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!

MindManager 2012 features an integrated web browser. This isn’t a new feature; it actually debuted with MindManager 2009, the previous version of the program. But Mindjet has significantly enhanced it in the 2012 version, making it possible to conduct the bulk of your research for a report or project within this full-featured mind mapping program.

MindManager 2012 streamlines the process of moving content from the web browser to your mind map. You can now add images, blocks of text and entire web pages to your map in a single click. In addition, you can edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files within the browser pane, without leaving MindManager. That’s pretty cool!

In this new Insider video, I will demonstrate these capabilities to you, and I’ll explain how you can use them to conduct research or gather materials for a report, using a combination of MindManager’s integrated browser and a smart map part.

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.

• The mind mapping functionality of Zengobi Curio
• What types of diagrams can you create with mind mapping software?
• Scripting and macros in mind mapping software – what can you do with them?
• Does mind mapping software support layers, like Photoshop does?

If you like the content of this podcast, why not 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 January coaching call.

Considering Mindjet’s announcement earlier this year that it planned to increase its focus on mobile applications, this announcement didn’t come as a surprise to me. Several months ago, a reader of this blog asked me if Mindjet was planning to launch a mind mapping app for the Android platform. I answered that I was not aware of such a project, but it would make sense if the company was planning such a move, considering that it was an obvious gap in their mobile product line. I further speculated that, rather than create a new app from scratch, it would probably acquire a developer of an existing Android app, as they did with MyMind to create the Mindjet for iPhone and iPad apps. That’s exactly what happened.

Misleading download statistics?

According to TechCrunch.com, Thinking Space’s Android mapping app has been downloaded more than Mindjet’s apps for the iPad and iPhone combined by more than 3 to 1: “To date, there have been roughly 325,000 downloads of Mindjet’s iPhone and iPad apps. Thinking Space has actually seen more success with its Android app, clocking more than 1.1 million downloads.” These numbers may be misleading, however: The writer at TechCrunch may not realize that Mindjet acquired the technology for its iPhone and iPad mapping apps from MyMind, may have neglected to include their downloads in this total.

In addition to the growing number of Android-based smartphones, Mindjet for Android will also work on the many inexpensive tablets that utilize this open-source operating system – an area of significant growth. According to Mindjet’s new product page for this app, it will work on any device running Android OS 2.1 or later. As with the new iPhone and iPad apps, Mindjet for Android supports MindManager’s native .MMAP file type as well as round-trip editing – which means that map attributes created in MindManager are preserved after editing in the mobile app.

Unique features

Based on a view of Mindjet’s overview video for its latest product addition, several features of Mindjet for Android stand out that aren’t offered on their iPhone and iPad apps:

• Gestures enable you to access common features quickly. This should be a real productivity plus when you’re creating mind maps on an Android device.
• Text tags are keyword searches that you can set up in the app’s file view. They appear as tabs across the top of the file list, and enable you to quickly locate mind maps that contain those words. Nice!

Here’s the video:

What’s next for Mindjet for Android?

Presumably, Mindjet will add support for its Connect workspace product in the coming months. It will also be interesting to see how this app evolves in the coming months, as the former Thinking Space app gets further integrated into Mindjet’s longer-term product road map. Perhaps there will be a rationalization of app features between the Apple iOS and Android platforms over time, so all of Mindjet’s mobile apps will work the same. For example, Mindjet for Android could adapt the clever pop-up “pie menu” that it inherited from MyMind, and is currently used on the Mindjet for iPhone and iPad apps. That would make sense. Otherwise, Mindjet must promote two completely different sets of features for the two platforms.

Mindjet for Android is a free download from the Android Market.

I’ve always been a fan of theRealizer, a brainstorming plug-in for MindManager (read my review of it from 2008 here). So when I learned that Mindjet integrated this terrific process-driven brainstorming tool into MindManager 2012, I was very excited. So I asked Michael Deutch at Mindjet to give me a deeper dive into how they expanded and improved it. Much has changed, which is why we’re going to take a closer look at it.

Deutch emphasized that Mindjet’s development team worked closely with the Realize AB, the Swedish company who developed theRealizer. This company specializes in doing facilitated brainstorming sessions, and Mindjet wanted to be sure to leverage their expertise to make this the best possible ideation tool for business users.

