The Mindjet Blog

Archive for July, 2009

How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

Jul 9

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, shows how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business in his new book, Change by Design.

This book introduces design thinking, the collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short, design thinking converts need into demand. It’s a human-centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and creative.

Note: I just found this book today, so I have not read it yet! I LOVE great design and, as always, love all of Ideo’s mind maps!

If you want to cultivate your own own designs, check out Tim’s blog, Design Thinking. And you can pick up a copy of the book here.  

 

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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What important decisions have you made with the help of mind mapping?

Jul 8

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Yesterday’s post, Live a More Effective Life by Mapping Your Most Important Decisions, received a great comment from Michael Rose, a web editor for the blog Freelance Advisor.

I asked, "What important decisions have you made with the help of mind mapping?"

Here’s what Michael had to say:

At the end of ‘08 I read David Allen’s ‘Making it all work’. I had a whole 5 days at the beginning of the year and spent a whole day on each of the 5 steps. At the end of the process my mind was so clear of the ‘runway’ and ‘project level’ stuff I was able to think long and hard about the higher levels of focus.

I’d also happened to catch Marissa Mayer (Google VP) in a talk about making big decisions and she mentioned what I’ve come to call the ‘Mayer Method’. She basically said that before moving to Google she created a list of all the good decisions she’d ever made in life and what motivations and values they all had in common (i.e. working with people, wanting more creative freedom, moving East, stretching herself, etc.)

I applied this method to my GTD perspectives process and used MindManager to get everything down on paper. I just got everything down on paper and then made sense of it the following day.

The result? Me dropping 5 or 6 largish projects that no longer worked for me, I decided to quit my job and go freelance and I’ve just applied to do the MA I’d been wanting to do for almost 10 years!

GTD + Mayer + MindMap = major life changes and making sense of the motivations behind them = never been happier :)

 

My First Mapped Decision: Should I accept the job at Mindjet?  

I basically mapped my way through the Mindjet interview process. As part of my research, I asked anyone and everyone if they had heard about mind mapping, MindManager, or Mindjet. Searching online, I found many Mindjet fans. In person though, I couldn’t find anyone who had mind mapped or used our software before.

Until…I spoke to a friend who was in recovery. She has had a pretty hard life and turned to both drugs and alcohol early on as a way to deal with her pain. She explained to me how she used mind maps to support her recovery process.

She created a series of maps to help her gain new insights into what led her to a life on drugs and what were the negative influences that could drag her back down that path. She also mapped what her healthy life looks like and how she can fill it with positive influences to keep herself clean. I had chills listening to her.

After listening to her story, I was pretty much sold. Through the interviews and conversations, I knew Mindjet offered a powerful business and productivity application. What I also loved about it was the ability to also be a transformational tool for life. Hearing stories like these make working for Mindjet and promoting mapping such a pleasure! So, needless to say, my map of Mindjet became overwhelmingly clear: take the job! And, like Michael said above, never been happier :)

 

How about you? How has mapping impacted your ability to make work or life decisions?  

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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Live a More Effective Life Mapping Your Most Important Decisions

Jul 7

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Every day we’re confronted with many decisions. Some big, some small. How do you approach which software package to implement? Or, more importantly, how do you approach which life path should you take? Should you start your own business? Take that job you were just offered? The choices we make in the moment could have long and important repercussions.

John Hammond, author of Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, stresses the importance of a consistent approach to decision making… 

"Despite the importance of decision making to our lives, few of us ever receive any training in it. So we are left to learn from experience. But experience is a costly, inefficient teacher that teaches us bad habits along with good ones. Because decision situations vary so markedly, the experience of making one important decision often seems of little use when facing the next."

Last Thursday, I posted a link to Luciano Passuello’s review of the Hammond’s book, The Essential Guide to Effective Decision Making. While reading the post, I realized that this approach to decision making is perfect for MindManager.

 

Live a more effective life…

The following map example can be applied to both work and life. It can be updated individually or as a team. The latter can help develop better choices, improve communication, and create alignment.

Basically, you have to clearly define your problem statement. Then, an often overlooked step is to identify your true objectives. After you’ve identified the problem and understand your objectives, brainstorm your list of alternatives. For each alternative, there can be consequences and tradeoffs.

Understand all of these and you’ve created the ‘big picture’ from which you can truly evaluate and select the best option for moving forward. The map template has notes from Luciano’s post and links to more resources. As Luciano states, "this process may seem like a lot of work to go through. However, after you use it a couple of times, you’ll realize that, if you walk through the steps in order, you’ll seldom need to go through them all."

Download Map Now

Question for our readers: What important decisions have you made with the help of mind mapping?  

 

Related Posts

 

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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The Future of Search: Exploring Visual Search Engines

Jul 6

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Exploring Visual Search Engines

If a picture is worth a thousand words, viewing your search results visually can accelerate save you time while processing your results. Scrolling through long textual listings is time consuming, monotonous and eye-straining.

