Mindjet MindManager Emerges as Must-Have Software for Business Professionals

MindManager empowers business professionals to better capture, organize and communicate ideas, information and projects for business success

San Francisco – July 13, 2010 – Mindjet®, the leading provider of software and cloud-based applications for visually organizing and managing information and ideas, today announced the latest version of the company’s flagship software – Mindjet MindManager Version 9.  Used by millions of business professionals, MindManager delivers an inherently unique value to today’s workers – a flexible, intuitive way to visually brainstorm concepts, organize information, develop actionable strategies and project plans, and communicate results.

On a daily basis, business professionals combat masses of information coming from multiple sources – web, email, documents and meetings – with no means to connect the dots and see the big picture.  MindManager provides the destination that unifies diverse information allowing users to organize, act on and communicate their ideas and strategies.  With its enhanced integration with Microsoft® Office and fluid, drag-and-drop interface, this latest release cements MindManager as the go-to software for business professionals to quickly capture, organize and reorganize information to discover new avenues of thought and new solutions – and then put those solutions immediately into action and stay ahead of the competition.

“By organizing information visually, MindManager fits the way I work and serves as a destination for me to be more productive and effective,” says Corey Sherman, Principal at Sullivan, Cotter and Associates, Inc.  “If you can think, MindManager can help you work better.  And with an ever-expanding list of features and functionality, the new MindManager Version 9 solution has more ‘ooomph’ than ever!”

MindManager provides an intuitive visual framework for individuals and teams to capture information, analyze complex relationships and identify priorities.  Taking advantage of MindManager’s tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, Office, Project and SharePoint, Mindjet is helping users to accomplish more, ensure project success and improve communication by organizing and presenting information in a visual context.  In one clear, easily modified visual “map,” information from group thinking and the web can be combined with existing documents, files, meeting notes and emails.  This visual, flexible presentation of information improves business planning and fosters better collaboration among teams.

A main feature of MindManager is data import and integration with Microsoft Outlook, Office, Project and SharePoint, which enables users to take advantage of MindManager in the context of typical workflows. MindManager version 9 for Windows integrates with Microsoft Office 2010.

“Throughout history, a key leading factor in economic growth and wealth creation has centered around productivity and creativity to drive innovation,” said Scott Raskin, CEO of Mindjet.  “Our goal with MindManager Version 9 is to dramatically improve an organization’s creativity, project planning, performance and innovation.  Whether overloaded with information, solving a problem, working with a team on an important project, or wanting to communicate more effectively, MindManager Version 9 is simply a must–have.”

Key Features in MindManager version 9 for Windows:

• MindManager Slide Show – Enables users to create and present a series of slides based off map, tree and organizational chart layouts helping to align and organize information, ideas and strategies to be more productive.

• Microsoft Outlook Integration – Features more powerful integration with Microsoft Outlook tasks, emails, notes, calendar items and contacts and enables individuals to easily assign priorities, filter on priority, and drag and drop content for better organization.  Dynamic branches of Outlook tasks can be added to maps and visualized in MindManager’s integrated Gantt chart.

• Microsoft PowerPoint Integration – Users can now easily export content from MindManager into PowerPoint slides to accomplish more, faster.
• Microsoft Project Integration – Improved integration allows for exporting of plans created within MindManager as Microsoft Project files.
• Resource Utilization – To help ensure your plan’s success, users can better understand which resources are over or underutilized.

• Gantt Chart View– Individuals can view task and project plan timelines in MindManager’s integrated and synchronized Gantt chart. Updates can be made to maps by adjusting the Gantt chart or by making changes directly into a map.

MindManager version 9 for Windows will be generally available on August 10 in three languages: English, German and French, and can be purchased through Mindjet.com for $349.

Supporting Resources

• Hear what individuals and organizations have to say about Mindjet
• Follow Mindjet on Twitter to learn more: http://twitter.com/Mindjet
• Learn more about Mindjet on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mindjet
• See the post on MindManager version 9 announcement on our Dutch Chapter site.

