Looking for a "better" solution for the following scenario:
I have a meeting with 5 other professors, laying out a new course progression on digital marketing. We have identified 40+ weekly topics (e.g., SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Google Analytics, etc.) that need to be placed and ordered into 3-5 bins (courses). We are meeting in a boardroom with whiteboards and laptop-to-projector connections (but no smartboard). The old-school method would be to draw "bin" lanes on the whiteboard and then use Post-It Notes to move course topics around, but there must be a better way. Ultimately, I would like to be able to do the following in a visual Windows-based solution:

1. Create bins (lanes) for courses
2. Create and drag topics to bins
3. Reorder, sort, and auto-arrange bins and topics
4. Format bins and topics, including color-coding
4. Add bin and topic notes and attachments (e.g., course description and lecture ideas)
5. Save and export the results to a DOCX/ODT document, including notes

I am familiar with and use MindManger, VUE, CMap tools, MyInfo, myBase, ConnectedText, and other tools, but the one that comes nearest is the discontinued MindSystems Amode. Are there any other solutions that I may be missing that you can recommend? This seems to be a common scenario in brainstorming and planning meetings.
All the best,
Glen

Additional tools could be (though not all tick all your boxes):
- Gingko
- Google Keep
- MindMup

We use Scapple for that. But you need a really big screen for your 5 columns. :-)

Export options are RTF and OPML (and PDF and TXT).

Hmmm..., I own Scrapple as well and find it great for simple mapping, but it isn't quite there for this application (imho). I also use Google Keep on my tablet, but haven't thought much about it on the desktop. Thanks for the suggestions, Glen

Glen,

First of all, I agree that the scenario you suggest is very common in collective intellectual activities, which is why I find it remarkable that there is no equivalent software solution as yet.

Another application you might want to look at is Microsoft Lab's Stickysorter; it does _not_ have some of the features you suggest, but I've found that people get used to it very quickly. You should stilll be able to find it here https://www.educatornetwork.com/Resources/Tools/Details/37436d37-76d1-4478-b3c9-8b578aa78544
If not, I should have it somewhere myself.

Alternatively, you might want to check out the corkboard views of Scrivener and other writer-oriented software, e.g. yWriter. Interestingly, I first thought of SuperNoteCards, but when I checked their site, I found out that it is no longer installable software, but rather an online service.

alx

P.S. If your course will be available online, I'd be interested to take it ;-) I have an MBA focused on marketing, and am always looking for further education on this ever evolving area.

Interesting, I hadn't heard of StickySorter before, but it seems workable. I've downloaded and will give it a closer look. With respect to the course, I'm doing a ton of curating right now (Cintanotes, MyInfo, and Evernote mostly). There is no shortage of content-marketing going on in this area -- 5 Top SEO tricks, 10 Best Practices for Web Analytics, etc. . I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together too!
All the best, Glen

I have replaced Scapple and Stickysorter with BoardThing for my group brainstorming.

I can rapidly capture information on virtual color coded cards, drag to organize, drop the cards on each other to create hierarchal lists and easily export (OPML, text, and HTML). It doesn't have the capability of linking notes so perhaps you could use the export capability to move to your other tools after the brainstorming stage.

You can find a review here http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/boardthing/ and a video demo at boardthing.com

BoardThing looks nice - too bad it's still in private beta and requires an invite. Hopefully, the wait won't be long.

You may want to check out this software.
http://www.hyperplan.com

BoardThing looks very nice -- wow, I could even see using it with my tablet in-class for teaching.
Thanks for the heads-up!
Glen

You might also want to take a look at another collaborative newbie, Deekit (https://www.deekit.com/ Looks very interesting.

And while it's not really what you're describing, Quip is surprisingly powerful for collaborative purposes.

I requested an invite, and it was filled within 5 minutes. I think there was a 'where did you hear about us?' field, and I wrote outliner software.com, not sure if that helped speed it up.

bobmclain wrote:

BoardThing looks nice - too bad it's still in private beta and requires
an invite. Hopefully, the wait won't be long.

It took about an hour for them to send my invite. I also mentioned outlinersoftware.com. BoardThing is a great find, and I'm already finding plenty of uses for it.

There is a software known as iMapping that you may want to look at. I posted about it in another post here on this forum with some links to some more information about it. It is a little hard to describe. It basically is a zoomable page that lets you put items into boxes on the page such as links to files and notes. It is a Java based desktop application and has a PDF export capability... I posted a link to a demo PDF zoomable export that you can look at... it is a sample link of fuctionality of iMapping software from one of the developers, I believe, I am not sure.

I have tested this software. The software is in English but the website is in German. Also, the documentation is written in the application in a document, if I remember, I think it is English too, otherwise I wouldn't have known how to use it. It is simple to learn, and very innovative.

The software is currently free to download. They mentioned on the website, that they were thinking of making a commercial version in the future. It is very well developed and quite functional, presently.

This is the post about iMapping here on the forum...

http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5697/0/imapping