• How to enable 30 people to co-edit a mind map
• Which mind mapping programs have an outline view?
• Concept mapping vs. mind mapping?
• A mind map template for conducting research
• Southbeach Modeler – a promising concept mapping tool
• Visualizing portfolio data

Mind Mapping Insider members can access this audio file and the valuable resources mentioned within it 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 December coaching call.

As part of Mindjet’s intensified focus on collaboration and team communication, MindManager 2012 was officially released today. It picks up some new features that help to support this direction, as well as some others designed to enhance the experience for new users of MindManager.

Here’s is a summary of the most significant new and enhanced features of MindManager 2012:

Helping new users get started faster

Redesigned ribbon toolbar: Mindjet has redesigned the toolbar in MindManager 2012 to place 80-90 percent of the most commonly-used features on the home tab. This makes it easier for new users to find the commands they’re looking for without leaving this tab, and should also speed the work of all users.

Video guides: The new program ships with a set of video guides (above) that appear in a panel on the left side of the work space, which explain how to perform common tasks with the program, as well as tips on what types of tasks it can be used for.

Right-hand tabs: The set of tabs on the right-hand side of the work space, which give access to icons, images, smart map parts and task data, are hidden by default for new users. The developer’s intent is to reduce the amount of visual clutter on the screen, which tends to confuse new users. They can be turned back on by clicking on the small folder icon in the lower right corner of the work space. Mindjet officials say that if you are upgrading from an earlier version, this “newbie” feature will be turned off – in other words, if you had tabs visible, they will still be there after you upgrade to the 2012 version.

Integration with online gallery: MindManager 2012 also displays mind maps from the developer’s growing MapsForThat.com map gallery, giving users access to hundreds of additional examples and starting points they can adapt for their own projects. In the template viewer, maps are categorized by type, with thumbnail images and explanations in a panel next to them. It was very slick to be able to drill down through this great collection of maps, which displayed and loaded quickly over a high-speed internet connection.

New users of mind mapping software almost always need some inspiration, according to my surveys. They want to see what others are doing with it. This integrated viewer is an awesome way to bring these map examples to users of MindManager 2012, within the program itself.

Longer term, Mindjet plans to make it possible to upload maps directly from MindManager to MapsForThat. If you want to be a thought leader in the mind mapping space, now’s the time to take MapsForThat seriously. As usage of the new version grows, your mind maps will be accessible to thousands of users worldwide!

Brainstorming capabilities

One of the most exciting new developments in MindManager 2012, at least for me (because I also write about creativity tools and software on InnovationTools.com) is the program’s new brainstorming feature. The developer licensed an add-in called TheRealizer (click here to read my review of it), and significantly expanded and improved it, with the help of the firm that created it. It now offers users of MindManager a process for defining a problem or challenge, generating ideas and evaluating them.

The program ships with predefined challenges; you can also create your own. Stimulation is provided by a large collection of question, image and word cards, which are designed to get your mind thinking in fresh, new directions. Finally, ideas can be categorized using a set of pre-defined idea types – or, once again, you can add your own types. Plus, MindManager 2012 provides a number of methods for refining your ideas, including Edward de Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats and attribute analysis. This is bound to be a powerful tool for many users of MindManager 2012.

Watch this blog for a separate post on this new feature. I interviewed Michael Deutch from Mindjet to learn more about how, specifically, this new toolset compares to TheRealizer. I was pleasantly surprised at just how far the team has expanded it. More details to come!

Real-time collaboration

MindManager 2012 will fully integrate with the new Connect workspace (see here for my coverage of it) and its CoHuman social task management component. A basic Connect account is free; Users of the desktop program and web client will be able to co-edit mind maps in real time; Mindjet says they plan to extend this capability to all of its mind map clients, regardless of platform – which means you will be able to co-edit maps from their mobile apps as well.

From within the program, I was able to use my Mindjet login as a springboard to create a new Connect account. I then signed into it from MindManager, created a simple map and saved it to Connect. It all worked very smoothly.

