Unleash your brain power with mind maps [BT broadband office]

Unleash your brain power with mind maps

Posted 30 July 2007 at 8:42AM by Simon Dickson in Hints and tips

There seems to be a growing trend in the worlds of management and IT for 'mind maps'. Developed in the 1960s by British psychologist Tony Buzan, mind maps are a graphic form of note-taking, usually consisting of lines radiating outwards from a central point. Studies have found it can improve information recall by 10-15%; Buzan himself says the method 'unleashes the remaining 99% of your brain power'. Even Bill Gates endorses them as 'a digital "blank slate" to help connect and synthesize ideas and data--and ultimately create new knowledge.'

Mind maps have really moved on lately, with the wide availability of computer software to make the process easier. MindManager is arguably the leading commercial tool: version 7 came out a few weeks ago, with a redesigned interface and better integration with Microsoft Office. Buzan himself has his own commercial product, iMindMap which just reached version 2. For anyone with a 'web 2.0' mindset, there are web-based tools Mindomo and Bubbl.us. But my own tool of choice is an open source product called Freemind.

I don't yet buy into the 'mind map' concept myself - but I have found Freemind exceptionally useful in creating all sorts of hierarchical diagrams of categories and sub-categories. To move an item from one branch to another, or to change the order of items in a branch, it's a simple drag-and-drop operation. The keyboard shortcuts are easy to get used to, making it a breeze to bash out even complex diagrams. Once you're done, it exports in various formats, including JPG or PNG graphics and clickable HTML. It probably doesn't meet Buzan's specification exactly, but as a drawing tool, it's second to none.

Tags: bill gates, bubblus, freemind, mind maps, mindmanager, mindomo, tony buzan

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Comments

1. At July 30, 2007 9:32 AM, Vic Gee wrote:

In addition to Mindomo and Bubbl.us, there's now a swathe of information mapping and info management tools on line - in many cases with a free option. They're are all browser-based applications that do mind mapping, concept mapping or diagramming.

Information mapping . . . . . . . . .
bubble-mind.com Collaborative mind mapping
comapping.com Collaborative (but, for people who like free-format mind mapping, rigid) left-to-right mind mapping
glinkr.net Concept mapping and mind mapping (shared but not collaborative)
kayuda.com Collaborative concept mapping and mind mapping
mapul.com Collaborative mind mapping with an organic flavour
mind42.com Collaborative mind mapping
mindmeister.com Collaborative mind mapping
touchgraph.com URL mind maps for network visualisation
webofweb.net Collaborative mind mapping

Generic collaborative diagramming . . . . . . . . .
All of these have features to support drawing mind maps and concept maps in collaboration with colleagues:
cumulatelabs.com/cumulatedraw/ diagramming
flowchart.com diagramming
gliffy.com diagramming
thinkature.com on-line whiteboard service

And if people are looking for mind mapping information, one place to go is the Google Co-op mind mapping search engine at http://www.mind-mapping.org/article_main.php. It gives no extraneous results - results are drawn from hand-picked mind mapping authority-websites, and for transparency, there's even a list of the web-sites chosen.

Regards
Vic
http://www.mind-mapping.org
The master list of mind mapping &
information management software

2. At July 30, 2007 5:56 PM, John wrote:

There is no need to restrict yourself to mind mapping alone. I have been using the Hexagon Modelling method which offers a real alternative and is brilliant for collaborative thinking. Take a look at www.creativethinkersoftware.com for yourself...
John

3. At August 6, 2007 9:27 PM, George wrote:

Mind maps definitely work - and you do not need sophisticated computer software to make it happen. I can still recall vivid images packed with information from my history lessons at school long ago. It seems my history teacher should get the invention gold star as it predates Tony Buzan. Perhaps we just didn't call them mind maps in those days!! What goes round comes around as they say!

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