If you’ve been tracking us on Facebook and have been checking your email regularly, you no doubt know by now that we’re putting the final touches on the brand new “Spinscape 2.0.”

If you haven’t been following the news, now would be a great time to friend us … and by the way … we’re putting the final touches on a brand new version of Spinscape!

Click here and check out the Spinscape 2.0 preview video.

Now that we’re all on the same page, we really want to prepare you for the transition by giving you some useful information.

First, as a Spinscape 1.0 user, let us assure you, all your data is safe. In fact it’s more than safe. Your stuff is locked down like a gold brick at Ft. Knox, like a field mouse in the talons of a falcon.

We really want to prepare you for the transition by giving you a few bits of information. Specifically, what is getting migrated into Version 2.0 and our migration plan.

The Spinscape 2.0 migration.

Almost everything is going to make it over into the new version. Your contacts, maps, nodes, map and node permissions, node shapes (except the cloud … we decided to ditch that one), your images, and stuff inside the oh-so-useful container that we refer to as the node.

We will NOT migrate the cloud shape, the expanded/collapsed state your current maps are in (your maps will open fully expanded … if you make changes, the new state will be saved automatically), the current version of tasks (no worries, the new one rocks), any bugs, and performance issues of Version 1.0.

Finding, Organizing and Sharing has never been easier. All of your interests, passions and world changing ideas now have a home and it is called Spinscape 2.0.

The current plan is to perform the migration during a several hour window the morning of Monday, January 25th. So if you can’t log in then, you’ll know the migration is on. We will certainly update you if there are any changes.

Remember, we’re disseminating information through Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter, as well as our own blog and forum. So stay tuned for play-by-play on this historic decade-defining event.

We’re very excited to bring you this new version. It represents a lot of hard work and some very novel ideas. So, while you’ve been enjoying the holidays and a bright and shiny new year, we’ve been putting the final sexification on Spinscape 2.0. Your new year just got brighter.

First, we listened. In August 2009, we surveyed 3500 Spinscape users to determine what features would put Spinscape 2.0 into the category of “got to have” applications. Our goal: Create an application to make your life so much easier when it comes to finding, organizing and sharing information. We wanted to create a tool that stands out while embodying the core elements of mind mapping. Finally, we took a few risks, pushed boundaries and Spinscape 2.0 was born.

Here are just a few features you’re going to love.

The New Lid:
At Spinscape we think of nodes as containers, a place where you can store all of your information. Not your standard bite-size Tupperware containers … Think Huge Storage Bins. Spinscape nodes, like bins, have lids. Our lid is now more customizable: instead of just displaying text and being customizable with shapes and colors, a node lid can display images and YouTube videos.

Managing Tasks:
Within each node, you can now assign tasks to other collaborators. The task manager offers you the ability to set a due date for the task, select a collaborator to assign it to, and create an email notification, without having to leave the application. Discussions and chats can take place within the node so you can track conversations and progress during the project. Once an assigned task is completed, as the assigner, you receive an automatic notification via email.

Presentation Mode:
Presentation Mode allows you to showcase ideas in a mind map as a slide show, similar to a PowerPoint presentation. This new option will enable you to develop and build ideas, focus on delivery and content, and then guide the audience through a presentation with clarity.

When it comes to finding, organizing, and sharing information, Spinscape 2.0 is the complete answer!

Migration toward Spinscape 2.0 comes to you in real time on Facebook and Twitter.

Tis the season I guess.

In a few short weeks when you’re making your resolutions and working off the 15 pounds of sweets, we will be unveiling Spinscape 2.0. (You didn’t think the big “S” meant Santa did you?) While you wait, feel free to friend us on our Facebook Fan Page or follow us on Twitter. Those are two great places to get previews of features you will see in January. Of course, our website will have new blogs and forum topics as well.

Oh, and by the way, here are just a few of the features you will see: performance improvements, new collaboration features, simplified design, presentation mode, tasks and tracking, complete customization, skins, new Farmland, new chat, new plugins, sharing enhancements, iPhone app, and tons more.

Finally, we hope that you have a Spinful and safe holiday season!

I have 2 awesome daughters that are both in Elementary School. My oldest daughter, Malori, is in fourth grade now. One thing we learned about fourth grade and the curriculum she is in is that there is a lot of memorization. Fourth grade also tests the student on how well they manage their time and their tasks. When I was in fourth grade, I have to say, I wasn’t very good at either. My strategy was to try to complete whatever work was assigned as quickly as possible, sometimes staying after class a little while just to finish the task. If it didn’t get done right away, chances are it wouldn’t get done until 10pm (or later) on a Sunday. This is a skill I’m hoping does NOT get passed on to my little girls.

