The developer recently released Amode version 2, which extends this intriguing information-centric model even farther. The result in a mature product that gives you even more ways to express your information. In this product review, we’ll take a deeper look at the new features of Amode 2 and how they benefit business users.

Method Neutral: An information-centric model

As part of the launch of Amode 2, Mindsystems introduced the world to a new term to explain its robust, flexible model for handling information and data: Method Neutral. The idea behind this concept is that software should ideally enable you to focus on producing high quality results, quickly, using a variety of working styles. In other words, the nature of the information should dictate its format, not the way the software is structured.

Amode certainly practices what Mindsystems preaches, providing a rich palette of ways to represent your ideas and projects. For a deeper understanding of the Method Neutral concept, I recommend that you read this interview between mind mapping expert Wallace Tait (from the VisualMapper and Hypershifters blogs) and John England, the founder of Mindsystems.

Amode 2′s well-designed user interface

Amode 2 retains the program’s efficient two-windowed user interface (click on the image above right for a larger view of it). The left two-thirds of the screen is a larger workspace, where your projects may be viewed as a “tree” (something like a hierarchical text outline, with icons next to each topic that indicate what else is attached to it), a GANTT chart or a calendar. Each topic is a self-contained collection of information.

There’s also a briefcase view, introduced in the first version of Amode, which enables you to view the contents of Amode files side-by-side and drag topics from one to the other. To the right of the workspace is a nested, tabbed interface, which gives you access to topics notes, attachments, tasks, alarms, relationships and something new called the ThoughtPad.

Next to this window panel is a narrow vertical column called system tools. If you click on the left-pointing arrow at the top of it, a panel slides out to display another set of tabs to access project resources (people or equipment assigned to a project and calendar items), project templates and stored filters that are a part of the Amode file in which you’re working.

The whole user interface is well-designed and intuitive, which is impressive considering the immense amount of resources and data that an Amode file can contain.

Improvements to the tree view

Since this is the view where users of Amode are likely to spend much of their time, Mindsystems paid attention to making this outline view more powerful. Version 2 now supports drag and drop of links and multiple attachments. Also, version 2 now includes a Microsoft Outlook plugin that enables you to send the contents of individual e-mails or folders of messages to Amode topics. Because Outlook is such a ubiquitous tool in many corporate environments and important information and knowledge is often embedded in e-mail messages, I view this as a critically important new feature.

Attachment and link management is also much easier in Amode version 2. If you add multiple attachments to a topic, clicking the attachment icon causes a multi-select menu to pop up, giving you single-click access to all attachments. I tried this by adding three attachments to a single topic, which must be done in an attachments properties tab to the right of the workspace. But when I clicked on the attachments icon back in the workspace, the multi-select menu popped up just as advertised, giving me instant access to all three files – without having to mouse over to the attachments tab again. Yeah, it’s a little thing, but it’s a time-saver, in much the same way as context-sensitive right-click menus are.

ThoughtPad adds a visual dimension to Amode 2

Amode 2 puts the principle of method neutrality into practice by offering a number of new features that enable users to represent their ideas with even greater flexibility. One major addition in this new version is the ThoughtPad, which enables you to attach a diagram, mind map or flow chart to any topic within an Amode file to help explain it – think of it as a visual mapping program embedded within a suite of information management tools and you’ll get a clearer picture of the relationship between ThoughtPad and Amode.

You access the ThoughtPad via the tabbed interface on the right side of the Amode user interface. It opens to reveal a set of shapes and connectors, which you can drag and drop into a mini-workspace to produce a variety of visual diagrams. There is also space for “custom tools” at the bottom of this vertical panel, where you can add images from your computer to the toolset of the ThoughtPad. Nice!

As you might expect, a mind map or flow chart can easily spread out to take quite a bit of room horizontally, so I was pleased to see that you can drag the window border between your Amode outline and the ThoughtPad to make more space for your diagrams.  There’s also a zoom control to give you greater flexibility in viewing your diagrams.  If you create a diagram in ThinkPad, Amode adds a little diagram icon to the currently-selected topic. If you click on the icon, Amode instantly takes you to the ThoughtPad view.

