Comments on: 10 Steps to Great Presentation Maps

By: Use MindManager for Presenting – Super Post | The Mindjet Blog

Use MindManager for Presenting – Super Post | The Mindjet Blog — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:51:29 +0000

[...] his post 10 Steps to Great Presentation Maps, Michael goes through 10 ways to make your presentations stronger using mapping for either the [...]

By: How to Make a Great Presentation: Mapping Your Content | The Mindjet Blog

How to Make a Great Presentation: Mapping Your Content | The Mindjet Blog — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:35:55 +0000

[...] 10 Steps to Great Presentation Maps [...]

By: Michael Deutch

Michael Deutch — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:59:58 +0000

Good point Keith, could have had a complementary map!

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:08:44 +0000

Why wasn’t this created in a mindmap and loaded to the Blog?

By: Michael Deutch

Michael Deutch — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:06:33 +0000

Jim, extremely well said! Thanks.

By: Jim Finney

Jim Finney — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:14:57 +0000

To expand more on Steve Rothwell’s points… old habits die hard, even for those of us who know better! Having taken a one-day course by Edward Tufte a few years back, I am now more actutely aware of the conflict most presenters face. On one hand, they have the desire for their presentation package to stand alone, in order to minimize the misinterpretation of the intended message in the wider audience, especially those who cannot experience the live presentation. This is the factor which drives presentations towards verbose word charts, which then tend to lose the attention of the live audience. On the other hand, unless one can devise some very data-rich graphics, video, or audio, it is difficult to create a package which conveys unambiguous detail without a lot of words. The answer, and Steve hits it on the head and I think Tufte would fully agree, is that you still need to be able to provide – offline from the presentation – the detailed report and data which supports your presented message in a unambiguous manner. The presentation is just a billboard or storyboard highlighting the basic messages of the presenter. But such a presentation should rarely be intended to stand alone. Mind maps can be a better way to show high-resolution information “adjacent in space”, as Tufte promotes, rather than the typical use of PowerPoint to “stack information in time”. The other pitfall is the notion that fancy, colorful Mind maps or PowerPoint can make anyone a presenter; you also need a certain amount of salesmanship and showmanship (tailored to fit your style). To really be effective, presenters still need to have their message documented and available in unambiguous prose, thoroughly know their content and their message well, and know where all of the supporting evidence can be found. It is a two-way street, though; it doesn’t help if the audience expects and wants to digest only PowerPoint bullets.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:54:24 +0000

I have definitely mind mapped before and found that it helped me organize my thoughts into a clear message and presentation. I also found a presentation set-up that really helped improve corporate communication within my company. It’s the spyder video processing system by Vista Systems. Here is the site http://www.vistasystems.net/market_solutions/corporate.asp

By: Steve Rothwell

Steve Rothwell — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:40:49 +0000

Great post, Michael. And very timely. You rightly point out that some of the bad habits of avid PowerPointers may be making the jump to MM presentations.

I always go back to what is probably an out of date term these days – “visual aid”. Anything you use to support your presentation should help the audience get the main points you are discussing and should help them remember these. Your visuals should support your talk and help to underline key points. As Michael hints at – if you feel the need to share lots of detail then issue a report or paper before the meeting and use the presentation to debate key areas or take feedback.

It’s also worth taking a look at some the thoughts of Edward Tufte.

By: Robin Capper

Robin Capper — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:59:06 +0000

I’d love to see MindManager get a bit slicker in presentation model. Some thoughts;

- Give the presentation view the same status as the map & outline views on the status bar
- Have a the notes tooltip expand/zoom to a full screen view. I have High-Quality Graphics in the notes as large images in the map topics slow things down. To hover and have the image fill the screen (over the map).

If your map is too complex to prresnt tag the topics you want to appear with an icon, I use the Glasses, then filter the view by that icon.