Below are my responses to what I think needs to be done by Mindjet development to save MindManager and make big Mindmaps functional.  Today with MindManager MindMaps, when a map gets ‘too’ big the map is almost worthless.  It becomes difficult to see the forest for the trees.  Below are some of my insights as a long time MindManager user to fix and even save this great software from a premature demise.

First question: What is a big map? In other words, when you think “This is a big map!”, what makes you think that? Is it just the number of topics? The size when expanded? The behavior of MindManager when you are working with it? Where do you draw the line?

• Anything that can not fit in a screen at 100% magnify is big.   Anything that can not print all subtopics on a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper is a very big map.
• Big Maps can be simple or they can be complex.  Maps with more than 100 topics are complex.  Maps with more than 3 levels of sub topics are also complex.
• From a file perspective, any maps that have more than 5 connections into Outlook are also going to be complex, same goes for excel or any other program.
• Maps that have embedded pictures (not icons) tend to tax resources as well and can degrade usability.
  

Second question: What is in your big maps? Do all your maps become big, or just some of them? Why do some maps get big and others stay small?

• Business Plans
• Strategy maps
• score cards
• desktop configurations (all my stuff)
• Process planning maps
• Contract management maps
• Website planning maps
• Maps that plan out articles or white papers that end up being more than 1000 words in length
  

    Many of my maps become big.  When they become big, they also usually become worthless and non-functional.  When they start becoming big, I usually try and formulate a MindManager Exit Strategy (How Do I save this data and keep it useful before its lost in MindManager forever)  This usually means that I try and find a way to reformat the information into something that can be published and accessed for posterity.  Since MindManager maps are almost worthless when it comes to sharing with others (emotionally charged phrases there but definitely elements of truth in them) if I do not get large maps into another form, the effort of mapping the information is almost a wasted exercise other than my own self education.

My Large maps are usually transferred to one of these forms

• Website Article via WindowsLiveWriter -> Content Management System  (PS I hope you guys are making progress with the WLW team)
• Static Websites
• Video tutorials or presentations
• Clickable Flash mindmaps to be loaded on a website
• PDF white papers

Third question: What do you do with your big maps? Do you break them up, or do they just get bigger and bigger?

I mentioned my MindManager Exit Strategy before.  I tend to break up maps as I create them today, hoping to avoid large map syndrome.  I used to embrace large maps.  However, that was when I worked in a bureaucratic setting.  Large mindmaps gave me a way to horde knowledge and in a corporation that translates to power and job security.  I don’t have to worry about that type of silly behavior today and for me today, knowledge is not power if its stuck on my hard drive somewhere.  If I can not share it, publish it, teach it, tutor with it, etc. its worthless information to me.  Large Mindmaps today are like dinosaurs stuck in a tar pit.  Their life expectancy is very very short.

Fourth question: What would you like to do with your big maps? Do you wish for specific features or abilities to deal with big maps better than you do today?

I do not think there is anything new in my request that will follow that I have not expressed every few months here on the boards, on the phone with your team, or anywhere else for that matter but I’ll hit the main points again. 

• The Notes section needs an html editor and that needs to include viewing live html
  • that would then give us the ability to embed YouTube video as one simple example
• The program needs to be stable enough to handle large maps
• Connections with Outlook are very poor and can make large maps almost impossible to open.  This needs to be fixed or solved with a different solution (see next bullet point)
• MindManager needs a DB connection interface.   Microsoft has moved to the world of Proclarity and datacubes and scorecards and much more.  MindManager needs to be in this space.  MindManager needs to be able to connect into a database and return results based on mapping that can be configured with PerformancePoint .  Mindjet needs to get some super database programmers in house ASAP if you don’t have them already otherwise this is going to end up as a dead technology in the corporate sphere.
• The DB connectivity would solve this next request, but if it doesn’t happen, MindMaps need to be able to be used by groups in real time across shared servers and also via the internet. 
  
• MindManager could better handle the chaos views of large maps if they moved into 3d mapping technologies.  I’m thinking of a new view (like outline, map, presentation and then 3d)

So that’s what I see.  I think with these improvements this could be a great software program ready to endure another 10 years.  This would open up the software for many more corporations.  It would also make it functional for social networks, even lawyers working with contracts or for example say a Pennsylvania personal injury lawyer trying to organize a case and go to trial against a corporate giant.  This type of tool could level the playing field.

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About 8 months ago, I was dabbling around with MindManager org charts and took a Snagit snap of one and then started rapidly adding hot spots.  Before you know it I had a pretty complex image and when I went to save or export it, I realized that I had to save it to Flash.  I’ve taken intro level classes in Macromedia Flash, but working in Snagit was a great deal easier for what I needed to accomplish.

I wasn’t trying to make a South Park cartoon episode nor make a radical flash animated website, just a functional, clickable org chart.

Several months later, and I got around to experimenting more with this functionality, and I think it is extremely useful in making a mindmap very rich in content for sharing either on the web, or for sharing directly with people that do not own MindManager.

Sorry Mindjet, this one may not help sales, but as soon as you find some more ways to get rich media into MindManager, I’ll be a very loud evangelist again.  Until then its work around city!