You can attach multiple diagrams to a single topic, which can come in handy: Let’s say you created a first iteration of a diagram, but you’re not quite satisfied that it communicates what you need it to. You can add a new ThoughtPad to the topic, and take a fresh approach to diagramming your idea, without discarding the original one. In addition to creating ThoughtPads at the topic level, Amode 2 also enables you to create one that describes your overall project visually.

Surprisingly, you can export individual ThoughtPad diagrams in several formats in Amode 2. This gives you the flexibility to share your visual ideas with others in an image, notes or an Amode-specific TPD file format, while still maintaining the entire project within Amode. That means you could share a diagram with a colleague, without sending them the entire Amode file (which may contain proprietary information or may just be too large to e-mail to him or her). This new feature enables you to split off a TPD file and send it to your coworker. This export capability also enables you to build up a template library of ThoughtPad diagrams for future use, according to the developer. This could be quite useful, I think.

I like the thinking behind the ThoughtPad, but I found it to be somewhat clunky at times.  For example, while trying to create a simple flow chart, I connected a square to a hexagon, and was disappointed to discover that I couldn’t connect the line at the mid-point of the side of the hexagon, only on its corner. The result was a cockeyed line that  just didn’t look right to me.

On another occasion,  I created a simple mind map with curved connector lines, and found that the arrow heads got buried under the edges of several of the subtopics – until I used the drag handles to reshape them. These are minor concerns which shouldn’t overshadow the fact that ThoughtPad brings an important visual dimension to Amode’s toolbox.  It’s a great lightweight tool for sketching out simple business processes and ideas.

New skeleton view gives linear look at your projects

This new view takes the outline and converts it into a tabular type of view, with your topics in a hierarchy in the column near the left edge of the workspace and topic relationships, resources, attachments, links, notes, ThoughtPad diagrams and alarms arrayed in columns to the right. The width of each column is adjustable. To the left of the topics are columns for priority and percentage completed. Mindsystems characterizes skeleton view as more of a linear look at your project.

Project management tools receive enhancements

At its core, Amode 2 is more of a project management tool than a visual mapping program. In version 2, Mindsystems has beefed up the program’s capabilities to handle just about any type of project you can throw at it. The project management center of Amode is chart view (formerly called Gantt view in version 1.0). You can now double-click on topics within this view to edit them. A Gantt summary function has been added to show the full project task list.

Significantly, you can now click a single button to view the critical path for your project – the shortest time possible to complete it, based upon the duration of each task and their dependencies. In addition, you can view all tasks associated with a particular employee or resource. And finally, printing has been improved: You can exclude priority fields and left align topics to save space and fit more of your Gantt chart on less paper. You can also set alarms for task deadlines and send SMS notifications from within chart view.

Amode version 1 contained a calendar view, but it was somewhat rudimentary. In version 2, it has been improved to behave more like a paper calendar book. For example, you can now add what Mindsystems calls sticky notes to it. When you actually create a sticky note in this view, however, it looks more like a yellow appointment, which you can drag to extend its duration.

Filtering gets even more powerful in Amode 2

One of the standout features I highlighted in my review of Amode version 1 was its powerful, flexible toolset for filtering the contents of your projects. This has been further refined in version 2. A quick topic search capability has been added to the program’s tree view, which enables you to quickly jump to see specific topics. You can also do this in the briefcase mode across multiple projects.

In the filter bar at the bottom of tree view, you can also now elect to show the child branches associated with filter results and split these filter results off into a new Amode file. This is a powerful new capability, which enables you to zero in on topics that meet certain criteria in your current project – such as all of the tasks associated with a particular employee or resource – and then use that subset of information to generate a new Amode project file. Very cool!

SMS capabilities for alarms

Alarms were a key project management feature in Amode version 1, but in version 2 they have been significantly enhanced. You can now schedule alarms to be sent via SMS (short message service) or e-mail to groups of up to 20 people – even when Amode isn’t running. This could be very powerful for small, geographically dispersed work groups. It does this via an online SMS queueing service, which works with over 800 networks in over 200 countries – sounds fairly ubiquitous to me! You can purchase SMS credits from within Amode 2, to ensure that your project communications always flow smoothly.

