable ideas/information that might be useful one day.
I have collected many information about topics such as marketing, business, leadership, personal development, future, career, job hunting, personal branding, health and fitness, our brain…. etc. Once upon a time, I would open individual mindmaps, organize the information from inboxes into subtopics and put ideas into action.
This was happening during the last year of my university studies. I was also using similar process when working on individual university assignments. However what is more important for me right know, is that it finally all clicked together for me.
I have figured out, that what drives me forward is UNDERSTANDING. I have figured out that I strive to become a thought leader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_leader), and that I have been building a collection of “thinklets” over the past year without knowing that there is a name for what I do.
These days, all the knowledge I have been putting together starts to manifest itself in my daily life, and I am starting to seeing relationships, dynamics, principles and metaphors I haven’t seen before. I am starting to come up with original ideas, that I have never explicitly heard about before. I have well balanced left/right brain thinking, and I believe that the process of reviewing and organizing information in MM7 was very helpful for advancing my knowledge, understanding and thinking.
I have used MindManager to re-invent myself. My life and my thinking. It helped me to better understand myself. It also allowed me to build a knowledge tool that will hopefully prove to be helpful over the next few months of transition between being a student and being a professional.
Tony Buzan originally promoted mindmaps to encourage creativity, but computerised mindmapping can also be used to take thoughts which have already been developed and display the logical relationships between them. MindManager is particularly good for this, quickly producing legible and attractive summaries of lengthy documents.
In the company where I have worked for 30 years (until I was made redundant a few weeks ago) there are more than a hundred quality policies which are continually being updated – combined, separated, enhanced, but never simplified! To help the shrinking number of quality auditors to keep up to date with the spiralling requirements, a number of us have routinely created mindmaps to summarize them and reduce 10-20 pages to one, which can easily be referred to when preparing for, or performing, an audit.
In .Net development, i’m using Mind Mapping for programs and components design. It very easy to use and produce a free non-linear style . I can present a project with all aspects (data in, data out, functions,…) to a non-developer audience with a easy touch.
I use M M for personal management too. Every weeks, i used to create a new Mind Map with all things i have to do, what i would like, wish list, priority, research, study, movie,… A nice way to trace where i am and stay focused. And because life is basically a succession of choice, MM becomes a decisional tool.
Last but not least, I MindMap each time i can, relation between characters of a books, Music Bands, Authors, to explore and connect whole aspect of “style” and links what apprently have no obvious or direct relation.
I am a training consultant and I use mind-mapping in many ways. I pull together all of the content of a training program in a mind map and include ideas for the types of activities that will really help the participants understand the content. Using a mindmap helps me keep the big picture in mind and also shows how the content pieces fit together.
I’ve used mindmapping to help me manage projects, both at work and home. I find it really helps during the planning process, as well as implementation.
Another way I use mindmapping is to create summaries of books I’ve read. I love how I am able to capture the information in a way that causes me to really think about what I have read and learned – not a simple list of notes that covers many pages, but a colorful, living picture of the ideas.
Prioritization. Risk. Benefit. Strategy. Excellence.
In the past two months I put all of these words and a few more together on a Mind Map and found the way to pay the nearly 1/2 million in salaries and benefits for myself and the group that I manage. The work that we do for the rest of the year will be mostly return on investment.
But I’m not taking any chances. Over the past few months I’ve used Mind Maps to map out a new seminar business and to date have been able to book two workshops and will find out this weekend if number three is on the way.
My wife and I have started using Mind Maps to map out a couple of website businesses as we begin to understand just how profitable the potential is.
Whether I’m working for myself or someone else, Mind Maps help me create a living and a life.
Why Mind Mapping
New Ideas needed to be more effective in helping its clients identify and prioritize initiatives that would; A.) increase their competitive position within a global market, B.) increase profits in a stressed economy and C.) increase productivity while facing the problematic need to reduce their workforce.
To identify the initiatives, New Ideas, Inc. would need, to assist its clients in identifying its business needs, it was decided to initiate a series of brainstorming meetings.
Brainstorming leads to Mind Mapping?
The assumption was that the greater the number of ideas that was generated from a greater representation of the immediate workforce the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective business solution.
It was also our position that conducting our own “BRAINSTORMING” meetings would help us prefect a method that could be used to assist our clients in identifying solutions to their specific business needs.
During the process of gathering information on how to implement an Effective “BRAINSTORMING” meeting it was discovered that according to some research reports the contribution this method provided as an effective method for producing quantity and/or quality ideas is often effective.
This lead to additional research to determining why this position was taken and what alternatives were recommended and/or how could “BRAINSTORMING” be improved.
Google searches on methods used to improve the quantity and quality of ideas resulting from “BRAINSTORMING” meetings led us to integrate the concept of using “MINDMAPPING” as a cornerstone for our “BRAINSTORMING” sessions.
The benefits of “MIND MAPPING” has also resulted in positioning it as the cornerstone for assisting our clients in developing Strategic Business and Educational plans, Training Needs Analysis, Training Curriculums, Establishing Project Management Initiatives, and determining business solutions that will sustain a company’s competitive position in today’s and future economic environments.
Hi Chuck:
MindManager is a super product, certainly very powerful to help in thinking, colaboration and execution, but fundamentally it is a tool. The methods are fundamental. MindMapping by itself helps but much more is needed. Our company Flexus Group, has developed a set of educational materials, (seminars, digital resources,etc ) that expand and ensures real productivity gains in business applications. Currently we have a training seminar specifically designed to enhance the strategic thinking behind this crisis, enhancing creativity, analysis and the execution required. Crisis means change, and MindManager with the proper methodologies becomes a real competitive advantage. We have over 350 corporate clients in Colombia, Mexico and Latin America. Thanks for your thoughts and initiatives.
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