The ugly truth about visual mapping and list-making

Power Markers for MindManager solves the incompatibility between maps and lists

In recent years “Mind Mapping” software has expanded rapidly into productivity management and information management, with most products offering some form of graphical labelling and task management capabilities ranging from simple icons through to fully featured Gantt charts. But the tree-shaped diagrams created by mind mapping software are poorly adapted to handling these extra layers of information hung on the topics. How does this problem arise, and how can we solve it?

Let’s go right back to basics.

The parent topic sets the context for subtopics

A topic in a map has a number of “properties” that combine together to represent something meaningful. Its primary “property” is the parent topic to which it belongs. This sets the context, which delivers the majority of the meaning in a map. It is the visualisation and manipulation of context that sets visual mapping apart from most other ways of conveying information, and adds substantial value.

The second most important property is the topic text itself. When combined with the context of its parent, the topic becomes something meaningful that can be understood, explored, expanded upon or examined as part of a pattern. (I’m not going to debate the “one word” rule for mind maps here.)

So far, so good – this is standard mind map visualisation. But with the advent of mind mapping software, we can also hang lots of other information (or properties) to our humble topic, for example

• converting it into a full-specified task, with a percent complete value, a priority, a duration, a start date and a due date,
• adding extra tagging information such as keywords or task resources,
• adding extra text (Topic Notes),
• adding named visual markers (icons),
• adding images,
• adding text or fill colours, boundaries or shapes, or
• adding a hyperlink or an attached document.

A topic with too much information assigned to it

These properties enrich the topic and tell us more about it. Further, using the same marker on several topics creates a grouping across the map, so that the presence of a marker tells us that the topic also belongs to other groups, e.g. “Priority 1 items” or “Finance Department items”. The advantage of these properties is that you can apply several of them to the same topic; a topic can belong to multiple groups at the same time. Compare this to the primary property of context (the parent topic); a topic can have one and only one parent, unless it is the central topic, which does not have a parent. Topics cannot have multiple parents – after all, this is what makes a tree a tree. So it is very handy to have so many ways for a topic to be a member of other cross-tree groupings as well.

This is where mind mapping software starts to cough and splutter. The primary property, context, is very well supported. We can surf around maps, drill down into trees, expand or collapse detail as we wish, visualise patterns, summarise things and literally change the meaning of a map simply by moving topics around. We can visually “understand” the relationships in a map through the lines that connect topics together. We can play around with contexts, reinforce our knowledge and create new insights. Mind mapping software offers a rich and rewarding set of controls for working with the context property. But the picture is very different when it comes to understanding our map in terms of its other properties, indicated by icons or other markers. Typically, there are only a couple of options:

• We can look at the map and visually recognise markers, with reference to a legend to explain them if necessary (and if available).
• The software can help us to look in a more focused way by filtering out the parts of the map that don’t carry the markers we are interested in (unless they are in the path to the central topic). This removes the context surrounding the topics of interest, making them easier to spot.

In both cases, we need to change our mindset to stop looking at the map as a whole, and try to see it as a list – but the list only exists in our minds. Whichever way you slice it and dice it, the information in our map is still a tree, dominated by the context property. It relies on our concentration and visual diligence to ensure that we don’t overlook something important. But take care – there are many ways that a topic can be out of view; it might be outside the visible area, or filtered out, or folded up in a collapsed tree. There is no safety net.

That’s easily solved, I hear you say. All you need to do is make lists in your map – a section for things to do today, a section for critical information, a section for open questions and so on. This works perfectly if you can devise a way to organise your stuff so that each item clearly belongs in only one place. Remember that a topic can have one and only one parent. This is fine for natural hierarchies, such as a breakdown of countries, counties, towns and districts. But the majority of the real world is not as nicely organised as this. Most of the things we deal with belong on more than one list at the same time. If I have promised to finish a report for my boss by next Friday, which list does it go on? The list of actions? The list of commitments to other people? The list of things to do by next Friday? The list of things connected with my boss? The list of reports to write? How about all of the above? If you are constructing lists within a map, this last option is not a practical one unless you are patient enough to create the same topic in five different places – and the novelty of doing that will vanish the first time you get it wrong.

