Adventures in home working

MindManager is a great tool that I have been using for about 3 years,  I routinely create Mind Maps of books that I read by jotting down key ideas and concepts on a folded A4 sheet of paper that I use as a bookmark.  A recent book summary that I generated captured a bit of interest and this review by Marc is particularly interesting, as he describes how he uses MindManager to achieve similar objectives:

I tend to map almost everything from meetings and presentations to project plans. Mapping a book requires a different approach than scribbling notes in the margin. It’s one of the great applications I’ve discovered for the Tablet PC and is possible because MindManager, the mapping program I use, is so well designed for the Tablet. I keep the Tablet next to me in slate mode (screen only) and jot down key points, interesting quotes (with page citations), and summary lists as I work my way through the text. I create a new branch for each chapter and always add a narrative summary in a note attached to the main node for that chapter after I’ve completed reading it.

Marc’s insights prompted me to share a few of the ways in which I use MindManager.  I often use it when I am hosting a web conference,  I share MindManager and use it to make notes,  this note taking model is much better than conventional serial note taking for the following reasons:

• The resulting notes reflect the outcome of the meeting much more accurately than serial notes,  which represent the progress of the meeting.  For example I often find that a particular topic of discussion is returned to – and refined – many times in the meeting,  in serial notes these contributions are scattered throughout the record,  in a Mind Map they are all logically grouped under the correct topic.
• Its really easy to restructure the map as our understanding of a topic evolves
• The whole scope of the discussion is always visible,  so it helps people to remember the context for any particular discussion.
• The hierarchical structure of the map helps people who would otherwise loose track of what is being discussed and how it relates to other areas of the discussion.
• Supporting material can easily be pasted in the the Mind Map as notes or links,  without creating clutter that obscures the key points.
• The resulting map is often a great start point for a really useful post meeting deliverable.  I often take the Mind Map and tidy it up after the meeting, add a few graphics and then send it out for review, or re-purpose it by exporting it as a Word document,  or Project Plan.
• The volume of screen updates sent to web conference participants is very low,  so its much easier for participants to watch than when someone is paging up and down in a word document for example.

Here is an example Map that I produced following a meeting where we were discussing Web 2.0