Other productivity enhancements

Multiple hyperlinks and attachments per topic: This is something that Mindjet has needed to do for a while, and I’m glad to see it in the 2012 version. I tried adding two random attachments to a topic in the program. The minute I added a second attachment, the paperclip icon gained a down arrow next to it, which can be used to display and select the list of attachments.

Enhanced integrated web browser: Since the integrated web browser debuted in MindManager several years ago, I have been disappointed that I couldn’t drag and drop content from web pages into my mind maps. MindManager 2012 will now support this capability. Also, Mindjet has added a home page icon to the browser’s toolbar, to make it more like a full desktop browser.

Improved power filter: MindManager’s power filter has always been an excellent tool. It’s just not that easy to figure out how to use at first glance. To address this issue, Mindjet has equipped its latest version of MindManager with a number of pre-set filters (above). This will help to transform the power filter from a tool only for power users into one that anyone can benefit from.

Powermarkers added: This is another tool that formerly was a plug-in for MindManager, but now has been integrated into the core functionality of the program. This tool extracts all of the task data contained in your mind map, and displays it in a vertical panel on the right side of the workspace. In other words, no matter where tasks are physically located within your mind maps, they will be visible to you in the Powermarkers sidebar, helping you to easily see your top priorities. The Powermarkers view is interactive: If you mark a task complete in your map, it will disappear from the Powermarkers view.

New map smart parts connect with online services: MindManager 2012 desktop and the web client will gain new map smart parts that will enable you to query popular online services like Twitter, Linkedin and Bing, as well as integration with Evernote, a popular personal information management tool (in which this post is being written, BTW!). In phase 1 of the Evernote integration, MindManager Web will be able to push information from your mind maps to Evernote. Longer term, you will be able to query your Evernote database and pull selected information from it into your maps.

With the map open in MindManager Web that I originally created in the desktop version of the program, I selected a first-level topic and clicked on the Export to Evernote button. A dialog box popped up with a set of radio buttons, giving me options: I could format the topic and its subtopics as an outline or an image (Evernote is very adept at handling both). For the outline, it provided a set a set of radio buttons to enable me to select the current topic, the current topic plus children, the map’s central topic and subtopic, or the complete map, including any floating topics. The dialog box also gave me the ability to edit the note title, the notebook to which it will be saved, tags and any additional comments. When you send it, a black, rectangular status box pops up to verify that the content you specified was sent to Evernote. That’s good interface design, especially when you have an action taking place that’s not visible to the user.

When I opened my Evernote account, I found a new note with the specified content, plus a link back to its exact location within Connect. I didn’t expect to see this last element, but considering that Mindjet now enables guest views of your map content, I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The process worked just as well for an image export to Evernote. In fact, it was very cool to see my mind map within this app, which I use heavily as an idea file and writing platform.

I also tried out the Twitter smart map part, and found it to be a another slick enhancement. You enter a search term and specify the number of results; MindManager quickly displays the latest tweets that match your search term, with meta data stored in a map note. I can see how this could be an awesome research tool.

The Linkedin map part searches your contacts, and displays any matching results. I can see how this would be useful if you’re looking for someone with a specific type of expertise – say, for example, “innovation.” You can quickly pull their contact information into your mind map, without having to open a web browser, navigate to Linkedin, login and perform the search there. Very cool! It’s great to see that after the idea of smart map parts wasn’t expanded in MindManager 9, it’s finally starting to show more promise – and a welcome social media focus – in version 2012!

Enhanced Sharepoint integration: Last year, Mindjet launched a Sharepoint-enabled version of MindManager that could query multiple Sharepoint databases at one time. Concurrent with the launch of MindManager 2012, Mindjet will release MindManager 2012 SP, which further enhances the program’s integration with this commonly-used enterprise information management tool. The new version adds a capability called MapShare, which will enable users of Sharepoint to view mind maps within this environment. In addition, users will be able to create mind maps from within Sharepoint, starting later this year. This product will also be integrated with Mindjet Connect.