The conclusion is that visual maps are perfect for the big picture, and for making sense of information by organising it, summarising it, surfing it and manipulating it. But visual maps become much less ergonomic if you want to keep track of the detailed properties of topics. Lists are far better for taking action and quickly assessing what needs to be done. So how do we get reliable lists out of our maps, without compromising the structure of the map itself?

If you haven’t already guessed, this is what Power Markers for MindManager does. Power Markers is an extension for MindManager for Windows that adds a “Hot Lists” task pane, and automatically extracts lists from your maps. So you get not one but two views of the information in your map; the visual map for the big picture and navigation by context, and the cross-tree groupings that exist within your map, based on the map markers that you have used. These lists group and sort topics by every property except context – colour, task status, icons and so on. Because this is a set of lists, rather than a tree of topics, it is normal for the same topic to appear on more than one list at the same time – so your “Write report” item is simultaneously shown on five lists, and you can find it by reviewing any one of them. When it is completed and checked off, it disappears off all five lists again.

A dashboard map with dynamic status indication

Hot Lists of topics, generated by Power Markers

Power Markers can do a lot else besides. It can “roll up” important information to the centre of your map, greatly reducing the risk that you might overlook something vital. You can also design your map marker groups in the map itself, and make their definitions a richer part of your map. Power Markers Standard Edition will create up to 15 lists per map, and does not require a license key.

If you use MindManager to organise information or keep track of activities, Power Markers will help you to get a lot more value out of your maps by being able to see them from two perspectives at the same time.

Resources

Power Markers demonstration map on BiggerPlate: www.biggerplate.com/viewmap.asp?id=904

Download Power Markers for MindManager 7 or 8 for Windows:  http://www.olympic-limited.co.uk/mindmanager-add-ins/power-markers/

Free white paper on designing Dashboard maps with MindManager: http://tinyurl.com/34mlzos

The Beyond Mind Mapping blog: www.beyond-mind-mapping.com

Copyright © Harport Consulting 2010. All Rights Reserved.

I’m the manager of global communications for Mindjet. We sell our products around the globe and have offices on three different continents. My job is to maximize Mindjet’s awareness in all of these different locales, focusing on spreading the message of Mindjet’s leading position as a provider of personal productivity and collaboration solutions that visually connect ideas, information and people to save time, improve business processes and drive innovation.

2. Overview the history of Mindjet to date?

Mindjet started in the mid 1990s as a programming project by Mike Jetter centered on the technique of mind mapping. Shortly thereafter he formed a company to sell his new software. With more than 10 years of development, Mindjet is the worldwide leader in providing visual information mapping and collaboration solutions to users around the world.

3. Why do you believe Mindjet is and remains to be the leader within the Mind mapping arena?

Mindjet is used by more than 1.5 million professionals around the world in six out of every 10 of the companies listed in the Fortune 100. By dramatically boosting productivity and team effectiveness, Mindjet has a proven track record of delivering solid business value for our users. Surveys across several industries show that Mindjet can increase productivity by up to 25 percent by making meetings, common communications and project management tasks more efficient and effective. When potential customers evaluate all of their options, they’re consistently drawn to what works; oftentimes the best sales reference is word-of-mouth. Well, almost 70 percent of our current sales come this way: a friend or a colleague telling another friend or colleague. Those are excellent references for us, and they have helped us maintain our leadership position.

4. Would you agree the term “Visual mapping” encompasses moving beyond mere Mind mapping?

Mind mapping is a technique, primarily a brainstorming technique. Obviously, MindManager is a great brainstorming tool, but it’s much more than that as well: people use it to drive presentations, manage complex projects, streamline complicated business processes and reduce time-to-market. As you know, many people also use it to keep their day-to-day lives in order. Lots of individuals have suggested several different names for what MindManager can do for you or your business, so something other than “mind mapping” would be accurate in that it goes beyond just the act of brainstorming. As it stands though, “mind mapping” seems to be the term with which most people are currently familiar.