I’ll leave the planning and organization part of my story for another day, but I would like to tackle the memorization and learning part in this post. I have merged some ideas that work for me as well as some things that have shown some success in Malori since the homework started piling on after first grade. No doubt there will be several iterations of this process, but at this point the results have been so good, I hesitate to change too much. Your results may vary as I think every student learns differently. The info presented here is kind of a baseline.

A little background.

A couple weeks ago, Malori was learning about Explorers from all over the world and their various attempts at finding the “New World”, gold, the Fountain of Youth, etc. There were about 14 of them. I think that is about 7 more than I learned about. Anyway, Malori was responsible for knowing the Explorer, where they were from, where they went, why they went there, and who funded their trip. A somewhat daunting task. Of course there was much more to the lesson than this, but the memorization was the key stumbling block as far as I could see.

Her main problem was that she was having difficulty remembering where the Explorers were from. Some of the Explorers had cues in their name such as Jacques Cartier. She doesn’t have the experience dealing with the French language as many adults so this was an issue for her. Or for example, she had trouble remembering if Vasco da Gama was from Portugal or Spain. Add the fact that Vasco da Balboa was also in the list of explorers and one was from Portugal and one from Spain, you could see how it could be difficult to keep track. So in my infinite wisdom and prowess as the best dad ever, I decided to help Malori map out the explorers in Spinscape. You can see part of the fruits of our labor in the image below.

So this was our first attempt. Now the caveat here was that Malori told me she was having a test the next day on this material and it was already 10:30pm. So needless to say, we built the map, but didn’t get a ton of time to study it.

End a little background.

This week, again basically at the last minute, Malori told me that she was going to have two tests. (Sound familiar dad? I guess you got your wish, my kids are doing the same thing to me that I did to you.) One test was on Science and one was on History. This time we had the evening to prepare.

The first thing we did was to take on Science. We took out her Science study guide and fired up Spinscape. We mapped everything that was on the guide and talked about each item as we mapped it. We added a section for definitions and then a node for each one of the topics. We talked about the topics as we mapped them. We also talked about how the topics related to each other. In the definition part, we put the word as the title of the node and the definition on the “lid.” The lid is a unique to Spinscape idea. You’ll hear more about that as we ready our 2.0 version for launch.

Here’s our basic structure (click to enlarge)…

Now just the definitions (click to enlarge)…

After the guide was mapped into Spinscape, we started using the lid notes as virtual flash cards. This worked out incredibly well. It only took us doing this for a few minutes and Malori had all the info down cold.

A node with a question in it, followed by the answer in the "lid"

So then we took a break and moved on to History. Her History test was a little more substantial so it required a little more organization. We started with four nodes. One each for definitions, maps, questions, and true and false. Granted true and false are questions, but who is going to argue that with a fourth grader?

History overview map (click to enlarge)…

We set up the definitions section much like the one in Science.

Definitions section of the map

The question node had children that were the actual questions. We put the answer on the lid and immediately we had our digital flash cards. The true and false was a no brainer to set up. Finally we added the data to the maps section. Now this one was a little bit more interesting.

True or False questions…

Malori was supposed to be able to find the following on a map: The Ohio River, Canada, Mexico, Plymouth, The Gulf of Mexico, The Atlantic Ocean, The Rocky Mountains, and Jamestown. No worries. We just grabbed a map from each from Google Images and put them on the top of the node. Now the images are visible along with the title of the node. Not too shabby. Next we started to study the content.

A few of the maps she was required to know. These look quite good when you zoom into them in Spinscape!

We used the same Spinscape Flash Card technique as we did when we were studying for Science. It went a lot like this…look at the node title, think about the answer, open the lid to find out if you are right. If you got it, color the node green. If you were wrong, make it red for the time being. After all the nodes are green, iterate again. Below you can see a couple of the Spinscape virtual flash card node goodness we came up with.

It didn’t take long to realize that Malori was having some issues with a few of the definitions. Truth be told, the definitions were actually people. In essence they behaved a lot like a definition so I okayed the organization.

In this chapter they studied three missionaries that had interaction with Native Americans. There was also a preacher, and a few other Native Americans to remember. The issue Malori had was that she kept thinking that the preacher (John Wesley) was one of the missionaries and vice versa. So the first thing we did was create a node called Missionaries and placed the missionaries in as children to that node. Now that we visually separated John Wesley from the others, she was able to separate who was who in her mind.

Next the confusion came in as to which one of the missionaries did what. This required a little in the way of mnemonics. As with me, mnemonics went a long way with my daughter. It turns out John Eliot was a missionary who translated the Bible into the language of the Massachusetts Indians. The first thing that popped into my mind was E.T. the Extra-terrestrial. Remember Eliott from that movie? The E in the mnemonic stood for Eliot, and the T stood for Translated. I put a picture from the movie poster in the node and the memorization had begun. We used the same technique for the other missionaries and in seconds Malori had everything neatly tucked in her cute little brain.