For more details, please visit the MindManager 2012 Professional web page on the Mindjet website.

Conclusion

Mindjet is getting very aggressive at targeting the needs of enterprises, where teams are more frequently dispersed across multiple locations. Economic conditions have forced work groups to rely more on remote collaboration tools, which haven’t usually addressed all of their needs. As part of a larger collaboration and team communication framework, MindManager 2012 promises some impressive new gains in efficiency and productivity.

Even if you don’t need the Connect workspace, there appears to be much to like about MindManager 2012. I’m thrilled to see that brainstorming is now integrated into the program, for example. I’ve been saying for a long time that mind mapping software is a powerful creativity tool, because it enables you to capture your ideas, see connections between them, and build upon them. Now, Mindjet makes it possible to generate ideas from within the program.

I also applaud the steps that the developer is taking to make the program easier to use. Like many high-end mind mapping programs, MindManager can be daunting to first-time users. That’s a problem in enterprise environments, where the IT department doesn’t want to be answering a lot of “how do I do this?” questions. The program needs to be intuitive enough so users can figure out how to grow beyond the basics on their own, for the most part. If Mindjet can succeed in enabling newbies to get up to speed faster, as well as expose them to the types of applications for which MindManager can be used, it will have a major accomplishment on its hands.

Mindjet Connect

Mindjet Connect, announced earlier this week and available for the end of September, bears some resemblance to the developers existing Catalyst online document sharing and workspace application, including a web-based version of MindManager.

The biggest change with Connect, however, is expanded sharing: You can now invite an unlimited number of guests to collaborate on a mind map on an ad hoc basis, regardless of whether or not they have a Connect account. This will be a fully-functioning version of Connect and MindManager Web, not a “crippled” version for free users. In addition, a basic Connect account will be free. A business version will also be offered with more online storage space.

Also new is that new versions of the company’s mobile mapping solutions – its apps for iPad and iPhone – will be Connect enabled, so that users of these apps will be able to check out mind maps, edit them and then check them back in. In addition, these apps are now free, to encourage greater use. In the first 2 days after Mindjet’s mobile apps were changed to free apps, they were downloaded over 150,000 times.

Mindjet’s goal with this new direction is to open up mind mapping to an expanded universe of potential users, and to remove any potential barriers to adoption of its visual thinking solutions. “We want to focus on enabling communication and sharing, rather than ‘buy now,’” explains Mindjet CEO Scott Raskin.

MindManager Web will soon be enhanced with a rich web API, which will enable it to integrate with Google, Bing, Twitter, Linkedin and Evernote, which will enhance the value of this web-based mind mapping tool for information gathering and research. Users will be able to search these web services from within MindManager Web, and then pull data from them into their mind maps.

A basic Mindjet Connect account will be free; a business account will run you only US$15 per month and provides additional online storage. For existing customers of Mindjet Catalyst, the software developer has already announced on its blog that it will offer a migration plan to Connect later this year.

CoHuman acquisition

CoHuman is a provider of social task management. it’s a web-based application that enables teams to share information about projects and tasks and to share task assignments and status updates, in a familiar Twitter-like “stream.” You can assign people to tasks, follow people and tasks, obtain task status, and streamline project communication. Streams can be filtered and viewed in a number of flexible ways. The acquisition of CoHuman addresses the need to have a holistic view of all of your projects, without having to open multiple mind maps.

Initially, CoHuman will be run as a companion to Connect, but later this year, it will be fully integrated with Connect. Mindjet’s plan is to enable its mind mapping clients and CoHuman with two-way live communication, so that you can “push” task updates from MindManager to your CoHuman account and vice versa.

In this blog, we’ve talked from time to time about the Great Divide of mind mapping: Those people who are more left-brained and creative instinctively “get” it and love thinking in a non-linear fashion. But there’s another large group of pragmatic, linear, right-brained thinkers who view mind mapping is frivolous, not as a serious business tool. I asked the Mindjet team if the integration between MindManager, Connect and CoHuman will help to bridge this gap? The response was “definitely.”

