According to C.J. Cornell, writing in the latest issue of Mindjet’s newsletter , the developer’s new Connect collaborative workspace tool is likely to have a bigger impact than most people realize.
The immediate assumption that everyone is likely to jump to is that Mindjet Connect will enable users of MindManager to share maps and other files with each other. But he believes it will have an even bigger impact by enabling non-users of the popular mind mapping software to get exposed to it via Connect. In his opinion, Connect enables “true document collaboration in a project workspace.”
To understand why this is important, we need to step back and look at how work gets done when only one person on a team has a licensed copy of MindManager. We’ll let him explain:
“For many of us, the mapping process was largely one-way, such as, my masterpiece of a map and its exported incarnations were read by my colleagues, but they were never really part of the creation process; thus their level of emotional and intellectual buy-in was much lower than mine. When all stakeholders have actual control over the product while is it being developed, then they have more buy-in. It’s their document now, too.”
This is consistent with what I’ve been hearing for years from several software developers. They typically have “islands” of a handful of users within an organization who can only share maps as static entities, within PDFs, image files or as HTML files. There hasn’t been a practical way for users to share maps with their teammates so they can annotate, edit and add to maps. The combination of the Connect Workspace and the new MindManager Web, both of which are now offered in inexpensive (compared to per-seat costs for full licensed copies of the desktop software) monthly subscriptions, significantly lowers the barrier for adoption of visual mapping in organizations.
Cornell also points out that Mindjet Connect enables non-users to get acquainted with MindManager, without getting thrown off the deep end into complex projects with complex maps: “Mindjet Connect provides these users with a toe-in-the water route, allowing them to contribute with simple start, while able to observe broader results.”
If you’re interested in learning more about this new visual map collaboration tool, I recommend that you read Cornell’s article and then visit the Mindjet Connect web page for all of the details.
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