Nodes with our mnemonics as images on the Lid. Don’t underestimate how useful this can be!

We went through the Spinscape maps one more time yesterday morning. To my delight I got a phone call from my wife later in the day telling me that Malori had gotten 100% on both of her tests!

Now I know she has great genes, but this one I have to chalk up to Spinscape…and a dad who cares. Keep on the lookout for more information about Spinscape 2.0. You’re going to hear a lot more about it throughout November and December!

After a few attempts at it, I noticed some things. The first thing I realized was that in the past a lot of useful information had been slipping through the cracks. Second, was that so many great ideas were unrealized, being that I was unable to capture them or fully explore them. Third, it appears, in certain aspects of my life I was already a natural born mind mapper, just without the mind map. All in all, I was underutilizing my natural creative thinking process.

Most of us use mind mapping for organizing, collaborating, managing projects and brainstorming, amongst other things…things we do professionally and personally, on a daily basis without even realizing it. It’s natural, whether calling a friend to run some problem by them, taking mental notes on their input, then consulting another friend, and so on. To stay organized we create our to do lists, circling priorities, drawing lines from one item to the other, leading our minds in an effort to stay on track while at places like the grocery store. We brainstorm on beverage napkins… pushing our ideas further through the doodles we draw, mulling over our ideas.

So this raises the question… who is a candidate for mind mapping? Everybody is! And with Spinscape, a tool that encourages forward thinking, you can turn your everyday problems into solutions. Before, you were simply creating a personal to-do list; with mind mapping you manage the monthly schedule for your entire family. Before, you were getting advice from a friend over the phone. Now, you are getting instant input and ideas from colleagues across the country. In the past you were individually contacting every parent involved in the Christmas Bazaar. With a mind map, you can easily manage the progress and updates of your professional team or again….and, in your spare time, that Christmas Bazaar.

There are endless opportunities both personally and professionally where mind mapping plays a key role… Because let’s face it, aren’t we all natural born mind mappers?

“You see what no one else can see…” So I can’t sing it like Sheena Easton. Well I think I can but only if I’m driving, the windows are rolled down, and the music is blaring. I CAN tell you that Spinscape facilitates Private Sharing. Ummm…you know we’ve just switched gears to the professional or educational world, right?

Private Sharing in Spinscape…
Use Spinscape to map out your project, your event, or your research paper. You want someone to look at it and give you some feedback, maybe tell you if you’re on the right track. With private sharing in Spinscape you can share your ideas, information, and tasks with an individual of your choice. Now say it becomes a group project, a company event, or a team research paper. You can select and share with a group of people. YES! Yes you can! Still, this is a group of users you have chosen. And nobody else has any business–and literally no right–being in your business!

You can even decide if you want the user to be a viewer: look, but don’t touch! Or you can let the user be a collaborator: go ahead, share what you’re thinking…get your hands in there and do what you like. You’re getting the picture. You have complete control over who does what with your stuff.

You can change permissions from viewer to collaborator and vice versa, at any time. If someone drops out of the group or gets kicked off of the team (you know it happens!), you can stop sharing with an individual as needed. You can also stop sharing with everyone all at once with the simple click of a button. That means when you say “when”, the sharing party is over.

In Spinscape, when we say Private Sharing, we mean PRIVATE. You say who. You say what. You say when.

Did you know you can even add a private node to a map you have shared…and that node will be for YOUR eyes only, no matter who has what permissions on your map??? Mmmm hmmm. But that is a topic for another blog…

The answer took some time, and to be honest a big push, because I was quite hesitant to try something new. But one day I got so bored with building the same old planning calendar that I said funk it, and gave this whole mind mapping thing a try. Not to be a lame-o or anything, but it was pretty damn exciting!

The first mind map I did was our 2010 marketing plan. Being that I am a very visual person, I decided to start brainstorming ideas on the page: different events, campaigns, video ideas, banner and print ideas, social media, etc., to see the many channels of marketing that are available. It’s amazing how one idea leads to another! I was able to move nodes and ideas around to build a hierarchy of priorities and costs, then stem off nodes and ideas from one another. I was even able to insert video clips and pictures supporting my ideas. Before I knew it, I had painted a beautiful marketing picture.

As a marketer and creative soul, what really sold me on mind mapping is that I was able to make this LIST of ideas into a colorful piece of art! When I met with the sales manager and the president to present my proposed plan they were in awe of the actual presentation. It was not the normal black-and-white squares-and-graphs presentation, but a digital map that revealed lots of surprises hidden inside…inside each node of course!

While I am no expert mind mapper yet, I have found that with Spinscape, I am able to exercise the creativity that sits inside anyone passionate about what they do.