What does this mean? Managers who prefer to view project and task information in a more tabular, linear format will feel right at home in CoHuman, and will still be able to manage project communication, without touching a mind map. Those who do feel comfortable with mind maps will work within MindManager. The project and task data will flow seamlessly between the two formerly disparate worlds.

Mindjet Connect and CoHuman will be available starting on September 22nd. The new versions of the Mindjet iPad and iPhone apps have already been released and are available via the Apple AppStore.

Conclusion

I applaud Mindjet’s change in direction – that is, offering Connect accounts, its mobile apps and access to collaborative map editing for free. This should open up the opportunity for many more people to experience and learn about the benefits of visual mapping and collaboration. The CoHuman acquisition is also very significant, because it bridges some important gaps in small team project communications, and lets people view data in a format that works best for them.

I can’t wait to see how this all comes together and evolves over the next few years. It will definitely be very interesting!

When you first install TPAssistCapture, it asks you to create any “quick links map” in MindManager, which defines the categories and tags actually used to classify your tasks, notes and ideas, and where items tagged with each category should be sent. This map is simply a set of topics corresponding to tasks, next actions, ideas and so forth, with hyperlinks to the maps you normally use to capture these items. What’s more, TPAssistCapture installs a right-click command in MindManager, which enables you to designate a specific topic within a map as the place where new items should be added as sub-topics. Very nice! When you run a separate “process” command in TPAssistCapture, the program uses this quick links map to distribute each item to its proper location.

TPAssistCapture runs as a “capture” icon in the Windows system tray. When you want to capture a bit of information, you single click this icon, type in your note, tag it with a category and send it. The program retreats once again to the system tray, so you can get back to the project you were working on. Each item entered into TPAssistCapture is placed into a queue for later processing. You can easily send multiple items using a “send and add another” button in the dialog box – a nice option if you have a bunch of ideas that you want to record at the same time. The program also gives you the option of attaching a file to any item entered in this dialog box as well. The system tray icon displays a tool tip that tells you how many items are waiting in the queue.

TPAssistCapture also provides you with another way to enter items: a “send map” command that takes an entire maps and adds it to the queue for processing. It stores the fully qualified name of the mind map in the queue, which is then used during processing to attach the map to the appropriate map and topic. The developer says this method is especially useful for processing notes during phone calls, ad hoc brainstorming or recording meeting minutes. I can foresee how this command could be used to create a map on the fly and then use a tag that you have set up in the quick links map to automatically attach it as a sub-map to your master map. I tried this with a few test maps, and it worked like a charm, with one minor limitation: you can only send to a topic, not to the central idea of your map.

You process queued items from within the TPAssist tab of the MindManager ribbon toolbar. When you click on the “process” command, the application opens each queued item, finds the associated quick link, follows its hyperlink and inserts the queued item as a new subtopic at the location specified in the quick links map. In addition to assigning items to MindManager maps on your computer, you can also send them to those you have stored in your mind jet connect account – nice!

If your job involves capturing and manipulating ideas, or if you frequently work with ad hoc, linked mind maps, then TPAssistCapture should be an essential part of your MindManager add-in toolbox. The program is a free download, but restricts you to creating only 6 categories or tags. If you purchase the developer’s flagship product, TPAssist (a task management utility for MindManager), this restriction is lifted.

GyroQ 2 is now MindManager 8 and Mindjet Connect compatible, which means you can easily send your tasks and ideas to any map, whether it’s stored locally on your computer or within a Mindjet Connect workspace. It’s nice to see a developer supporting this extended mapping environment!

New “send to project” tagging: The first version of GyroQ could be made to send ideas directly to a specific branch on a specific project map, but not without some really complex scripting. This capability is now built into GyroQ version 2. You can enable this by way of a right-click command in MindManager, which opens a dialog box where you can name the tag and give it a 2-3 letter shortcut. When you tag a topic in this way, a little yellow “tag” icon appears next to the designated topic. From then on, whenever you assign that tag to an idea, it will be added to the topic within the map that you have specified.

