Thanks to Hobart Swan’s reference in the Mindjet Blog, I’ve just learned of the intriguing EGO (electronic graphics organizer) project. This is a research project headed by Leigh Zeitz of the University of Northern Iowa and Lynne Anderson of the University of Oregon. Their goal is to advance the use of electronic graphic organizers for learning through better understanding and application. Using a blog, they will collect information about graphic organizer software packages, and then enable users to post their comments about each of the software packages that are presented.
The authors define graphic organizers as "tools that are used to graphically show the relationships between ideas or concepts." This can encompass mind mapping software programs, but also "passive" tools like Visual Thesaurus and LivePlasma (a tool for finding musical artists who are similar to one another).
Although the focus of their research is primarily on the educational market, much of what the authors collect ought to have some business implications, too. It will be interesting to see what they come up with in the weeks and months ahead!
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