This looks like another important productivity enhancing tool that should keep work groups on track and on time, whether they are sitting in front of their PCs working within Amode or traveling somewhere with a smart phone or other portable communication device.

Other useful features

Expanded import/export capabilities: Amode 2 can now import and export data with Microsoft Word, Excel, Project and PowerPoint, which should significantly increase its appeal to business users. The program gives you an impressive array of import/export options to include/exclude selected information – which is quite important, because often your work files will include information you don’t want to share (proprietary information, or background information that’s not relevant to what needs to be shared at the moment). If your firm is more of an open source shop, Amode 2 can also import and export data with OpenOffice Writer and Calc.

Customize toolbar: A blank tab in Amode 2′s ribbon toolbar invites you to populate it with the command you use most often – a real time-saver for power users, because it significantly reduces the need to switch between different tabs in the ribbon toolbar.

Templates: You can create and store templates based on entire Amode solution files or topics. This makes it easy for work teams to re-use assets, so each project doesn’t need to be created from scratch. In addition, from Amode’s template view, you can drag and drop an existing template onto the workspace to start a new project – nice! An impressive collection of templates is included with Amode 2 to help you accomplish common business tasks, such as report writing, meeting planning, checklists and business planning.

As I was playing around with these templates, I was able to drag and drop a particular type of SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) analysis tool into my open project file. What a great way to start a new project or enhance one you’ve started to work on! I suspect these templates will be heavily employed by new users of Amode 2, who will appreciate how they help to illuminate what the program is capable of.

Conclusion

As a tool for powerful, flexible management of information and projects, Amode 2 has no peer. It’s not quite a mind mapping tool or an outliner or a project management application – but yet it combines the best capabilities of each of these applications to create a truly unique and valuable business productivity tool. As you switch from one view to another in Amode, it illuminates new aspects of your project, which can lead to valuable insights and ideas – a very good thing! It also holds a lot of promise as a tool for helping busy executives to manage information overload, especially with its new Outlook integration.

Mindsystems says Amode 2 offers a “unified approach to information management.” Considering all of the well-integrated tools and capabilities Amode 2 offers to business users, I believe they have achieved this vision. Amode 2 is the perfect tool to help today’s information manager meet the challenges of their work head on.

A single-user license of Amode 2 is US$207.87; an upgrade from version 1 is $115.48. A trial version can also be downloaded from the Mindsystems website.

I recently had a chance to work with Amode, and discovered there’s much to like. In this review, I will highlight what makes this new productivity-enhancing program different than mind mapping software, what its unique strengths are and how you can potentially benefit from it.

Redefining information management

While mind mapping software has been steadily growing in popularity as a business tool, Mindsystems customers have told them that it is not a panacea for every information management challenge. In fact, it has several weaknesses, which the developer sought to remedy when it created Amode. For example, mind mapping software works well for capturing and organizing unstructured information, but it isn’t quite as well suited to dealing with structured information. Secondly, when you share mind maps with others, they may not be familiar with the conventions of how to read and interpret it, which sometimes leads to confusion – and for some linear thinkers, a lack of willingness to take mind maps seriously.

That’s why the team at Mindsystems set out to develop an alternative that would provide the best of both worlds: visual and linear methods of representing information. Amode enables you to view your information in different contexts – a visual “tree” (which looks something like an expandable/contractible outline), Gantt, calendar and “briefcase” view (which enables you to view several projects simultaneously). These different views, along with some powerful searching and filtering tools, are what give Amode its power and flexibility.

The user interface

The Amode user interface consists of a large main workspace on the left, where you add content to your project and view it in a tree-like format. A nested set of panes on the right enable you to add notes, assign blocks of time to each item in your visual map, add attachments, links and icons to topics, and define relationships between them.

The program utilizes a ribbon toolbar, which some new users may find daunting at first – because Amode requires that you incorporate some new terminology and ways of working with information. I strongly recommend that you spend some time with the excellent video tutorials on the Mindsystems website. They will help you to get started faster with this unique program.

Below the toolbar are tabs for each open project. An Amode file may contain multiple projects; all files that are attached to it are embedded within it, which means when you share an Amode file with others, they will also receive all of its associated resources.