This brainstorming tool consists of three stages:

1. Define challenge

It’s been said that a problem clearly defined is already half solved. Accordingly, the challenge phase of this brainstorming tool helps you to accurately define the problem or challenge for which you want to brainstorm ideas. The program ships with a set of over 60 predefined challenge statements, categorized into product development, marketing, sales, organization and individual categories. theRealizer add-in only contained nine challenge cards, so this is a major expansion.

Adding a challenge to your mind map is simple: Select one statement and click the “add to map” button. The idea here is that once you’ve added your challenge statement to the map, you then add topics and sub-topics to it where you explore how to address your challenge. Sometimes, this deep exploration of your challenge can reveal a deeper problem that you didn’t realize existed. Perhaps you were trying to solve the wrong problem. Or it may lead to some useful ideas, even before you get to the actual brainstorming stage.

If you want to modify the wording of an existing challenge statement or add your own to the set that MindManager 2012′s brainstorming tool displays each time you use it, you simply click on the “edit” button. The challenge list becomes editable text, and you can delete, add, modify or regroup challenges with complete freedom.

If you want to create your own challenge, a separate “custom challenge” tab gives you fields to enter your own challenge statement and some notes about it. The note becomes a topic note attached to your challenge topic, as you would expect.

The challenges section of this brainstorming tool also contains a visual element: Over 600 challenge cards, which look something like cards you’d expect to find in a deck of playing cards. Each challenge card contains an image and a statement – such as “Describe a picture of success. What do you need to get there?” with a picture of a set of legs and feet standing in first place on the winner’s stand after an athletic event. Clicking on an information button below the card “flips” it over and displays a suggestion on how to utilize its message. Cards can also be designated as favorites by clicking on a star icon. Once you’ve selected one or more cards as favorites, a separate set of navigation arrows appears on screen, enabling you to browse only your favorite challenge cards.

One neat enhancement that Mindjet made for MindManager 2012 was to enable users to increase the size of the challenge cards on screen. The cards can be opened in a separate window, which displays them at roughly twice the normal size. This is useful for anyone who is facilitating a group brainstorming session or web-based meeting, so that their text can be clearly viewed on screen.

2. Generate ideas

When they adapted theRealizer to MindManager 2012, the developers at Mindjet modified the idea entry form to enable quick entry. When you click on the “enter ideas” button, a dialog box pops up, where you can quickly type your ideas, hit the enter key and immediately type your next idea. I tried it, and it was very fast! This is ideal for group brainstorming sessions, where ideas are often flying fast, and you need to be able to record them just as quickly.

This stage of the brainstorming process contains three types of cards:

Questions: These cards are based on SCAMPER, a brainstorming technique that asks you to perform different actions on your idea – for example, minimize it, put it to other uses or rearrange its parts. SCAMPER is one of the world’s best known and most proven brainstorming techniques, so it’s good to see it here.

Images: Image cards contain a question and an image. They appeal to a different part of the brain, and encourage users to engage in out of the box thinking.

Words: Word cards, as their name implies, contain a single word. They function as random thinking prompts, and should lead your creative problem solving efforts in new directions. MindManager 2012 contains 500 word-based idea cards, substantially more than theRealizer did.

Idea cards follow a similar format to the challenge cards, with the ability to display them in a larger format in a separate window and to designate cards as favorites and then navigate them easily. theRealizer enabled users of this plug-in to edit these cards, but Mindjet decided to eliminate this feature to keep things easier for users.

3. Categorize and refine

By the time you reach this stage, your mind map should now be full of ideas. Your next step is to organize and improve them. MindManager 2012 enables you to create 4 types of branches to categorize your ideas: Do it!, Investigate, Save, Trash. The idea behind this scheme is that you add these smart topics to your map and then drag and drop the ideas you’ve generated to them.
MindManager 2012′s brainstorming tool also contains four different tools for further refining and classifying ideas:

• Idea refinement terms
• Opportunities
• SWOT analysis (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats)
• Time management

Selecting one of these evaluation tools adds all of its associated keywords to your mind map as a group. An edit button opens up a dialog box that enables you to modify the five existing idea improvement methods or add your own. This could be very useful if your firm has a standard procedure or set of criteria-based screens for evaluating ideas. You could include them in this toolset, or eliminate the pre-installed ones and just present your organization’s proprietary method.

