Four courses are being offered initially:

• An introduction to mind mapping
• Mind mapping for marketers
• Mind mapping for business planning
• Mind mapping for innovation

Training will be provided on any one of the four mind mapping software programs that the website currently supports: MindManager, iMindMap, XMind and MindGenius, and can be tailored to the needs of specific clients and their needs.

I was curious about what’s behind this move, so I interviewed Biggerplate.com founder Liam Hughes via e-mail:

Chuck: What made you decide to launch this service? What unfulfilled needs did you see that you aim to fill with your training programs?

Liam: We have done various pieces of mind map training over the years, but it never quite felt like the right time to invest in making this a more structured and/or widely available part of the business. After the growth and success of Biggerplate.com in 2011 however, I felt that the offline side of our business was failing to match the standards set by the online side, and I wanted to change this. We felt there was a need (and a space) for more targeted training services that focus on particular processes or job functions using mind maps, and this is what our training products aim to do. We currently have a program focused on marketers, a program focused on business planning, and a program focused on innovation, with others in the pipeline. The idea is to provide a training experience that is entirely focused on practical contextual learning.

Another consideration was the huge disparity in the price of training services that we saw elsewhere, and the belief that we could be very competitive in this area due to the strength of our online business. We set ourselves the objective of designing a range of products that could be delivered worldwide at prices that were competitive, regardless of where the training takes place. With Biggerplate being a global community of mappers, it was extremely important for us to be global in our thinking about these services, which means ensuring people who want training overseas are not financially penalized for the fact that we are based in the UK! It’s taken a little longer than planned, but we are very happy with the outcome!

Chuck: Will you be the person who delivers the training worldwide, or will you hire others to do so outside of the UK?

Liam: All training around the world will be delivered by myself and the Biggerplate team, which we are very excited about! (We don’t get out much…)

It’s important for us to ensure the style, tone, quality, and delivery of the training experience fits with what people associate with Biggerplate and expect from our brand. At this stage, this can only be achieved by keeping everything ‘in-house’, and that’s why we do not hire others to do training on our behalf. We have been fortunate enough to establish a strong name for ourselves in the mind mapping world, and I would not want to damage that by having anyone feeling short-changed by us, or having a training experience that falls below the standards we set.

It’s also important and enjoyable for us to meet mind mappers and our members in person, and this is something we have been more focused on over the last year. Our aim is to combine training assignments abroad (and in the UK) with opportunities to host small public events for our members in the local area, with a view to further strengthening the connection between Biggerplate and our users around the world, as well as the connections within the mind mapping community as a whole, which is a key part of our overall mission.

Chuck: A number of software resellers already offer mind mapping software training. How will the training from Biggerplate.com be different, better or unique?

Liam: Our aim is to be specific and focused on the practical use of mapping and mapping software within a particular context. This means if you are a marketer, for example, we’ll show you the ways in which mapping can be used in specific marketing situations and processes, rather than giving you the A-Z of everything a particular mapping program can do. Software training can sometimes be like being taught to drive by the maker of your car. By the end of it, you may know everything about the body, the engine, the lights on the dash, and the service plans available, but that information does not exactly prepare you for the reality of the open road, or even how to pull out of the parking lot!

Perhaps an advantage we have is that we don’t sell mapping software, and neither do we need to make it look great; it will do that by itself when left in the hands of someone who fully understands the contexts in which it can be put to use most effectively. Our job is to give people that understanding, and the confidence to explore mapping in ways that make sense to their everyday working lives. The mind map library and community at Biggerplate gives us truly unique perspectives on how people around the world are using maps in a variety of organizations and situations. It is this knowledge and understanding that enables us to help others do the same!

Chuck: What kind of training materials will participants receive as part of your on-site training? (such as a manual or worksheets)

Liam: We call it “The Playbook.” It’s a workbook or manual that is specific to whichever training program a person is taking with us. It is used for various exercises during the workshops, and also contains a huge amount of practical “when you want to do this, click here” type information, as well as numerous map examples and templates to provide food for thought. It has a distinct Biggerplate “tone” to it, and also contains suggestions, ideas, exercises and activities that can be carried out after the training is completed to try and reinforce learning once participants are back to the reality of daily working life. It also contains information about other sources of quality mind mapping information, such as this blog, and some of the other great sites that mapping experts around the world are running for the benefit of others.