So I put together a couple maps (one political trying to make sense out of the news and probably failing, and one about a new Google advertising ad system).  Neither make much for reading, but I treated the topics as an opportunity to play with MindManager, Snagit and learn something new.

Plus, it was a good excuse to procrastinate on hunting down some cheap flights to Austin for SXSW.  I hate booking flights.  I have no reason for this, just always feel like I’m getting ripped off.  I’d almost rather drive.

After creating those, I received a email or call from someone in the MindManager Yahoo Group asking me to walk through the creation process and did that.  During that session, I learned and realized that these files do not have to be published on the internet, but that they can be viewable from a hard drive as well, the video shows this in practice and shows how it works.

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I have been using MindManager mindmapping software for several years now.  I am a trainer and love the program.  I do believe that it makes me more effective, more efficient and helps me keep information together in a way that might even make me smarter.

Those are all very useful traits to cultivate in yourself and for students, especially college students and high school students that is even more important.  This world is not getting any less crowded and students today have a great deal more competition than I had just a couple decades back.

That said buying MindManager as a student is a relatively inexpensive affair as Mindjet, the makers of MindManger offer some great educational discounts through partners such as Campus Tech.

Get Academic Discounts on Software at CampusTech

Campus Tech Rates with the Educational Discount on MindManager Product Line

$150 is a great price for this software!  The rates for Mac users is very cheap as well.

Now there is one very cool thing about doing research with MindManager in a mindmap form.

It is very easy to recycle and reuse later.  I could definitely see a teenager and especially a college student keeping notes in MindManager and using those notes very effectively as they go to work as an intern or kick off their career. 

Imagine having a large chunk of your college education immediately at your finger tips!  Now, I do understand, one of the reasons for going to college and getting a degree is not only to learn a discipline, but to learn how to learn that discipline and stay on top of a changing landscape.

I can not really think of a better tool to help a student develop that skill set.  I’d call it a discipline, but MindManager makes it so easy that its like saying that kids swinging on swing sets have developed a discipline.   Can it really be a discipline, if its fun and easy?

It’s just too easy to be a discipline.

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I wrote a week or two back that there was a MindManager Pro 7 update available, but for some reason I could not find it when I went through normal channels on my computer(video on how to find MM update availability manually).

Normal Channels being either me hitting the update button in the menu or having the program itself automatically check for an update.

So today when I went to launch MindManager 7 Pro (shortly after waking up!  ) this time I received a pop up window in the program telling me what I already know, that an update was available for my computer.  So I clicked on the button to get it and get the show on the road!

Here is what I found on the mindjet site after accepting the update.

THINGS YOU SHOULD NKNOW BEFORE UPDATING MINDMANAGER PRO 7

• You will have to reboot your windows machine after the installation, so install when you do not need your other programs running.
• You will have to shut down all windows applications and MindManager before installing.  That includes Outlook, which on some computers will run in a hidden capacity in the right task bar.
• Now the update is 82mb long, not super large, but not super small either.
• You should not loose your Map Templates built up, saved up and downloaded over the ages

If you can’t find where your Map Templates are located in MindManager 7 like me, just go to your tools menu, its the button on the right.  I always look for it in the formatting section and never find it. 

The Upgrade Windows preview so you do not panic

1. 
1. There was no virus in mine, you should not have one in yours.
2. 
1. I mentioned this above, this is the first time they give you this type of warning.
2. Note. they do not warn you that you will have to reboot your system.
3. 
1. In case you were not paying attention the first time, you may get a 2nd warning even when all of your applications are closed. 
4. 
1. I wish mindjet had told me about this one before I started the installation.  It is a common enough practice, but it never fails to catch me by surprise with many programs.

So all in all the installation went fine.  I do not know yet why it took so long for my computer to find the update, not like I was looking for movers New York to ship a whale cross country or something (bad analogy), but all in all I’m through the holidays, into the new year and the update is running.  I’ll let you know how it works as I use it.

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There is supposed to be a new update available for MindManager Pro 7.  The update number is 7.1.388.

I would love to tell you about it, however, when I click the update button, I get the message that I have latest update which was 7.0.429.

So somewhere along the way there are some cobwebs somewhere, either on my machine or in MMPro7 or on the Mindjet site.

The MindManager groups at Yahoo lists a manual download link location at

MindManager Manual Download Link

Note, make sure you write down your license number before you run it and also if you have a number of customizations, I highly advise you sign up for the Yahoo MindManager group and check out some of the tips and tricks recommended there.

Well, that’s all I know about that.  I’m off for the holidays in another 24 hours.  Going to drive a lot, visit St Louis and Peoria, then Atlanta and back to North Carolina.  Visiting with Family, getting the kids outside in the snow, playing a little pool with my brother (he just installed some fancy pool table lights ) and hopefully get some relaxation in before 2008 kicks off with a busy bang.

If I get a little spare time, I’m hoping to reorganize my collection of mindmaps.  I’m hoping to organize them better for access to the information, but I’m also hoping to extrapolate out templates from some of these maps for future mindmap template sharing.  Plus, I’m hoping to cleanse some of the maps, so that I can share the actual information while protecting the innocent. 

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