The other big new feature of GyroQ 2 is a Map Builder Wizard. Simply put, if you have a process where you need to capture a specific set of information, the Map Builder Wizard can automate that for you, providing a pop-up window that asks you the questions, one at a time, captures the answers, and inserts them into your map (see screen capture, above right). The Wizard is accessed via a right-click command.

The magic behind the scenes happens in a separate map that is used to formulate the questions and the order in which they will be asked. GyroQ 2 reads this map and generates a script based on it that populates the pop-up window to ask the questions in your main map. For example, any topic that you tag with a question mark icon becomes a question in your Map Builder script. A question topic with 3 sub-topics becomes a drop-down box with 3 choices. Notes are used to store the question text. It all sounds a little complicated in writing, but is clearly explained in a video demonstration by Nik Tipler from Gyronix. What’s important is that you don’t need to be a programmer to set up a Wizard, because you create it using MindManager tools that are very familiar.

GyroQ 2 also includes several other enhancements, including the ability to archive up to 5 past queue files, so you don’t lose your ideas if GyroQ crashes. Also, in the program’s settings, you can choose a Mindjet Connect map as your default map.

GyroQ 2 is available for $49.95 from a special page within the Gyronix web store; however, if you watch Nik’s video, you’ll learn about a special promotion code that will reduce this price to $24.97. You can also download a 15-day trial version from this page. This looks like a worthwhile upload to what I consider to be one of the most valuable MindManager add-ins.

One of the real advantages of this program is that it appeals not only to “power users” but it is also well enough designed that a newcomer can get started with the basics, without becoming too overwhelmed. Another benefit is that MindManager is supported by a dedicated group of developers who write a variety of add-ins that further extend its functionality – and your productivity. As with any “deep” product, it’s hard for the average person to fully understand all that this program is capable of.

That’s why I’ve assembled this list of 10 lesser-known capabilities of MindManager that can help you to increase your productivity:

(BTW, if you’re still using version 7, that’s OK – these applications work in version 7.2  and newer):

1. Pull the contents of RSS feeds into your maps: The News Feed Map Part, which ships with MindManager, makes it easy to drag, drop and configure an RSS feed and make it part of your mind map. Unlike an RSS reader, which shows you all of your feeds at once, you can easily monitor multiple feeds in your maps by expanding and collapsing their parent topics.

2. Manage your next actions using David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, using an add-in program called ResultsManager from Gyronix. ResultsManager sweeps maps looking for incomplete activities, and pulls them into a new dashboard map that helps you to clearly see next actions and priorities. It enables you to decide what needs to be done today, to carry out a weekly review of projects and next actions, and to analyze who owes what to whom on your projects. ResultsManager also enables you to synchronize tasks across multiple maps with Microsoft Outlook.

3. Share your maps with others, utilizing the Mindjet Connect collaborative workspace tool. It enables you to share your maps with your colleagues in a secure online environment, with check-in/check-out capabilities. If your co-workers also use MindManager, they can easily check out, edit and check maps back into Connect; if not, they can use Mindjet’s new web mapping client, MindManager Web to do the same (click here for more information on Mindjet Connect).

4. Insert ranges of Excel spreadsheet cells into your maps. This is very useful for business plans, forecasts and management dashboards. In addition, these cell ranges are “live” data – so if you update the data they contain in your map, they will also be changed in the Excel spreadsheet from which they are drawn.

5. Link individual Outlook e-mails to your mind maps. Business mind maps are often sophisticated collections of knowledge, ideas and information. Increasingly, this content comes to you in the form of e-mails. The ability to pull the contents of individual e-mails into your maps – as well as the ability to link back to the location of those e-mails within Outlook – is extremely useful to me.

6. Share your maps via Microsoft SharePoint. You can easily use SharePoint as a platform to share your MindManager maps, including check-in and check-out for version control, as described in  this Mindjet white paper. But using an add-in called IntelliGantt from Team Direction makes it possible to extract task data from your map, upload it to SharePoint, and synchronize it back to your map, as described in my blog post here.