Chuck: What is your experience in a corporate environment? How does this give you a unique perspective on the needs of business people?

Liam: In the early years of Biggerplate (2007-2009), my working life was divided between developing the Biggerplate website and working within my dad’s small consultancy firm, delivering training and consultancy services to businesses all over the world. The business is largely focused on change management, strategic planning and executive training programs. It was what you might call a baptism of fire for someone who was straight out of university and looking to build a mind map library!

The experience was invaluable in helping me understand the value of making information and problems more visible and visual. I gradually integrated mind mapping into more and more of the work we were doing, usually with great effect. From small to large businesses, a key problem that many people have is that information, learning and problems are largely buried on hard drives or in “the cloud.” Working with people to overcome these issues served to reinforce my belief that mind mapping is a powerful tool to overcome these issues, provided people could see the relevance of it to their particular department, job role or challenge.

This is something I think the mind mapping world has perhaps been slow to deal with, and in many cases we sing the virtues of mapping, almost as if the map is the end goal in itself. It is not necessarily the answer to everything, and in many cases is simply another tool to be used as part of a set in order to complete a particular process. However, my work in this area served to reaffirm that people are far more able to make sense of complexity when it is made more visually accessible, and maps are a great way to do this!

As Biggerplate has grown into a fully-fledged business, I have been fortunate enough to meet and work with a number of interesting individuals and businesses of all shapes and sizes around the world, who have helped me to further develop an understanding of where mind mapping can fit into daily life to improve performance, understanding and results. The training services we have designed keeps these ideas at their core, and when combined with the learning and experience we have from our library and community, we think the final products are unique in terms of their focus on context-specific learning and practical mind map training.

Chuck: Any thought of delivering this type of training via GoToMeeting, WebEx or other web conferencing applications?

Liam: It’s certainly on our radar, because this is obviously the way that much of the world is going. On a personal level, I prefer to be in a room with people and engaging with them in person. You can feel and respond to the energy and interests of the group in a way that just not possible online, ensuring people get what they want out of a training session. However, the realities are that you can’t be everywhere at once, and some people simply won’t be able to access our training services, no matter how affordable we try to make them, because of budgetary restrictions or other factors. We therefore need to come up with an answer, and perhaps online training webinars are the way forward.

We may go part of the way to solving this issue when we rebuild the tutorials section of our website later in the year. On the old version of Biggerplate, which as retired in March 2011, this was a highly visited but poorly constructed area of the site, and we decided not to rebuild it until we knew we could do it properly. The new tutorials area will pull together the best video tutorials on the web from software developers and mind mapping experts, to provide a learning hub that will hopefully help numerous people to get to grips with mind mapping without necessarily having to engage with paid training services. While we will be sad not to see them in person, if they can become a mind mapping expert by spending time in the new tutorials section, then we’ll consider that a win, too!

MindGenius Ltd. just announced an update to its mind mapping program that should significantly broaden its appeal to enterprises. MindGenius 4.2 now supports SharePoint check-out/check-in and you can export your project map data directly to Microsoft Excel.

SharePoint integration

In the past, if you wanted SharePoint integration, you had to get your hands on a special version of MindManager. All that’s changed with MindGenius 4.2. Check-in/check-out ensures that only one person at a time can edit a mind map. If you have it checked out, no one else can edit it, but they can still view it in read-only mode. This gives you greater control over shared mind maps in a team environment.

MindGenius 4.2 is compatible with SharePoint 2007 and 2010; SharePoint 2003 is not supported. For MindGenius files to be recognized by SharePoint, your SharePoint administrator will need to register MindGenius file types and icons with the SharePoint server. This is not something that the average worker can do on their own.

You can open mind maps hosted on your organization’s SharePoint server either by using a mapped drive on your computer or by typing the SharePoint server URL into the file/open dialog box.

