A new enhancement to these reports

I’m pleased to debut a new features of these mind map analyses in this report: Before and after screen shots. You see, today’s mind map galleries make it possible to download copies of the maps they contain, in their native file formats. This means I can edit them – so I can not only talk about how I would improve a particular mind map, I can also show you what that those improvements should look like (see the image above right for an example). This improvement makes these reports even more valuable as learning tools for members of my Mind Mapping Insider membership group.

This link to this report is only visible to members of the Mind Mapping Insider membership program. It contains a wealth of resources that can help you to be more productive, creative and have a greater impact in your job. It’s not enough to have a mind mapping tool – you need the insights to use it in ways that deliver value and enhance your value to your employer and your customers/clients. In this economy, that’s critically important. That’s what this program is all about – enhancing the value that you bring to your work! Click here for more details.

In this new Effective Mind Maps report, I analyze a mind map that was created by the owner of a small web business to track its financial health, its sales opportunities, key projects and more. This well-designed tool does a lot of things very well. I distill what you can learn from it, and how you can easily adapt it to meet your needs.

This report is only accessible to Mind Mapping Insider members. Why not make a commitment to become a more effective mind mapper – which will enable you to become a better planner, problem solver and project manager? Sign up today to join the growing group of MMI members who have made the decision to be more influential and creative in their jobs.

In the past few years, there has been quite a bit written about using mind maps to create dashboards. But, to a large extent, this information was scattered in quite a few places. It’s something like a group of blind people trying to describe an elephant, using only their sense of touch. Each of them describes something different, because they’re focusing in on the part of the elephant that is right in front of them.

In much the same way, the blogosphere’s coverage of mind map dashboards has been limited in focus. That’s why I wrote a new new report - to consolidate the best resources on dashboards into one location, and then extract the best practices, insights and ideas from them into a valuable executive summary that you can use to take action on creating a dashboard that meets your needs.

This new report summarizes:

• What a mind map dashboard is
• Benefits of dashboards
• What can you include in a dashboard?
• Types of dashboards and examples (with links to blog posts on each example)
• Tips for creating and managing dashboard mind maps

In short, it’s the ultimate guide to this useful type of visual map that will arm you with the knowledge you need to immediately begin creating your own dashboard.

(Please note: This report is only available to Mind Mapping Insider members. Please click here for membership information)

• Links to specific web pages and search tools used to track performance on each service
• Links to third party tools
• Links to the Excel spreadsheets that are used to capture the data from each social media site; in MindManager 8, the open in the viewing pane, which is quite convenient!

I think this map is going to be a real time-saver for me!

You can download this map as a MindManager .mmap file or as a PDF. I hope you enjoy it!

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If you have ever toyed with the idea of creating a personal dashboard, but didn’t quite know what one was or how it would benefit you, then I strongly urge you to read this post.

Here are some of the types of information that a personal dashboard may contain, according to Raj:

• Personal goals – career, relationship, etc.
• Tasks by time period – daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, long-term
• Personal tasks – meetings, appointments, reminders
• Work tasks
• Schedule
• Work log – a record of what you did, by day or even by hour
• Reading list – online (URLs), or print (list of magazines, books, authors)
• Passwords
• Notes in full text
• Links to finished documents, including word processor or spreadsheet files
• Design snippets

Raj then goes on to outline the capabilities of mind mapping software that makes it particularly well-suited to creating personal dashboards. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about this type of map, this post is an excellent primer!

Note: the home dashboard map pictured above comes from the BiggerPlate.com mind map library, and is available in MindManager .mmap form here.