7. Map the contents of your files and folders using the File Explorer Map Part. This tool enables you to map the folders on your PC and/or the files they contain, inserting a shortcut to each file. This can be especially valuable if you’re working on a project where a large percentage of the supporting information or data is stored outside of your mind map. You can simply add this “smart part” as a branch to your map, and you instantly have a list of all of the files contained in the corresponding project folder on your hard drive.

8. Quickly add ideas to your maps – without even opening MindManager. You can do this with a cool little add-in called GyroQ from Gyronix. GyroQ sits in your Windows system tray until it’s invoked with the Ctrl-Q command. A small horizontal window pops up containing an “action item” form field, plus 3 buttons. Simply type in your thought and click the Enter key or the “add” button on the GyroQ workspace, and your idea gets added to a queue within the application. GyroQ then disappears, so you can get back to what you were doing before. When you’re ready to deal with your accumulated ideas, you simply click the “send” button in GyroQ, and the program dumps everything into the MindManager map that you have designated in its preferences. Very cool!

9. Visualize and interact with your Salesforce.com CRM data, utilizing the MindManager Accelerator for Salesforce.com. It extracts account and opportunity information from Salesforce.com screens and places it in straightforward, visually detailed map dashboards. This makes it easier for salespeople to analyze, update, organize, and exploit their customer data and quickly identify individual and team sales opportunities.

10. Dictate topics and notes into MindManager using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I recently upgraded to version 10 of DNS, and it works very well with MindManager, especially for dictating copy into the notes window.

Why not give some of these capabilities and tools a try today?

Let’s take a closer look at the groundbreaking features of MindManager 8, which I have had a chance to work with under non-disclosure agreement for the last month or so:

Embedded browser: This is such a simple idea – displaying the contents of attached files and web page links within the map workspace, using an embedded browser – that it now seems surprising to me that no one thought of it until now. This new feature is a pleasure to use, because all of your map’s assets are displayed in a single window, instead of popping up in separate ones all over your computer’s screen. What’s especially cool is that you can actually edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in the browser window – without leaving MindManager. As I type this, I have actually opened the Word document in which I’m writing this blog post within MindManager 8, and am editing it in the embedded browser window. Pretty cool!

Database integration: For years, Mindjet has steadily grown MindManager’s ability to connect with outside sources of information, knowledge and ideas – starting with attachments and links, and growing to encompass Microsoft Office files and Outlook e-mails. The big component that’s been missing has been database integration – until now. MindManager 8 can import data from Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQLServer, MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft Excel and TXT and CSV text files, where you can work with it visually within your maps.

Adding data to your map is very easy: Using a database pane on the right side of the workspace, you first tell MindManager what data source you want to access, and select the table from which you want data to be pulled (the program can only query one table at a time; if your data spans several tables, then you’re best off to create a “view” within your database of choice, which MindManager treats as if it’s a single table). Then you type in the query – the text string – that you want to use to search the recordset. You can then select the fields you want to be displayed, and add the selected records to a topic in your map. Each record appears as a separate sub-topic. You can also drag and drop individual records from the database pane and attach them to topics within your map. Each record is live, and is updated each time the map is opened or when you click the “refresh” icon in the data record.

Once you’ve placed your data in your map, you can right-click the data repository icon on any record and manipulate it further, editing its values, modifying which fields are shown versus hidden, disconnecting the record from  the database and converting it to a topic. The bottom line is that this feature alone is worth the upgrade to MindManager 8 – it is very elegantly implemented and was a pleasure to play around with! To help you to better understand this powerful new functionality, I have created the screencast below:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/mm8-database/mm8-database.swf" height="449" width="599" /]

Task automation: If you do a lot of project management, you’ll appreciate this new feature. MindManager 8 now automates the calculation of task information and completion percentages. It is also designed to roll-up task start/end dates and percentage completion of parent topics, based upon the status of their sub-topics. It can also flag past due tasks based on date criteria that you set. All of this functionality can be accessed from an integrated task pane, which incorporates MindManager’s basic task management capabilities as well as the roll-up options. A new version of JCVGantt (which Mindjet recently acquired), version 3.3, supports MindManager 8 and takes over the task roll-up functionality if it’s installed.