Also, you can perform version control by assigning a version number to your mind map, each time it’s updated. Finally, if you have a map checked out, it is stored locally, so you can take it on the road with you and edit it while offline. Nice!

Excel export Gantt view

Most mind mapping programs that have project and task management capabilities also offer a Gantt chart. That’s somewhat useful. But what if some members of your team don’t have MindGenius – or Microsoft Project? With MindGenius 4.2, you can now export your Gantt chart to an Excel spreadsheet. This should be a great solution for many users of MindGenius, because the Microsoft Office suite is so widely used worldwide.

MindGenius 4.2 offers a number of options to help you customize your exported project data, including:

• Calculate column summaries in Excel
• Apply grouping – in other words, you can expand or collapse “branches” within the spreadsheet, in much the same way as you can expand and contract mind map branches.
• Retain the colors and styling of your mind map or export a plain, black-and-white spreadsheet
• Export range – export the current map view or the entire contents of your mind map

Of course, you need to make sure your mind map is arranged in a meaningful way before you perform your export to Excel.

This is a very positive move for enterprise users of MindGenius. Version 4.2 is a free download for current users of MindGenius 4. For more details, please visit the upgrade page on the developer’s website.

• Moving mind maps between the iPhone and desktop mind mapping software
• Do tablet-based mind mapping applications support handwriting recognition?
• Fitting mind mapping into your daily productivity workflow
• Tinderbox for the Mac
• MindManager vs. iMindMap – which is best?
• Getting high school students to use mind mapping software for class writing projects

Mind Mapping Insider members can access this audio file using the link below:

If you cannot see the link, you need to become a member of the Mind Mapping Insider membership group. It’s inexpensive – about the price of a few large cups of premium coffee per month! Click here to learn how.

Please be sure to send me your questions for the June coaching call. You can use the contact form on this blog to submit them or send them to me via Twitter.

Brainstorming mode

This new ideation tool (pictured above right – click to view bigger version) opens in a new window. You enter your ideas in a panel on the left side of the workspace. As you add ideas, they are displayed in a grid of rectangular boxes, which make efficient use of screen real estate and enable you to easily see all of your ideas. This is important, because during brainstorming sessions, one idea may serve as a stepping stone to another. The focus in brainstorming mode is on entering ideas quickly, without regard to their structure. You can use some built-in question sets to help facilitate your next group brainstorming session, or create and save your own, which you can re-use on future projects – nice!

The left-hand panel of the brainstorming view also contains a countdown timer, useful for those team meetings where you want to set a time limit on idea generation. It also contains a panel of questions that you can use as catalysts to spur creative ideas. It initially displays the “5 Ws and H” – who, what, when, where, why and how, with multiple questions under each heading.Clicking on the “question sets” button in the brainstorming window’s toolbar reveals 20 sets of business-oriented questions, covering everything from failure mode analysis, marketing and decision making to project planning and meeting management. Clearly, a lot of work went into the creation of these business-focused questions.

From the drop-down list of questions, you can access an “add/edit question sets” command, which opens a second window with a simple two-panel interface where you can create your own list of questions from scratch, based upon an existing question set or edit an existing one. This is potentially very powerful, in my opinion, because you can create a standardized set of brainstorming questions that everyone on your team can use.

Also, by clicking on a button within this side panel, you can customize the categories to which you will assign your ideas. The category management dialog box is well designed, with categories divided into “brainstorming,” “impact,” “difficulty” and “review.” To edit a category, you simply select it and click the “rename” button. You can also add and delete categories at will. As an experienced brainstormer, I’m thrilled to see that MindGenius included “impact” and “difficulty” in the list of categories. Why? Because they are two key criteria that are typically used to evaluate ideas. If your organization uses other criteria, such as cost or ease of implementation, you can easily create new category groups and create values that you can use to evaluate ideas in MindGenius 4. In addition, you can right-click on any category you have created and add it to “my categories” – so it can be used in other mind maps. I love this level of flexibility and customization!

Once you’re happy with your categories and groups, you can then assign them to specific ideas, using a group of colored icons in the toolbar. Click the category you want to add, and a small icon corresponding to that category is added to the idea. One really nice touch is that when you hover over one of these icons, either in the program’s toolbar or next to an idea, a tooltip pops up to remind you what that icon means. That saved me a lot of confusion as I was playing around with this part of MindGenius 4. Kudos to the developers for paying such close attention to usability!