5. Has the term “Mind mapping” been an impediment to the further infusion of Mind Manager as a Visual mapping product?

Sometimes people hear the term “mind mapping” and it conjures up ideas completely unrelated to what MindManager actually does. But one of our primary jobs is to educate potential users about the benefits of Mindjet, and that’s where we focus our resources. Once people see the power of what Mindjet offers and how we offer significant business value by cutting down time-to-market, reducing the length of the sales cycle, or smoothly managing a difficult project, they don’t care what it’s called. They just know that we made a significant difference in their ability to achieve success!

6. The business and academic environments has been the focus of Mindjet for some time; what about a more personal approach to productivity and self development?

One of the great things about MindManager is its flexibility. That means that you can use it to manage an enormously complex project; like for example all of the logistics surrounding production of a new airplane being built by a major aircraft manufacturer. Or you can sit in your office, at home or at work, and map out your personal goals, and keep your day-to-day life on track. At www.mindjet.com, you can find many use cases from individuals who use Mindjet in business and academic settings and also personal productivity use cases. I would also encourage readers to check out our blog at http://blog.mindjet.com where our chief evangelist Michael Deutch often posts about ways to improve your personal productivity and accelerate your development.

7. Do you have any favorite add-ins you use for personal productivity and self development?

I think all of our add-ins provide potentially excellent added value for our users depending on their needs. All users need to do is to check out the Mindjet Partner Solutions site at http://mindjetsolutions.com/Default.aspx to see the many offerings that are available and find out which may be best suited for them.

8. Why so many third party add-ins for Mind Manager?

I think one of the strengths of any particular software platform is the vibrancy of its developer community. The thousands of new apps each month in the Apple App Store, for example, are a testament to the iPhone’s popularity. While we’re not on the same scale as Apple (at least not yet!), we’re proud of the strong developer community that has formed around MindManager and we’re constantly encouraging innovative developers to produce add-ins that will augment the already significant value of our products.

9. Have users asked for specific add-ins to be integrated to Mind Manager?

Whether it’s for features or add-ins, we constantly get requests from our users. If you have an idea for an add-in or a way to improve any Mindjet products we encourage you to send your ideas to products@mindjet.com.

10. Database qualities are being offered in competing benchmarks; can we expect a more robust approach to the data/information/knowledge management in future editions?

MindManager 8 in fact has a robust data linking ability that enables users to connect their MindManager maps to Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SQL server, MySQL server, and .CSV format databases. You can find this feature in the Insert menu under “Databases.” We are always working on ways to improve Mindjet products, however, and anyone with any suggestions should send them to products@mindjet.com.

11. How has Web 2.0 impacted Mindjet’s approach to SAAS?

We have a technology that is especially well suited to the social and community-driven aspects of Web 2.0. At its very core, a MindManager map is a very powerful way of sharing information. That information could be for internal use only, as is the case in many business implementations. But when you want to communicate information to the outside world, you can create a Mindjet Player file that can be shared on any website, blog or wiki. This can have a tremendous viral effect. Mindjet recognizes the power of hosted services and their ability to take advantage of user communities online. In the future, you will see a new approach to way Mindjet tackles sharing capabilities online.

12. Mindjet Connect: has it fulfilled your expectations regarding collaboration?

We’re constantly impressed by what our customers are doing with Mindjet Connect. We currently have thousands of Mindjet Connect users who are logging in and collaborating with their colleagues. They’re using it actively to do everything from implementing new sales force training programs to the planning and execution of academic conferences to information dashboards for remote workers and more. Visual collaboration is a central tenet of what Mindjet is all about, and we’re continuing to invest in, develop and expand our collaboration capabilities for our users.

13. Can you (within reason) give us a glimpse of what to expect from Mindjet in future editions?

Well I can’t say specifically what we’re working on, but I can say that we have an exciting pipeline right now. It’s so exciting that I’m anxious to just let all the news out now, because it’s that cool. From collaboration products to solutions to the different platforms on which our software is available, we’re working on a little bit of something for everyone.