Expanded export options: One shortcoming of mind mapping software is that it has always been hard to share maps with others who don’t have licensed copies of it – while also preserving their interactivity. Maps could either be exported to a static format, such as a PDF or image file, or shared as a fully interactive read-only file, but the only option was to download a viewer program in order to open it. Not an ideal option for some corporate environments.

Mindjet has found a clever solution to this challenge: MindManager 8 leverages the integration between PDF and Flash technology that Adobe recently added to the popular Acrobat Reader. You can now export your maps to an enhanced PDF format that supports expanding and contracting of map branches, clickable web links, searching within the text of the map and zooming in and out to better view the map. Nice! MindManager 8 also enables you to export directly to a Flash SWF file format, so you can incorporate your maps into blogs and web pages. Mindjet calls this new export tool the MindManager Player.

More Map Parts: One of the most promising new features in recent versions of MindManager has been the addition of “Map Parts” – pre-formatted applets you could drag and drop into your maps to conduct Google searches and import RSS feeds to your maps, for example. MindManager 8 adds many new web services, including Map Part connectors for Google, Yahoo and Windows Live searches, MySpace and Facebook social networking, and Amazon.com, eBay and the StrikeIron D&B business listing service. Version 8 of MindManager also offers an API, so developers can easily build additional Map Part connectors for use with the program. I hope Mindjet continues to add to these services; it would be great to see Map Parts for LinkedIn, Digg.com, Twitter and other increasingly popular web services.

Improved collaboration: The MindManager 8 ribbon toolbar now contains a “Connect” tab, to make it easier to access the Mindjet Connect collaborative workspace. In the past, all Connect functionality was hidden in the lower left corner of the workspace, which made it hard for some users to find. The new arrangement makes it easier to access your workspaces and invite others to collaborate within them. With MindManager 8 and Mindjet’s new web client, MindManager Web, you now have two options for collaborating with your team members and project partners: You can either send them “player files” (enhanced PDFs that are read-only) or you can invite them to contribute to your maps via a shared workspace and the MindManager Web client.  This triumvirate of MindManager, MindManager Web and Mindjet Connect should help many companies drive greater productivity and efficiency through improved collaboration.

I always try to integrate the programs I’m evaluating into my workflow, and this one has been no exception. I’ve actually been using MindManager to maintain a list of future blog topics, which I access via my laptop at my full-time job. It’s stored in a Mindjet Connect workspace. When I’m at home, I use MindManager Web to access it and add ideas to it. This arrangement has worked really well, and the tools are all very well integrated and performed flawlessly.

Conclusion

MindManager 8 is a giant leap forward for business users of visual mapping. Its well-designed integrated workspace, database connectivity and vastly improved map sharing and collaboration capabilities will save you time and should take your productivity to a whole new level. This is much more than just another incremental software upgrade. The cumulative effect of all of these improvements represents a quantum leap for anyone who needs to gather, manipulate and share large amounts of information, data, knowledge and ideas.

If you are already using a previous version of MindManager, there’s enough new value here to make upgrading to version 8 a no brainer. If you’re new to visual mapping, you’ll find that MindManager 8’s elegant design is easy to get started with, but also has enough advanced functionality under the hood to please even the most finicky power user.

Pricing of MindManager 8 remains the same as version 7: US$349 per user, and a special introductory upgrade price of $129 (which will increase to the retail upgrade price of $179 after December 31, 2008). Each copy of MindManager 8 also comes with 6 months of free access to Mindjet Connect, so you can get acquainted with the productivity benefits of this marvelous collaboration tool. The subscription cost for MindManager Web is $120 per user per year (click here fore my review of MindManager Web).

A trial version of MindManager 8 is available for download from the Mindjet website; I strongly urge you to take a look the program that computer industry analyst firm IDC calls “a game changer.”

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