The final step in brainstorming mode is to create a mind map from the ideas you have gathered. MindGenius 4 gives you three options:

• Create an unstructured map
• Create a category-centric map
• Create a question-centric map

Selecting the first option creates a traditional mind map with each of your ideas formatted as a separate child topic, still displaying the icons you assigned to them. Selecting the second option creates a map with an org chart type of layout, with your ideas neatly added to the proper categories.The question-centric map displays a right-facing mind map, with a progression from your brainstorm name, to the question and the ideas that resulted from it, from left to right. This gives you a nice “roadmap” to document where each idea came from. Nicely done!

While it’s not unusual for mind mapping software to have a brainstorming mode, the depth of capabilities and customization offered in MindGenius 4′s brainstorming mode is simply astounding. If your job involves generating, organizing and evaluating ideas, then you’ll want to have this tool on your computer – because it will greatly simplify your life!

Presentation mode

Like a number of mind mapping softtware programs, the developers of MindGenius have adopted the slide show presentation model in version 4. In other words, you select one or more topics from your mind map, and then tell the program to add a “snapshot” containing those branches and sub-branches into a slide in your presentation (see image at right; click to view larger version).

MindGenius has done a fine job of implementing this new mode. When you select a branch and add it to your presentation, it appears not only in a vertical panel on the left side of the screen – a la PowerPoint – but also in the main workspace. In other words, the map view changes to show the topics and subtopics you have selected for that slide. From this view, you can easily zoom in and out and pan up and down and side to side, to position your topics exactly as you want them to appear in your presentation.

These positioning tweaks are more important than you might think, because you can actually add text (a slide title, for example) and images to your slides from within this view. In addition, you can add a background to your slides (choosing from a nicely designed set of patterns included with the program or use your own image file) to give them a professional look. You can also apply transitions to slides. Clearly the developers at MindGenius saw an opportunity to rethink the whole concept of what a mind mapping presentation view could do, because they’ve definitely kicked it up a few notches over anything I’ve seen before!

When you’re done manipulating your slide, a “return to map” button in the program’s toolbar returns you to the main map view. If you want to quickly convert a set of child topics into separate slides, one per topic, that’s also fairly easy to do. MindGenius treats each of the sibling topics as its own slide, and can even do so without switching to the presentation view – a real time saver. Finally, as you would expect, you can edit or annotate map branches in your slides during your presentation – which can make for a very interactive experience during your next meeting!

Learn more about MindGenius 4

There is much more to MindGenius 4, which you can learn about at the program’s new product page.

Conclusion

I’m very impressed with the progress that the developers have made in the new brainstorming and presentation capabilites of MindGenius 4. I’m a stickler for intelligent, intuitive interface design, and I’m happy to report that both of the new views are winners in my book. I also don’t like it when developers pile on new features just for the sake of doing so. Ideally, new features ought to hep users to be more productive or creative. Again, MindGenius 4 excels on all counts. It’s an ideal program for capturing, organizing, evaluating and presenting your business ideas!

A 30-day trial version of MindGenius 4 is available from the developer’s website.

The Most Improved Mind Mapping Software of 2009 is (drumroll)… MindManager.

The top 5 most improved programs, based on 215 responses, were:

1. MindManager (26.0%)
2. NovaMind (20.9%)
3. iMindMap (11.2%)
4. PersonalBrain (11.2%)
5. XMind (10.7%)

To view the full results as a stacked bar chart, please click on the image above.

It’s no surprise to me that MindManager was ranked number one. It has tremendous name recognition in this niche, and after some incremental improvements and a mediocre attempt at creating a collaboration tool (Mindjet Connect) in 2008, the company finally got it right in 2009 with Catalyst, a polished, full-featured collaboration environment that is really quite good.