Google’s recent introduction of the Wonder Wheel made me wonder what other options are available. Of course, you can perform visual searches with MindManager 8. Beyond that, I started my research with Robin Good’s mind map of visual search engines. After checking out all the examples and writing this post, I stumbled on his original post.

What did I see?

Some of the players in this space are hungry startups while others, like SearchMe, have received millions in venture funding. Many had flashy and elegant designs while others looked like they were built with yesterday’s technologies. The best engines not only present eye-candy results but also provide the greatest insights by presenting the big picture to show you how all the results are interconnected.

My advice to these companies is to focus on providing richer, visual experiences built around the need to use information, not just see information.

Check them out and let us know what you think!

 

Grokker  

Grokker is a web based search engine and enterprise search tool that leverages content from a variety of sources and provides a visual interface to navigate and utilize information.

  • Search through multiple sources with a single query
  • Results are organized by categories
  • Filters can be applied to narrow down results
  • Map view provides a three-dimensional view that lets you zoom in and out
  • Save pages & documents into working lists for later reference
  • Add results to yourself or others
  • Export research results into a variety of formats (e.g. bibliographic, RSS, etc…)

Grokker has been around few a few years now and was utilized by some large companies like Sun Microsystems. Their application and site, however, looks like it hasn’t changed much since I last looked at it several years ago. Give Grokker a whirl.

 

KartOO

French search and data visualization software publisher, KartOO, develops cartographic interfaces that allow you to quickly find data in searches, in timelines and in specific locations.

They claim nearly 200 customers (large corporations, government, small and medium enterprises, etc.) leverage their solutions in the fields of data visualization, strategic monitoring, and innovation management.

KartOO lets you:

  • Search with Google, and Yahoo!

  • View results in columns, list view, and multiple map views

  • Select a variety of complementary side bar views including top sites, related topics, news, images, and more…

Experience KartOO, learn more, or check out their blog (in French) for more information. 

 

Viewzi

Everything is big in Texas. So, when search visualization developers created Viewzi they didn’t stop with a single visual view. Instead, they’ve developed 20 different views to display results based on the type of search you’re performing. Results can be arranged in stacks, along a timeline, for individual site information, photo tag cloud, and more. It also lets you customize results by showing or hiding results. Their goal is admirable: the right data, presented in the right way.

Check out Viewzi.

 

Qwiji

Qwiji, a recent startup coming from Tel Aviv, Israel, has set out to improve your experience with search results by letting you easily scroll through actual results. Qwiji, currently in beta, provides a navigation frame around result pages. This lets you navigate sites, watch videos or check out images without requiring you to hit the ‘back’ button on your browser or open up results in a secondary tab.

A really interesting feature lets you compile, post, and share ‘web shows’. Web shows let you watch the web, like you watch a TV program. You can pull together and annotate content, videos, and images. Or, sit back and watch the compilations created by the community.

Search on qwiji, create a web show, or check out their blog.

 

KoolTorch

KoolTorch presents categorized results on a single page instead of letting users page through multiple search result pages. They categorize and cluster results in a multi-level graphical format – with large numbers of results (up to 100 or more) on a single page.

 

Quintura

Quintura takes advantage of an interactive tag cloud that lets your filter down your web, video or image search results into a more meaningful result. They offer a free widget to provide an alternative search and navigation for your site. Perform a search or learn more, or check out their blog here. 

 

Tag Galaxy 

Tag Galaxy is an innovative engine to search images on Flickr. Enter a tag and you’ll see an interactive universe of related tags appear. Use your mouse to navigate the universe and click a neighboring planet to refine your image search. When you’ve built the tag planet, click it to see your images:

 

Click an image to see a larger thumbnail. Click again and get the details for the image from flickr. Click yet again and you can go to the flickr page to add comments, rate, etc…

 

Kosmix

Kosmix consolidates results from multiple sites and puts it into a portal for easy access. Users can also customize their own result pages to include videos, MP3s, RSS feeds, Videos from YouTube, Tweets and their own HTML code. Learn more about Kosmix with an example of their own, check out their blog, or have fun searching!

 

SearchMe

Searchme lets you see, navigate, and use what you’re searching for in a dynamic display. It provides results for the web, video, images, music, and news. It also has specialized filters to refine results for software, blogs, and shopping. Create a search ‘stack’ by dragging preferred results into a stack. Then, name it, change it, and share it with the world. I like the ability to play media, like the video above, directly in the results page.

Check out SearchMe stacks, test out all of their search tools, and learn more in their blog.

 

Ujiko

 

Ujiko presents categorized search results in something that resembles an old MP3 player. It groups results and color codes them by theme. Click on one of the themes to improve / refine your search. The more you use the tool, you are rewarded with additional, more advanced features. You can hide results from future searches, promote results to push them forward in your result lists, and take notes, add descriptions and store results in folders. Check it out here. 

 

Search-Cube

Search-cube presents web search results in a three-dimensional cube. The interactive interface previews of up to ninety-six websites, videos and images. It was a novel way to see sites, but left me wondering about the value.