Within the workspace, Amode makes extensive use of right-click commands to speed common tasks, such as adding topics and sub-topics, copy/cut/paste commands, add link, add attachment, add note, add icon and set alarm. This is a big productivity enhancer, because you can do so many common tasks within the program’s workspace (minimizing “trips” to the toolbar).

At the bottom of the workspace are a multi-functional filter box – which gives you a powerful and flexible set of tools for zeroing in on the key pieces of information you’re looking for – and buttons to select from Amode’s four views: tree, calendar, Gantt and Briefcase modes. By default, the program opens in Tree mode, which looks like a hierarchical outline. Mindsystems says this type of view is more easily understood by most people than a mindmap, which may sometimes be confusing as it spreads out, amoeba-like, in all directions. This lowers the program’s learning curve, and also makes it easier for you to share Amode project files with your colleagues, whether they are linear or visual thinkers.

Adding content to your project

Topics can be added to your project using either the topic and sub-topic buttons in the ribbon toolbar, or using keyboard shortcuts – the Enter key inserts another topic at the current level, while the INS key inserts a sub-topic. This simple arrangement enables you to quickly add a large amount of content to your project, without using the mouse.

Keyboard commands are supported for rearranging topics – for example, Shift-Up moves the currently selected topic up one position in the hierarchy of topics, while Shift-Right indents the topic as a sub-topic of the item above it. These shortcuts are intuitive and once again help you to organize your topics quickly and easily. It’s nice to see a developer who has paid this much attention to creating logical, intuitive keyboard shortcuts that save the user time and frustration.

Each topic may also contain a tickler note, which is a longer description of the topic. Each tickler has a time and date stamp that shows when it was created and last modified. You can use it to provide more context of an item, or to record its current status. Each topic can also contain notes, attachments, links (to external files and web pages) and “indicator icons.”

As you add supporting elements to your project topics, visual indicators appear next to them, to show you what each topic contains. For example, if you add a tickler, a small rectangular icon with an up arrow next to the topic changes from gray to yellow. Notes are depicted with a miniature document. Attachments can also be added to any topic; when you do so, they become embedded in the Amode project file, so when you send it to others, all of its attachments will also be contained within it. No need to select a “pack and go” command – this happens automatically, as part of Amode’s standard mode of operation.

Indicator icons are added to topics via a right-click command; you can also add your own icons to Amode to meet your specific needs.

Task management in Amode

Click on the “timeline control tab” and you’re presented with a bevy of options, including task duration, priority codes, percentage of completion, color, and checkboxes that enable you to display or hide task data on the Gantt chart or in the topic tree. Within this pane are also options to create and manage resources (such as people) and to set alarms for specific tasks. When you install Amode, it enables an applet, running in the Windows system tray, that automatically fires alarms at the appropriate date and time, whether Amode is running or not. Nice!

Searching and filtering

Amode offers a powerful toolset for searching and filtering the contents of your info-bases. First, it provides a search command, which gives you the options of searching the entire briefcase (all projects in the file open on the desktop), the current project or selected tasks. You can also refine your search to focus upon the project summary, topic titles, notes and tickler notes.

The filtering tool at the bottom of the Amode workspace offers even more options for ad hoc searches of your database, but it is limited to the current information tree and its tickler notes. In this sense, it is more of a high-level search. You can search by:

• Keyword,
• Task progress,
• Items flagged as top priority
• Resource (the person to whom a task has been assigned, for example)

You can select multiple conditions for Amode filters, making it possible to do some fairly sophisticated searches of your database. You may also save filters as new projects, a feature that is particularly useful if you’re working with a large database in Amode and only want to look at one small aspect of it on an ongoing basis. The new project you created from the filter is saved in another tab in the same Amode file – very nice!

In addition, you can set up and save filters in Amode to view items flagged with particular icons. The rules dialog not only contains a “filter if” drop-down box, but also an “ignore if” option – which makes it possible to filter your database for any topics that are NOT flagged with a specific icon. When you save filters, they are automatically added to the filter bar at the bottom of the workspace, so you can quickly apply them in the future.