Conclusion

Mindjet has made impressive improvements to this brainstorming tool, and has integrated it tightly into MindManager 2012. In the past, a lot of people made claims that mind mapping was an excellent creative tool. Now that’s true in spades, thanks to this refined and expanded toolset in the latest version of MindManager.

Why have I spent so much time analyzing this brainstorming tool? Because creative ideas are more important than ever today. There are many brainstorming tools and techniques available to you today, but most of them only do one thing – serve as a catalyst to help you generate ideas. What I like about this tool is the fact that it wraps an entire process around the act of brainstorming – from clearly defining your challenge to refining and evaluating your ideas, so you can quickly identify the best ones for implementation (and which then can be managed as projects within the same software program!).

One of the advantages of being one of the judges for Mindjet’s monthly “Mappies” mind map contest is that I get a chance to see some well-designed visual maps each month. During this last month, I was sent a link to this excellent mind map, which is an information repository of MindManager resources. I normally don’t focus on one software developer or another in these reports, but I thought this mind map by Andrew Wilcox was noteworthy for its excellent design and the way it communicates its subject with great clarity.

In this new report, we’ll look at the factors that make this mind map work so well, with an emphasis on those techniques you can apply to your mind maps.

This report is only accessible to Mind Mapping Insider members. Why not make a commitment to make a bigger impact in your life and work? The resources in this program will help you to become a better planner, problem solver and project manager. You’ll triumph over information overload, and discover a clarity that will help you to make better decisions, faster. Sign up today to join the growing group of MMI members who have made selected the option to be more influential and creative in their lives.

• The huge variety of files and resources that can be linked within your mind maps
• Thoughts on PersonalBrain and its WebBrain companion application.
• Strategies for managing mind mapping files effectively
• Long vs. short topic names in mind maps – what’s best?

Several of these topics are important enough that they may become special reports in the near future.

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 October coaching call.

What do Smart Map Parts, Spinscape and the SharePoint version of MindManager have in common? They are all attempts to use mind maps as a research tool, connecting mind mapping software with data stores wherever they are – whether that data is on your corporate network, Google or your personal Evernote database – searching them and manipulating the resulting data within a visual map format.

The “information scalpel”

I predict that these tools will become more powerful and more flexible over time, an “information scalpel” that will enable sophisticated searching of information stores and flexible manipulation of the results. Some possibilities include:

• Boolean searches (search for A and B but not C),
• Limiting searches say to a specific kind of data, such as news or blogs,
• Searching other online stores of information, such as Wikipedia, Google+, Wolfram Alpha and industrial directories
• Connections to other types of corporate databases, in addition to SharePoint
• A Smart Map Part builder, so you can easily construct and modify tools to search those information stores that are most important in your industry or profession
• Storing and auto-updating search results on a scheduled basis, which would be useful for topic monitoring and competitive analysis
• Auto-notification when search results are located that meet certain criteria
• Tagging specific topics and search results and forwarding them to others on your work team for action

In addition, the ability to review search results and only add certain entries to your mind map is a capability that will become more important in the near future. Currently, Mindjet’s Smart Map Parts for Mind Manager deliver all search results into your mind map. It’s up to you to delete those that aren’t relevant to your needs. A better approach would be to conduct searches and load the results into a side panel or dialog box near the work space, where the user can decide which results are relevant and worthy of being added to your map. This is the approach taken by Spinscape, a web-based mind mapping application, and I think it makes a lot of sense. This kind of functionality will becoming increasingly important, as information managers continue to struggle with information overload.

The integrated browser with the ability to drag and drop web content also helps to transform mind mapping software into a powerful research tool. It enables you to search for information of interest and selectively add the most important bits and pieces to your mind map in an organized and efficient way.

What inspired me

What got me thinking about this is Radian6, a sophisticated team-based social media monitoring and campaign development tool that enables multiple people to track what’s being said about your company and its competitors, to monitor the needs that are being expressed by current and prospective customers and to take action. This powerful toolset is an information dashboard on steroids. As I looked at what Radian6 can do for organizations, I got to wondering what it would look like within a mind map environment.

Salesforce.com recently acquired Radian6. I think in the future we can expect to see some integration between MindManager and this powerful social media toolset, because Mindjet already has a smart map connector called Deal Navigator for the popular online CRM application.

That’s what I see in my crystal ball. What do you think the future of mind mapping software looks like?

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!