What are you thinking?

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