I’m obsessed with how the brain does its thinking and problem solving, so using MindManager engages my curiousity in all sorts of ways and allows me to actually think differently. Leonardo da Vinci was known to sketch the same object from several different angles to fully understand what he was studying. MindManager maps have the potential to do this for the problems encapsulated in its topics and subtopics. Maps are not anything like virtual reality, but the reality of the content does change somehow when viewed in a map. There’s nothing more exciting than getting to see your content pop out at you from the screen in a whole new way as a result of its display. The medium is indeed the message…
When I told my mother I worked for a company that makes mind mapping software, she sounded proud, as any mother would be, but quickly observed that her own brain is still leaps and bound more dynamic than any software tool.
Maybe she’s right…
I think there’s much more that software and hardware products can do to enhance and support the brain’s way of thinking and problem solving. Digitized mind mapping is a big step in the right direction. Developing this concept further and combining it with other enhancements (search and image technology, new input, storage and display devices, etc.) can hopefully bring the best of our brains’ talents to the fore.
Gerelee Goltsev – User Interface Designer, Mindjet
Gerelee,
I repeat myself too much. But I keep thinking about Tom Cruise’s desktop in Minority Report. I think that that is actually a great model for us. We kindof have that interface now in the sense that you can drag all kinds of things in. But I really like how physical Cruise’s fictional desktop is. Watching his work was like watching Eugene Ormandy conduct. How cool would it be to be doing your work on a computer–but to be moving and gesturing at the same time. I wonder if adding that element of physicality would somehow trigger new parts of our imagination, just as our interface triggers those more visual elements of our minds…