The Gettysburg Address as a mind map
Jul 20th, 2006 | By Chuck Frey | Category: Resources
I’m sure that some of you have seen Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – a moving speech from U.S. history that is a marvel of brevity and impact – converted into a PowerPoint presentation. Created by Peter Norvig, his goal in creating it was to demonstrate how this visual presentation medium can often obscure rather than enhance the point. I just stumbled across it again this morning. Something compelled me to wonder: What would Lincoln’s oratory would look like as a mind map? So I created one, based on Norvig’s PowerPoint of the Gettysburg Address (PDF format, 54KB).
What do you think? Unfortunately, the mind map format doesn’t create much more clarity than the PowerPoint version. It just goes to show that not everything can or should be captured in a visual map!
Popularity: 2% [?]
Chuck
There’s nothing “wrong” with your map, except it is a revision map about the Gettysburg Address for someone who already knows it (or should know it). This is indeed a proper “Mind Map”. As a representation of the Gettysburg Address for someone who has not read it before, it certainly leaves the audience wanting more. So don’t take up anesthetics as a hobby
I think this is interesting that in the year 2006 “Buzan is credited with founding the mind mapping movement” when I clearly remember learning this technique from a professor at Idaho State University in 1986 – 87. Back then they were called “spider diagrams” and the professor brought it back to the classroom after seeing it at a teacher/professor professional development conference.
My boss uses the phrase “your spider diagrams” when he referring to MindManager…