Mindmapping: Map your thoughts

I have always wanted to start talking about some of my favorite tools. In this screencast, I demonstrate MindMeister, an online mindmapping tool. What is a mindmap? The wikipedia page sums it up very well.

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

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The screencast example is a simple organization example. My biggest use of mindmapping is usually anytime I have a ton of information that I want to think through. By laying down a stream of thoughts, information, etc as a mindmap and then connecting various branches, I am often able to come to good decisions or identify something that was buried in the ton of information. It’s also great to come back to a map later to see it with fresh eyes or add additional information. Since I can’t read my own handwriting (it is really bad), tools like Mindmeister, or Freemind (which is what I use at work) are a boon

… and here is the map used in the screencast (one of the advantages of online mapping tools)

Now I only wish that the semantic structures and metadata in online maps were queryable, at least via the API (I don’t think Mindmeister is, but I could be wrong).

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