This survey also shows us which programs are coming on strong as innovators. Gideon King and his development team at NovaMind have been relentless in pushing the envelope in terms of what’s possible with mind mapping software. It’s really cool to see that you, the readers of this blog, recognize their efforts, by NovaMind the second most improved mind mapping program in 2009 – and, significantly, only 6% behind MindManager!

iMindMap and XMind are fairly new entrants to the field of mind mapping software, making it very impressive that they came in number 3 and number 5. It appears that users and fans of mind mapping software recognize their developers’ commitment to innovation, too!

Finally, the survey results demonstrate that some of the developers of mind mapping software need to do some work in building name recognition. DropMind Desktop (37.7%), MindView (31.2%), VisualMind (30.7%) and MindGenius (27.9%) led the pack in terms of software programs that respondents weren’t aware of. DropMind is fairly new, and MindView was formerly OpenMind (the name change took place in early 2009), so those relatively high numbers are easy to understand. The other two programs have been around for a while, and I’m not sure why respondents aren’t aware of them.

Thanks to all of you who participated in this interesting survey!

This post has generated a record number of comments, and they continue to roll in. Commenters have generally agreed with my assertion, but there have also been some people who have highlighted some compelling reasons why this WON’T happen. It’s been a lively debate, and I encourage you to check it out and add your opinions to the mix.

As a next step, I decided to ask the developers of mind mapping software to comment on this prediction. They are closer to the actual users than most of us, which puts them in an ideal position to see the future direction of this software niche.

Here’s what they had to say:

Mind mapping, as a technique, is relatively unknown in the business world outside of a handful of countries like Germany, where it is taught in schools. Until now, it has been difficult for mind mapping enthusiasts to get the word out on the technique and many information workers remain unaware of the technology and its benefits. Mind mapping software tends to enter businesses through individual enthusiasts rather than through the IT department.

The primary way that someone learns about mind mapping is to observe a business associate who is using a mind mapping application to accomplish a specific task. What’s more, in the past, the only way for a business user to share their maps with others was to send a static PDF or “reader” version of their map, requiring the recipient to download a compromised application in order to interact with the file or view a flat image of a mind map.

Now, mind mapping software manufacturers are making the experience of an information map much more readily available to non-users with things like the “Mindjet Player” that allows map producers to send fully interactive maps embedded in a PDF file that gives anyone the multi-dimensional experience of working in a map. In addition, with the expansion of online mapping, people are able to collaborate remotely around a mind map with an experienced mapper in the driver seat giving non-mappers live exposure to the actual mapping process anytime, anywhere.

For the last 10-15 years, business users believed they had enough productivity tools. In fact, most of them believe they have too much unused productivity technology at their disposal. Now, with business environments getting more and more competitive and access to information creating even more stress, people are once more looking for a better way of doing things.  People in information-intensive professions like project management, sales and marketing, IT, web development, and other areas are looking for ways to make themselves stand out and be more competitive.

However, just seeing mind mapping technology in action is not enough to convince most people to take the necessary steps to change the way they work every day. It must be viewed as relevant and useful to the task at hand. More and more companies are using the technique as a central tool for project management, sales force enablement, of repetitive consulting s, strategic planning and more.

As the technique becomes more and more embedded in mission critical business applications, not only will individuals gain more exposure to the technology, but the technology will become a mandatory tool for success of work groups.

– Neil Mendelson, VP of Development, Mindjet

It totally depends on your definition of mainstream – if mainstream means that more than 50% of the population access and use mind mapping techniques on a daily basis, then the answer is a categorical No Chance!

For mapping to go mainstream it requires a significant change in human behavior and in doing so break the (bad) habits of a lifetime – the adage of teaching an old dog new tricks comes to mind!

Don’t get me wrong. You will always get exceptions to the rule, but in my opinion we are a generation away from mapping being truly mainstream. Sorry to burst the bubble, but ultimately I am a realistic Scot!

That does not mean to say that growth in mapping cannot be significant in 2009 and the years ahead – I genuinely believe it can, but it won’t happen simply by developers pouring additional gimmicks, bells and whistles into their applications (although that will always appeal to a small minority).

The bottom line is that mapping will go mainstream when a significant number of senior people within organizations (say 20%) recognize that the results they achieve by using mapping techniques (as individuals and as teams) far outweigh anything done previously. This improvement must be attributed directly to the use of mapping techniques across their business. It’s simple in concept. It’s just the that is a bit challenging!

