Mind Mapping - "why didn't they show me this when I was at School"

Mind Mapping; when I first hear of this I just thought of it as a gimick. After using Mind Mapper Pro for some time I now only wish I knew about this when I was at school. To that end I have taught my son to use the application. It take all of about 1-2 minutes to learn and you are away. The proof is that my son now uses the program without any prompting.

Mind mapping was developed by Tony Buzan a good place to find out more is at the Buzan Centres - Mind Mapping There is a good interview with Tony at Management Consultancy News. Tony Buzan's mission is to unlock the power of our brains, and show us how to tap and use our creative genius with ease. The Times of London predicts Buzan "will do for the brain what Stephen Hawking did for the universe."

Mind Mapper Pro is a software tool which I have been using for a few years. This tool gave me the ability to transfer random thought in to a sequential document. Schools and computers keep trying to make us all think and report in a sequential manner, but we are human and we just don't work that way. What Tony Buzan has done is free up the way we think and provide a method to take all the bits of information and put it into some form of order.

What Mind Mapper Pro or the developer have done is to create a piece of software which is easy to learn and powerful in its exicution of Tony Buzan's concepts and ideas.

Of the different pieces of software around this I believethat Mind Mapper Pro is the better of the lot. Not only does it give you the freedom and flexibility to take your thoughts and finally put them into some order but you can then transfer them to either Word, Outlook tasks, Microsoft Projects and Power Point.

I have used this tool in many different ways. Initially I was using it as an interviewing tool. when meeting up with a client for the first time we would commence the project titled after the company I was working with. I would then commence with questions like, what would you like to do, where would you like to go with your buisness and what ideas do you have for the business. This would be the basis for the start of the interview. From there the client then produces the information and creates futher questions and answers.

I can then develop them further untill the client feels they have transferred all the details and information. Initially I would start with a radial tree. From there I would then transfer the tree to the right and start to get priorities from the client. Ideals which end up not being used are kept for future reference. In this way then can re-address them, it also takes them out of the picture and put to rest.

We can then open up the project line and start to assign timelines and resources to the mind map. Finaly the whole map can then be exported to work to complete and report back to the client and the timeline if needed can then be exported to project for further managment.

Other areas that I have used Mind Mapper Pro is with contracts, assignments in my study and programming projects. It is also a great way to do mind storming with a group and get the ideas out in the open. Do your self a favor and checkout Mind Mapper Pro.


Marc Dimmick

Pod Casting the evolution of Blogging

Pod casting is I believe an extention of Blogging. It takes Blogging to the next stage, and gives everyone the opportunity to broadcast their views and ideas. It gives you the opportunity to listern to many chanels and topics of which there are thousands.

My preference is for the technology and new advances in the IT industry. I came across a great chanel which is Slashdot review which if you are interested in slashdot.com you will enjoy this stream.

But to start of you will need a program to receive and manages the streams. I started with a program called iPodder which also has a great directory of chanels. From there you can then either listern to the chanels on the PC or transferr to your ipod. Try this out and see what you think.

Marc Dimmick