 

Middlespot

 

Middlespot lets you see your results as screenshots that you can pan and zoom like a map, save relevant individual results in personalized workpads, and the ability to share workpads with colleagues. Search the web, images, news, Amazon, and twitter with middlespot.

 

oSkope

oSkope lets browse images and products from sites like Amazon, eBay, flickr, fotolia, yahoo, and youtube. Select your site and either select categories and sub-categories or enter a search term.  It offers five different visual layouts: grid, stack, pile, list, and graph.
Clicking the thumbnails will display additional information about the photo or product. Click again to enlarge the image, play a video, or jump to the website.

 

nexplore

 

nexplore displays search results for the web, news, videos, images, blogs, and podcasts in a summary, gallery or list view. Hover over entries to see previews of the web pages. Customize results by saving favorites and removing results from queries. Overall, the site was a little too busy and distracting for me. 

 

Cooliris

Cooliris displays results in a 3D wall that lets you quickly preview images, videos, and more. 3rd Party sites that support cooliris let your navigate their media with ease. Navigate and explore media on top sites like Facebook, MySpace, Hulu, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Getty Images, and your own desktop. Search, share, view slideshows, navigate to web pages, shop, and explore news and entertainment channels. Cooliris has also created an iPhone app to let you browse and use media wherever you go.

 

eyePlorer

eyePlorer provides access to facts. It visualizes facts as well as relationships between facts. Use eyePlorer to research, collect, process and publish information of interest. Currently, this search engine categorizes results from the English and German versions of Wikipedia. Drag and drop facts into a notepad which you can save or share with others. If you’re a fan of Wikipedia, check them out. Also, check out the eyeBlog.

 

RedZ

 

RedZ loads search results into a scrollable display of site images. Decent idea, poor execution! The results present the #2 site as the ‘hero’ while the other sites are in the background. They provide no instructions how to navigate through the sites and when I did figure it out, the speed was so great that it was virtually useless. Cute logo though.

 

Liveplasma

LivePlasma maps let you enter musicians, movies, directors, or actors to find similar results that may interest you. It groups results according to interests, style, and other criteria. Proximity represents the likelihood that you’ll like the result. Size represents popularity. Color groups like categories.

 

TouchGraph

 

TouchGraph was founded in 2001 with the creation of the original visual browser for Google. It has since expanded to highlight relationships contained in Amazon, Wikis, and other popular information sources. The site lets you see relationships and launch sites. I played with TouchGraph years ago and it doesn’t appear to have been updated much since then. The company seems to be focused on building service revenues implementing their technologies at large organizations while leveraging their search platforms to build brand awareness.

 

What visual search engines are you using and why? What would make search work for you? Share below.

 

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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Happy 4th of July!

Jul 2

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend from everyone here at Mindjet!

Here’s a quick set of interesting links of mapping & visual thinking…

  • The Essential Guide to Effective Decision Making: Luciano Passuello has an interesting post on PrOACT, an approach for effective decision making. Sounds like a great map template with branches for Problem Statement, Objectives, Alternatives, Consequences, and Tradeoffs. What do you think?
     
  • Mind Map Conditions: A fun look at a variety of mapping conditions and ailments by Paul Foreman. Have any other conditions to add to the list?   
     
  • Interview with Phil Novack of Mindjet: Brian Friedlander discusses the new MindManager CPA Edition with Mindjet’s Global Communications manager, Phil Novack.
     
  • Adding New Topic Shapes to Your MindManager Library: Andrew Wilcox gets prescriptive here with a guide to creating your own topic shapes. I’ve created 3D shapes with PowerPoint in the past and then loaded them up into MindManager to add some spice to some of my maps.
     
  • Save time and aggravation with a simple travel planning mind map: Chuck Frey offers a travel packing mind map template to save you time and frustration. Packing never really frustrates me though. Finding the best airfare and dealing with travel web sites, on the other hand…
      

Special thanks to dcJohn for the image.

 

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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Top Mindjet Blog Links for June

Jul 1

Posted by MichaelDeutch in Mindjet

Happy July! Here’re the top five posts from June…

  1. Mindjet CEO, Scott Raskin, shares how Alan Mullaly, Ford Motor Company CEO, Maps Out a Turnaround.
     
  2. Have All Your Answers on a Single Page highlights how I capture everything about mind mapping in a single branch from my dashboard map.
     
  3. Map Your Future: Vision Board Mind Maps illustrates how Mindjet customer, Augusto Pinaud, uses MindManager to map and manifest his vision for the future.
     
  4. Mapping Your Strategy, Business Cases, and Home Life highlights 3 maps posted in BiggerPlate.com by Diana Zee. Check out these real world mapping examples.
     
  5. A Visual Guide to MindManager 8 announced a new visual guide to MindManager by Mindjet partner & evangelist, Wojciech Korsak. Check out the great comments on this post.
     

Finally, if you haven’t had a chance to provide input yet, check out: How Can I Make the Mindjet Blog More Useful For You?

 

 

About the Author: Michael Deutch is Mindjet’s Chief Evangelist, content contributor for the Mindjet Blog and the Mindjet Connections newsletter. Get more from Michael on Twitter. 

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