14. What are users saying about Mindjet Mind Manager?

We have tons of great quotes from our users. One of the best, I think, is from Stu Schmidt, currently vice president of sales at Unisfair and former Webex executive. Stu recently said that MindManager “is the only application that I’ve said is never optional. Wherever I go I have to have MindManager.” Stu has detailed for us the business value he gets from deploying MindManager throughout his organization, including the fact that MindManager has cut the length of his company’s sales cycle by 66 percent. When you get results like that for your customers, consistently and across the board, it’s not hard to find great testimonials!

15. What are the challenges for Mindjet, as we move towards a more monetized knowledge economy?

We prefer to see them as opportunities. As the knowledge economy continues to grow, knowledge itself becomes more valuable. As knowledge becomes more valuable, easy access to that knowledge will be very important. We believe we’re well positioned because Mindjet makes visual collaboration and productivity solutions that, at their core, provide people with instant access to both their own and their colleagues’ information, so they can make the best informed decisions to improve their bottom line, to make a sound organizational decision, or to simply organize their personal life so they can put themselves in positions to succeed. We believe Mindjet is an invaluable tool for the knowledge economy, and will become even more so in the future.

16. What is your elevator conversation piece regarding Mind Manager?

MindManager is a personal productivity solution that visually connects ideas, information, and people to help you save time, improve business processes, and drive innovation. MindManager enables you and your team work in real-time to organize, manage, and communicate ideas and information while solving real business problems.

17. What’s the link to your sales pages at Mindjet?

You can find our free trial page at http://www.mindjet.com/products/trials/default.aspx or you can find out how to contact Mindjet Sales at http://www.mindjet.com/store/contactsales.aspx

Wallace Tait: Visualmapper
www.visualmapper.org

The third party add-in market for Mindjet Mind Manager is a thriving and active arena. You’ll find many interesting add-ins to suit your specific needs. This arena reminds me of what goes on within the Mac world; you get an app for just about anything.

One particular add-in is IMO going to be invaluable; it is called Strengths Mapper. Are you interested in discovering your personal strengths rather than your weaknesses? Also, at a corporate level; do you need to have productive teams consisting of personnel with well defined strengths? If so read on.

About P. Mike Taylor P. E

• 35-year Entrepreneur of 12 Businesses up to $7MM in annual sales
• City Engineer for a city of 200,000
• Licensed Professional Engineer
• Business Coach and Consultant
• Founder (ret.) of a regional consulting engineering firm with 3 offices in 2 states
• Chaired and Vice Chair of $300 MM/yr, 311-bed hospital system
• Director on a regional community bank board: $1.8 billion and 47 branches
• Recipient of numerous community service and business excellence awards and recognition
• Vietnam Veteran with Bronze Star (‘69 – ’70, DMZ)
• Avid MindMapper
• Happily married; 4 children, 6 grandchildren

About Strengths Mapper
P. Mike Taylor, LLC dba www.StrengthsMapper.com is dedicated to:

• helping individuals and teams learn, assimilate, retain, and share personal best strengths
• developing techniques to help assure their clients can put those best strengths to useful purpose every day
• promoting and facilitating continuous, positive personal and organizational growth and development
• using the vivid graphics of mind mapping technology to enhance left- and right-brain learning
• promoting a kinder, gentler approach to sharing our planet through enlightened self-interest

The Interview:

1. You’ve recently released to market Strengths Mapper for Mind Manager: what is this app and what can it do for us?

The application is a personal productivity/team building add-in for Mind Manager that comes in two versions.

In the Basic version, it is a personal development and improvement tool. It is designed to help you discover and embrace your own personal top 5 strengths (talents that can be put to useful purpose) by:
Building your own Personal Strengths Map (PSM);
Developing and enhancing those strengths by a personalized, transportable Action Plan.
Sharing your strengths map with others via vivid graphic posters.

The idea is to create a meaningful framework and dialogue to enhance your ability to work to your best strengths every day.