Briefcase mode

Earlier in this review, I told you that an Amode work file may contain multiple projects, which are displayed in tabs in the workspace. That means you can only view one at a time. Briefcase mode gives you the ability to view two or more project outlines side by side. When you first enter this view, all of your projects are grouped vertically in a “stack” – a logical grouping of your projects. In this view, you can create new stacks at any time, visually differentiating them by color. Stacks can have tickler notes, which are used to briefly describe their overall purpose. Up to 8 columns of project stacks may be created. Stacks may also be merged, if needed. Like topic trees, stacks can be minimized to reduce visual clutter.

To regroup your projects, you simply drag and drop them to the appropriate stack. Within Briefcase mode, you can still perform any functions accessible the right click menu – such as adding topics, tickler notes and topic icons. Mindsystems designed the briefcase mode to enable you to work with your project files at an overview level.

Gantt mode

Amode lets you create simple Gantt charts that are appropriate for smaller projects and limited numbers of people, but it is equally well suited to more complex charts that can include resources, working times and relationships (dependencies) between tasks.

Calendar mode

The calendar mode is somewhat similar to the Gantt mode, in that it depicts the start and end dates and times of tasks – but it does so in a more conventional calendar-type view. I added start and end data to one of my project’s topics, enabled it to be shown in calendar view (via a checkbox in the timeline control pane) and the task appeared as an appointment in the calendar.

Relationships

Relationships work something like they do in mind mapping software, where you can have two topics in different parts of our map joined to one another via a relationship line. In Amode, however, relationships can be much more complex. To create a relationship, you first select the source topic in the workspace, then use drop-down lists in the resources pane to select the destination topic and the nature of the relationship (two-way, inbound, outbound, and a variety of start-finish dependencies). Amode adds a rectangular icon with a down arrow next to the source topic, but doesn’t draw a connector line – to avoid visual clutter. I set one of these relationships up to see how it worked. When I clicked on this icon, the program grayed out the entire workspace, except for the two related topics, which I thought was a very elegant way to visually show the relationship. Click on the icon again, and the workspace returns to its normal display mode.

Importing and exporting to other applications

Amode gives you many options for importing and exporting project data. It can import and export Microsoft Word, Excel and Project files – as well as OpenOffice Writer, a popular shareware alternative to Word, and OpenOffice Calc, an alternative to Excel. It can also export Amode tasks to Microsoft Outlook, and can also exchange data with KnowledgeLink and MindManager. Amode also exports to PDF and web page formats. Pretty impressive, especially the support for open source apps!

Templates

Amode ships with a large set of business-oriented system templates. However, they are buried several layers deep within the program, and I had to use the program’s PDF help file to figure out where they were. It turns out that you needed to click on the project tools tab, then on a template bank tab at the bottom of the screen, and then on yet another nested tab to view the system templates. They include everything from “building blocks” for common tasks such as brainstorming, outlining pros and cons and planning meetings, to business planning tools, a variety of check lists, disaster planning, event planning and much more. It looks like a lot of thought went into creating these valuable “starting points.”

You can also create templates at any time within Amode. You can save entire files or groups of topics and their elements for future re-use. If you tend to handle the same types of projects over and over, you’ll really appreciate this flexibility!

Conclusion

Amode is an impressive new class of information management tool. I hesitate to call it a mind mapping program, because it really only bears a passing resemblance to that type of visual thinking and planning software. Instead, Mindsystems has succeeded at creating an entirely new type of productivity program that is uniquely designed to meet the needs of today’s knowledge workers. Its multiple views enable you to display information in the format that makes the most sense to you, and to sift through piles of data and re-use it and re-organize it in some very powerful ways. Kudos to the development team for creating a truly remarkable piece of software!

Amode is available now from the Mindsystems website for US$250 per license; volume discounts and education/non-profit pricing are also available. In addition, you can download a 21-day free trial of Amode. If you feel adventurous, I’d recommend you go for the trial version, so you can see for yourself what it offers to you and your specific needs. If you’re not sure, then take a look at the excellent video tutorials, which give you a very high-level overview of how Amode functions, and why it’s designed like it is.