What’s new in Inspiration 8

I don’t know how this one slipped by me, but in early February, Inspiration Software introduced version 8 of its well-regarded Inspiration mind mapping software. As usual, this program continues to be focused primarily on educational users, but still offers much for business users to like. New and notable features added to Inspiration v8 include:

• Inspiration Web Resources: An online library of over 1 million symbols, plus on-demand training resources,
• Integration of video and sound clips into Inspiration maps,
• Enhanced export and transfer capabilities,
• A built-in thesaurus to assist writers,
• A symbol auto-arrange feature (this has been needed for a long time – I’m glad to see that the developers finally addressed it!), and
• An enhanced "rapid-fire" brainstorming tool, which now gives you the option of connecting new ideas to existing ones, or allowing them to be free-floating ideas (which you can connect to your existing map later).

Watch for a review of Inspiration 8 on my InnovationTools website in the near future; I’m now contacting the developers to obtain an evaluation copy of it.