Mindjet is celebrating Fathers everywhere with this special Father’s Day MindManager map.
The map features:
A Brief history of Father’s Day
A Tribute to Famous Dads
Great Father’s Day Gift Ideas
Suggestions for things to do on Father’s Day with Dad
Tips on Appreciating Dads
Enjoy!
In Rachel Donadio’s June 10, 2007 New York Time Book Review, she astutely picked up on an interesting trend in the form of art imitating life, only this time it is software imitating the writing process. Accomplished authors, mixing business skills with pleasure and talents, have taken their pads and pencils to the next level. Featured in Rachel’s article is Richard Powers and how for the past decade, he has used Mindjet MindManager in his writing process.
For “The Echo Maker,” which won the National Book Award last year and is about a man who emerges from a coma without an emotional connection to his intimates, Powers created a visual outline for each character. It included material on his or her “life history, personality traits, physical characteristics, verbal tics, professional and educational background, choices and actions, attitudes and relations to the other characters,” he said. “As the material grew, I created topical sub-branches and sub-sub-branches. … After many months, at the very tips of these increasingly articulated branches, I sometimes ended up with sketches that plugged right into the draft.”
Rachel cites other authors and their tools of choice on all aspects ranging from organizing their complex storylines, rich characters, and flashbacks to aggregating their multi-media background research. Whatever your method, Rachel concludes, there is no substitute for talent and imagination. We agree and applaud the inspiration, talent, and thinking that begins with a “Central Topic.”
Related Blog:
Author and teacher, Sharon Bakar of the Bibliobibuli blog also covered the New York Times Book Review and asked her audience what software they as writers find useful. Check out the lively discussion here. One comment in the discussion points out that the software mentioned in the Times article is fairly expensive. Here are some options for a range of budgets: MindManager software has a full-featured trial with all the bells and whistles – try it free for 21 days. This is the “Pro” version. When you’ve captured your ideas, outlines, character sketches, and links to web pages in your map and you’re ready to write, you can import your map into Microsoft Word or Excel and not have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Also available are lower cost versions, “Mac” and “Lite,” with less technical integration, but are equally easy to use and fun.
Book Map:
Below is a representative map of authors who have used MindManager in their writing process. We’d love to hear from you – What kinds of software tools do you use in your writing process? Ever tried MindManager to write an article, book, or story? If Mindjet were to create a writing map template, what kinds of prompters or how to’s in the template would you find useful? Please send us your thoughts.
If you have a copy of MindManager, click here to download this map.
If you don’t have MindManager, and would like to view this map, please download our free trial first, then click here to download the map.
If you would me to add your book to this map, please send a link or jpeg of your book cover and I’ll be glad to add it to our collection! thanks!
James Bulmer, MCP – Senior Associate at Project Management Practice, Inc. (PMPi), will host a "MindManager 7 for Successful PMBOK-based Microsoft Project Schedules" webinar with Mindjet tomorrow.
June 13, 2007 at 10 am PST
For more information and to register for this free webinar, click here.
Mindjet also offers many additional resources for project managers on our Project Planning and Delivery solutions page.
The Assistive Technology blog has written a nice comprehensive review of MindManager 7 Mac we thought you’d want to check out. You can find it here. In this posting, Brian Friedlander highlights some of the new user driven features within MindManager 7 Mac such as: Outline View, Select by Rule and Timer, featuring screen shots.
Brian concludes by saying "there is a lot to like with this upgrade of MindManager 7 for the Mac and once again the bar has been raised for mind mapping on the Mac platform."
Let Mindjet’s product management team walk you through additional features in MindManager 7 Mac, by viewing this free webinar now.
Taking our Mindjet Internal "Map the 7 Wonders of Your World" contest in another direction, we also wanted to share our second winning map from Erik Swett, Senior Accountant.
Erik mapped the "Seven Wonders of the Nerd World", which you can see here:
Erik says: "The inspiration behind my map came about when I was debating the topic of the 7 Wonders of the World with my friends. I though about what we would debate, then added the idea that it would have to be done late at night. I figured any argument would quickly leave the realm of Classical or Natural Wonders and de-evolve into Star Wars, music, and superheroes. I had to throw in some extra humor because I wanted to try some new functions of MindManager and I wanted people to read what I wrote. I hoped I’d be able to start some arguments and gain some level of acceptance with the other nerds of the world."
Download Erik’s Map Here.
We wanted to share with our blogging audience the winner of Mindjet’s internal contest surrounding our MindManager 7 release. We called our contest "Map the 7 Wonders of Your World" and put a creative "no holds bar" on the endless possibilities for submission.
Congratulations to Mindjet Inside Sales Representative, Michael Millette, for his winning gem, which you can find for view and download here.
What would the 7 wonders of YOUR world look like?
We asked Michael what the inspiration behind his map was:
"I love to laugh and I see humor in almost everything. Why should a little company competition be any different? When I got the invitation to create a map of 7 Wonders of the World, I was bending my brain as to how to make it fun for me build and yet fun for someone to navigate through. Basically, I was also looking for an excuse to be just plain silly. You know…something that would generate a laugh but also be deemed as creative. I WONDERED, “What could I do…..” and then BLAMO! My map idea came to me. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I had creating it!"
- Michael Millette
Mindjet is looking for any MindManager customers who may be using MindManager to create / maintain / promote a healthy lifestyle for themselves and/or for others.
Perhaps you use MindManager to map out general health or a schedule of exercise, nutrition, personal training? We welcome all health / athlete stories.
Let us know by shooting an email to: Gaelen O’Connell (at gaelen.oconnell@mindjet.com) with your brief story and any relevant MindManager maps you may have surrounding this subject.
We look forward to hearing from you!
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