The Pro version is a tool to enable team leaders and managers to assemble and/or manage their teams to each of team members’ personal best strengths. Building upon the basic version Personal Strengths Maps, the user creates a Talent Pool of PSMs from which to draw. This can be a combination of in-house staff and consultants or specialists from whom they regularly draw.

When either creating a new team, or analysing an existing team, use the wizard to define team Roles and Responsibilities; and, select one or more of the 4 Primary Strength Domain attributes (Striving Skills, Relationship Building Skills, Thinking Skills and Impacting Skills) most likely to facilitate successfully fulfillment of that particular Role and Responsibility.

Once the desired roles and attributes of the team are set, the leader / manager selects the trial team members from the Talent Pool(s). They are, of course, pre-qualified by education and experience to be even considered for a team role, but once that qualification is met, their team chemistry is the focus.

This program automatically summarizes the skill sets by Domain; creates relationship arrow depicting which potential team members possess sought attributes; and, demonstrates whether or not there are skill gaps or mis-matches for talent versus roles and responsibilities.
Then, the manager has an opportunity to decide to either change traditional role assignments; or to select a different team member to better match roles and skills.

2. Why did you choose Mind Manager to be the API of delivery for Strengths Mapper?

This was simply because that was the program I was using, and familiar with; and, it was the most dominant mind mapping program in existence. At 73% market share according to Chuck Frey’s survey, they were the unquestioned leader. The next highest user was at about 10% of market share and then they really dropped off the chart. It is a very feature rich application and had the ability to attach graphics, photos and quotations to enhance and vividly personalize the user’s Personal Strengths Posters.

3. What is the mindset supporting the application of Strengths Mapper?

People work best to their strengths. This is a tool to enhance personal understanding and sharing of those strengths so that they are enabled in that pursuit. It will happen within a genuine framework and dialogue. This is a way to help that to happen. It is also fun to do. I have yet to meet someone who was not fascinated by; and did not engage in conversation about, their Personal Strengths as depicted in a handy and graphically pleasing map. They get it.

4. Is there a connection with the; Strengths Finder 2.0 and Strengths based leadership books?

The theme is that evidence has demonstrated that people are much better at enhancing their natural talents than at overcoming their weaknesses. So the traditional management technique of hiring for education and experience, then hammering on people to overcome their weaknesses is essentially counterproductive (and wrong). People are who they are. The older they are, the more ‘set in their ways’ they become. So, capitalizing on one’s natural talents is more fruitful; and, as the evidence points out, more fulfilling. Working to their strengths, the evidence is that groups of people are more productive, profitable, happier and have lower turnover than their peer groups. Who loses when people are both happier and more productive?

5. Are users of Strengths mapper required to take the on-line Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment?

Yes. They can get them in any book store (the most expensive route); or order them from an on-line vendor like Amazon.com (about $12, currently). If they have a Kindle or an ipod, they can order the electronic version of the book (currently under $10) and have instant access to the key for the 20 minute on-line test. The test is one of those easy, first-impressions tests that even have a 20 second limit on each question. Gallup has a data base of more than 4 million employee’s world wide from which they have devised and refined their strengths test questions.

6. What arenas are Strengths Mapper being used?

What is interesting is that they tout a 70% repeatability of results over time. In other words when individuals take the test again in 5 years or 10 years, they have, on average that high of a consistency of their personal strengths attributes.

7. What’s the difference between the personal use and professional editions of the app?

The personal use edition is really geared to personal growth and development. Understanding what you are best at; honing and developing your best skills; and, sharing them with meaningful people in your life so that you enable them to let youwork to your best strengths.

The pro version is the next step up. How do we put this to best use in groups of people? Define the necessary roles and responsibilities; assign the important attributes to assure success; select from the Talent Pool; and, either adjust the team composition or re-arrange roles to have each team member work to their strengths to the maximum possible. They’ll be happier and more productive; and, you will get your mission accomplished in good order.

