Re: Do MindMapping programs really help in MindMapping?

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2923

Posted by jackcrawford
2005-03-08 22:06:04

I’m finding the discussion about mindmapping fascinating.

Personally, I find the real strength with these programs is as a presentation/communication tool. It can be communicating with oneself (as Alex described) or with others. I’m sure that’s why Mindjet has put so much effort into developing the colloborative functionality of MindManager. A picture tells a thousand words, as the cliche goes.

Recently I attended a meeting in which someone made a presentation using MindManager. It was quite different from the usual Powerpoint snoozefest, because the software enabled her to bounce around and highlight particular branches and concepts (and block out the other stuff). Interestingly, some people found it quite a challenge!

As a personal brainstorming tool, I find mind mapping good for sketching high level concepts and relationships and also putting in personal side comments or actions (such as “check this is correct” or “find out xx”).

As Stephen points out, once the level of detail mounts up, mapping becomes increasingly problematic. If a map covers two or more computer screens in order to read it legibly, for me it starts to become useless because I can no longer read “the map”. Sure I can print it out like those massive gantt charts, but it’s then more of a project outline than a brainstorming aid.

Other people may have entirely different responses, of course.

Jack

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