By: Katie Kremhelmer

When I’m brainstorming or collaborating with people, I often times want to add extra information about a topic in the form of links, attachments, tags, and the like. Most of the time I will have several links, attachments, and tags for each topic. Very rarely do I have just one link, one attachment, and one tag for each topic. Beware, soup metaphor imminent.

If someone said you could only put one mushroom or one onion into a pot of soup, you would probably say a big fat “hell no” to that right? So then why would you want to be restricted as to how many links, tags, or attachments you could put into a node?! It’s just silly, especially when you can fit a ton of fat shrooms and other veggies into the pot to improve the taste.

I like to have creative freedom to be able to associate many things with a topic. As a guitar player, I’m very interested in the new Mesa Boogie Mark V amplifier. I build a map and share it with my friend Duane who also plays guitar. Along with the “Amp Settings” node, I want to upload a specification pdf (mmm add a quarter cup of onion), some common settings (dash of spices), several sound clips (half cup of chopped celery), and an instructional video on how to dial in certain tones (add some chicken chunks). Seems reasonable right? Yup, to me too. That’s why we view the node as a container, pot, bowl, bucket…put as much in that sucker as you want. I can taste it already.

Now some people may prefer to create a new node for each link, attachment, etc. (i.e. you just like broth! :)) That’s ok, we give you that option. But for those of us with a sophisticated palette, we have a solution for you too.

That’s it for now…soup’s on!

So, you’re new to mindmapping, eh? For those who aren’t familiar with the term, mindmapping is basically a visual way to organize your thoughts. The idea is, that when you actually SEE your ideas and how they relate to each other, the larger picture of what you’re trying to accomplish becomes much clearer. The end result? Improved expression of ideas and better decision making, not to mention some pretty cool visual impact in most cases.

Everything, indeed…

It’s common for people to look at a tool and try to label it or categorize it as being specifically and directly suited for one specific application. However, when you consider mindmapping as a tool, this becomes a little more difficult. Each of us has a mind of our own, right? In turn, we all have thoughts. Our thoughts are not limited to just school, work, reading, travel, cooking, planning the next corporate event, etc… So, it stands to reason that every one of us has something (likely, many things) to map. And the topics and intended results are as varied as the proverbial “grains of sand on the beach” analogy.

The Ultimate Tool

Now that we’ve discussed mindmapping as a tool, let’s discuss possible tools for mindmapping. The ultimate tool would allow you not only to map out your thoughts and ideas, but would also give you the ability to research and import new concepts, as well as find answers and add them to your map. Why stop there? You should also be able to invite others to add their two cents into your analysis for more robust solutions, decision making and planning. It would also be really cool if the tool allowed you to plug into information that would otherwise require manual search, retrieval and entry.

Don’t you think?

by Duane Harlick, PMP
Business Development Manager

As of July 1st, you will no longer need an invite to get into Spinscape. We appreciate the patience of everyone in the Spinscape trial community while we sorted out the features that were most important to our customers. If you’ve been one of our private beta testers, you no doubt have seen quite the evolution…

At this point, maybe a little journey down memory lane would be appropriate…

We started with little more than an idea….

…but we came in with the committment that we were going to use Scrum and agile software development to continue evolving Spinscape.

So we started with some rough prototypes…

And we quickly learned what worked and what didn’t work.

It turns out it is difficult to make sense of information when it looks all tangled!

So then we decided to go with more of a radial approach. Which made info much easier to see.

Issue here is that when maps get big, or there is a lot of text in the nodes, everything gets thrown out of whack!

We went away from the circle nodes. This was some of our early Zoom prototype work…

Now we started working on making the nodes prettier…

From here we made a giant leap and made everything look good. We used the accordion on the right to house information. It was an improvement, but we really wanted to treat nodes as more abstract containers and the accordion wasn’t going to let us do that.

Now we mocked up the container idea where you basically zoom into the information. Here was my super crude depiction of the inside of a node. Warning: For the squeamish, you may want to look away…you are about to see the early innards of a node.

Note there is the beginning of the dock over on the right. Sure it ain’t pretty yet, but we were evolving!

Now the elite members of our closed beta should be familiar with the image below. It was what we were calling the Cartman release. (long story…actually, not long just boring. )

There were some really good nuggets in here! I was going to insert an image from a map I created, but our dear friend Aliza Sherman from www.webworkerdaily.com made this killer map so I thought I would paste it in here.

We couldn’t leave it there, after all, Spinscape is always Evolving! So, this brings us to where we are now. Another stop in the evolutionary ladder of an application that set out to make life easier for the masses. Behold…Spinscape has arrived!

Again much thanks to those brave souls that have been helping us test this bugger, and for those of you that have offered insights as to how you are using Spinscape, we are eternally grateful! Please continue to participate in the Spinscape community. We have a lot of ideas for the future and we will be bringing them to you one month at a time!