Mapping lets you do things that were not practical before – drawing comparisons around successful outcomes is a no brainer!

I genuinely believe you have a role to play in making mapping mainstream, but focusing on functionality is not going to impress beyond the early adopters or the gadget chasers. Instead I believe we need a body of people conveying at every opportunity the outstanding business results that can be achieved through mapping techniques. The emphasis has to change.

You will notice I have dropped any reference to mind mapping in my discussion – it is deliberate, it is dated, it carries too much baggage and doesn’t really represent our industry at all. What can be achieved using mapping tools these days far outweighs ANYTHING associated with a sheet of paper and 4 colored pens!

– Donald Maciver, General Manager, MindGenius

Definitely 2009 will be a critical year.  I’ll approach it from 2 points.

From the mind mapping software developer’s point of view, our software is becoming more than just a mind map software.  We have mainstream features built into our MindMapper software, such as MS Office integration, project management and Gantt charts, Internet search, etc.  We can also “draw” so many different types of diagrams than just the traditional mind maps, so users will be able to easily adopt MindMapper into their every day usage.

From the user’s point of view, mind maps are gaining awareness more than ever before.  And now the products in the market are mature enough to satisfy a wide spectrum of mind map users, from novices to mind map professionals.

– Patrick Koh, MindMapper USA

I would argue that it has entered the mainstream already. Ten years ago no one knew what mind mapping was, today it has entered the business vernacular. We hear customers say to us all of the time I need to map out what I am doing. Maps are used everywhere now. I do not think that you could visit a single company that is over 2,000 people and not find mind mapping used. When we visit customers we see maps printed hanging on the walls, we see maps written out on whiteboards in conference rooms. Mapping is in the here and now, it is not just some futuristic maybe in ten year idea.

What I think we will see more of in 2009 is the benefits that come from people mind mapping. The ability for people to get the 10,000-meter view of what is important to them. Few other tools can deliver this macro view in such clarity. There will be more discovery in 2009 because of the mind map’s ability to present this. I see that mind mapping will have a big effect on non-technology oriented companies as they look to implement best practices in 2009.

– Matt Lewis, CS Odessa (developer of ConceptDraw MINDMAP)

If you have an opinion on the future direction of mind mapping software and its adoption by business, please share it in the comments area below.

• It includes a new default template for more streamlined and professional maps, and
• When you move branches from one location in your map to another, an outline of your branch appears to give you visual feedback on where they will be placed.

This update is a free download for customers who own licensed copies of MindGenius.

I recently had an e-mail conversation with MacIver, and he agreed to let me share with you a bit of background about MindGenius, and what’s next for this mind mapping application. MindGenius has been produced by Gael Quality, a business based in Scotland whose flagship product is actually Q-Pulse – a software program that helps companies to manage compliance. MindGenius was developed almost as a hobby, a side pursuit of MacIver and his business partner. For several years, growing the business for Q-Pulse occupied all of their time, and MindGenius went fallow.

I’ll let MacIver explain the most recent turn of events in his own words:

“For a number of years, MindGenius has been treated as a poor cousin in the grand scheme of things, but Derek Jack and I (as owners) decided that with Q-Pulse doing great and with an excellent succession management team in place, we could afford to step back a bit from that business and develop the potential that we see in MindGenius and opted to give it a real go.

This is why we took MindGenius out of the Gael business in March and set up MindGenius Ltd as a separate entity. Derek and I have physically moved out of the Gael Office to kick start MindGenius in a new direction and we discipline ourselves to only get involved 4 hours a week in the Q-Pulse business, allowing us the freedom to explore where we want to go with MindGenius in the next 3 years . We already have taken significant strides on that journey. We might seem quite for another 9 months, but behind all that there is significant work going on – rest assured, we are in this game for the long haul and we think we can do with MindGenius what we have achieved with Q-Pulse, except on a grander scale.”

MacIver declined to discuss specifics about their planned direction for MindGenius, but I have no doubt it will be quite interesting!