8. Is there a correlation between HBDI, Belbin team profiles and Strengths mapper?

Strengths Mapper is a compilation of many best practices concepts. HBDI is a concept of which I am not directly familiar. However, I have read quite a bit on how the human brain receives, processes, stores, and recalls information. Our understanding has certainly changed and progressed with the advent of the EEG real time experiments begun in earnest in 1994. This work, for example, quashed the idea of left brained versus right brained. It did note that both sides are usually involved in activity; and there are specific areas of the brain associated with specific functions. Their relative involvement can be modified by current moods, as well.
Suffice it to say that there is a lot of evidence that assimilation, retention and recall of information is enhanced by graphic depictions over strictly linear, textual representations. Mind mapping is a very useful tool as are many other graphic depiction media.

Belbin team profiles are a fine bit of work done to characterize the enormous myriad of ways in which we humans organize ourselves for various useful purposes. I tried to paraphrase types of work in a similar fashion in our wizard to make it easier for the novel user to complete the process of defining Team Roles and Responsibilities. I also wanted to appeal to the user’s intuitive understanding of their fellow man in building team maps and looking at them in a completely different way than the traditional “Can they design this feature? Can they write the report? Can they present the concept? Can they document the findings and conclusions? Can they complete a project?” I want them to be asking and assigning more of the “Should they…” questions: “Who is the best Relationship Builder to lead the team? Who is the best Impactor to tell the story and/or sell the product? Who is the best person to meticulously document the process, results and conclusions? Who are the best thinkers to generate ideas and to brainstorm? Who is the best gate keeper to keep everyone on schedule and on budget?” That may very well point out non-traditional roles. People need to tuck away their egos to do this well, but once they have the courage and the conviction to do so, the evidence is strongly in their favor. My personal experience over 40 years, and in significant organizations, is that it really works well.

9. How easy is Strengths mapper to use and apply?

According to our alpha and beta tests, users find it quite easy to use. Ease of application will very much depend upon the user. The basic version makes it quite simple to create a Personal Strengths Map to just remind yourself of your best strengths, their definitions, and then to create a portable Action Plan to work on enhancing and honing those strengths. We feel we have made that easy and handy.

Making a PSM poster to share with friends, family and colleagues is also easy with MindManager. And, it makes a non-artist able to make a pretty impressive looking professional piece to share. You can play with colors, line weights, clip art, photos and quotes to really personalize this piece. I believe it will be a very popular attribute of the basic version.

The users of the Pro Version will likely be the more open, progressive, free-thinkers who are more focused on outcomes than on turf and egos. Understanding the concepts and applications is really quite intuitive, once you have created and spent time studying your first team map.

What we have noticed is, once you have created your first team map, you get some real “Aha’s” as to why individuals respond or react in their particular manners to different requests and assignments. You literally change how you interact with them and with their fellow team members to enable working to strengths while focusing on the mission and the overall team environment.

People much prefer being viewed as able as to incompetent. I see a big use for this in the current corporate world where down sizing has left managers with substantially modified teams. They really need to know how to get more done with what they have. Wouldn’t it be something if they could both get more done and have a happier, more profitable team?

10. Are the results something I would want my colleagues, clients and employer to know about?

Very much: How else do you create a framework for; and affect a meaningful dialogue on, what you and they are best equipped to do?

This is not narcissism, it is reality. One of the worst statistics I remember reading was that upwards of 85% of the american population dreaded going to work every day because of their work environment or of mismatched responsibilities and skills. We feel that StrengthsMapper can help change that situation for those who are willing to make that positive change.

11. I found the on-line assessment very accurate, but what about my other potential strengths?

The test results are your Top 5 strengths. In your test result report, Gallup offers personal trainers and coaches who can provide you with the rest of your 34 strengths, rank ordered highest to lowest. If you are serious about corporate or institutional implementation of Strengths Based Leadership / Management, your test results report also points you to additional consulting resources to avail yourselves of. We do not pretend to be organizational coaches or mentors. That is up to the users. We simply provide a powerful, versatile and handy tool to make it happen.

12. What is your elevator conversation piece regarding Strengths mapper?

Evidence and intuition supports that people working to their strengths every day are happier, more productive, and more profitable. StrengthsMapper is a versatile tool to help individuals and organizations effectively put those principles into practice.

13. Where can we download Strengths Mapper for Mind Manager, and what’s the cost?

You can find it at www.StrengthsMapper.com in a free 21-day trial version or for direct purchase.

The basic version of Strengths Mapper sells for $37;

Strengths Mapper Pro sells for $187;

The upgrade from Basic to Pro sells for $157.

There are also hot links on the web site to purchase the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book from which to get your own top 5 top strengths.

Wallace Tait: Visualmapper
www.visualmapper.org

Mindjet

Being a newbie at using Mindmapping software, I was pleasantly surprised by the way Mindmanager 7 runs on my Macbook. Everything is running smoothly, and without help files or other instructions I was able to make mindmaps on the fly.

When comparing Windows and Mac OSX versions of Mindmanager, there are some significant differences in use. I wanted to replicate an appealing mindmap (made with Mindmanager 7 for Windows) which I had seen during a presentation.

Screenshot: Inspector tool in Mindmanager 7 - Mac OSX

Throughout that particular presentation I learned about the extensive toolset (menu options) available for creating mindmaps exactly the way you want to. I expected to see the same menu structure in the Mac version, but that was not the case. Mindmanager 7 for Mac functions in a typical Mac-way, that is, through an inspectortool (see screenshot). Most of the Mindmanager features have been placed in the inspector, but not all of them. For example, if you want to create thicker branches (lines), that option is hidden in the upper menu bar under “Format“.

Even though the Mindmanager versions for Windows and Mac OSX are similar in functionality, there is a downside when using the Mac version in terms of extended functionality. For the Windows version there are some great (export) add-ins available that are attuned to the Microsoft Office suite (only). These add-ins are not available for the iWorks suite.

Nonetheless, Mindmanager 7 for the Mac does what it has to do, and is a great tool for digital mindmapping. On a positive note, the Mac version of Mindmanager is less expensive than the Windows versions.

To conclude, if you want  reliable, industry leading mindmapping software, Mindmanager 7 for Mac is a great pick. Let’s hope Mindjet comes out with Mindmanager 8 for Mac OSX in the near future.

See some tips & tricks in this blogpost

Give the economy a boost! Help your organisation and win unique prizes!

How many unique problems and challenges does every organisation have? How many different kinds of proven solutions are there? Not many? So how big is your best practices library then? Suppose we join forces? Suppose we learn from each other? Help each other? Share knowledge?

Who shares wins!

Every organisation has the need to continually develop brainpower. So why is this probably the biggest challenge? Because information is distributed, it’s not recorded and it’s not visualised.

This is why we want to challenge you to participate in a unique contest.

Join Hypershifters.com, send us your best practice and we’ll make it available to the other Hypershifters.com members.

There are a few rules:

• By participating, you accept that your best practice is shared with other Hypershifters.com members.
• This has to be a “hands on” best practice, so that all interested parties can immediately try it out the next workday.
• The best practice is visualised in the form of a mind map, of which you are the original author. Tip: You can select a freely available checklist or model and transform that into a mind map.
• We accept MindManager, Freemind, iMindMap, MindMeister and Comapping file formats.

You can choose to anonymise your best practice for the contest, however you can also use these to promote your organisation. We will post all best practices so that all Hypershifters.com members can download, use, discuss and collaboratively improve them.
A jury of experts in the field of visualisation will evaluate the best practices and choose 30 winners.

Above and beyond this, every registered Hypershifters.com member will received a free 6-month subscription to an online mind mapping tool.
The prizes are:

• 5 x 1st prizes; a Mindjet MindManager Training Center training of your choice (worth € 595,00)
• 10 x 2nd prizes: a World of Minds workshop of your choice (worth € 395,00)
• 15 x 3rd prizes: an add-in of your choice (worth € 129,00) or virtual office subscription for 6 months for your team (max. 10 people per team)

If you haven’t done so, join Hypershifters.com and we’ll contact you with further details.

The contest runs the entire month of May.

Good luck and may the best map win !