Great post in Beyond crayons weblog. Author, Nick Duffill comments on MindManager's new browser-based software. It's now possible to browse MindManager map online. Find some sample map and how to instructions in this weblog. As for Mind Pad -- we are now thinking about on-line maps... Hope we will bring our object-oriented approach to mind map on-line too.

Find two directories that have a list of good mind mapping softwares, both free and commercial:

http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/directory_of_mi.html

http://www.peterussell.com/mindmaps/mmsoft.html

Note: when you compare Mind Pad to other software remember that it has a unique feature - it supports object-oriented approach to mapping.

I have just recieved newsletter about new Mind Manager! It's great product, it some way we do compete with it, but it's really great! Read more about release.

Why do mind maps work and why doesn't every one use mind maps? You can find answers in Between Seeing weblog. He has a 25 years experience in mind mapping and share his thoughts. Read details here.

I would add my question: why does mind map software work? Why doesn't every one use mind map software?

Probably, it's about usability or finding tasks where mind map can help, for instance, if mind mapping can help blogger? Read article in our blog and mind map for bloggers.

Do you want your blog to be really popular? Does blogging help you in your professional life? If it is so, you need to create an interesting relevent blog. Mind mapping can support your blogging.

By Jane Smorodnikova, www.mind-pad.com

What is the problem?

Blogging is the way to express yourself in a different way. You may write blog as a professional, as yourself, as the ultimate tool for personal embarrassment. Everyone has different personas they put on for life's multiple milieus. We will talk about those people, who want their personal or professional blog to be really popular.

And if you want your blog to be more interesting than others, you need to write in a regular manner. Every entry of your blog should be substantial and interesting. What are the main characteristics of a good blog? You entries should have main idea, facts, arguments and proof.

So, why is it difficult? You will find too main problems with writing an outstanding blog: quantity and quality. And it means that you must post something relevant. And you must keep posting even if you have a fear of the blank page.

Today many popular bloggers talk about this fear. They are afraid of writing something not such interesting as before, they have problems with ideas and arguments. It means, that there is a problem and you should find a way to solve it.

Possible solutions

So, what you can do with all this stuff? We see some different ways. First of all, to continue without changes and, possibly, without results you can just work harder to make your blog better. On the other hand, to conceal yourself from this problem you can pay somebody to write your blog. But all these ways are do not solve the problem, aren’t they? The only way to solve it yourself is to increase your own efficiency. You can do it using mind maps. What is this?

Mind map is a visual tool for capturing and organizing ideas and information. Mind maps visualizes your thoughts, organizes them, and puts them in context.  It is the perfect catalyst for writing a successful blog post.

What is the difference? You can view your posting as a picture, map or text, in different ways. So you will be the first, who will appreciate your posting at its true value. It is the "See what you think" solution. Further you can examine how it works.

The technique

So, what you should do?

1. Capture.

Start with your blog topic in the center of your map.

See what’s out there. Blogging is two-way communication and in order to say something relevant, you ought to listen first! So, browse through existing blogs, scan ideas and thoughts, and import relevant content in your map (quick summaries, RSS feeds, images, hyperlinks, trackbacks).

2. Organize

Now make connections and identify trends and potential opportunities for new ideas. Create a report of your thoughts and develop a logical progression of your points. If the flow doesn’t work, rearrange the order of your points. Make reports several times during working.

3. Share

Finally, formulate the text according to your ideas and map, and create the final blog post as a report. You can copy/paste it directly into your blog provider’s interface as a plain text or use the html format, if your blog supports it. Go back to where you started and make sure you trackback or link to those blogs that provide the context for yours.

See attached file for sample of using mind mapping for blogs.

Summary of the mind map benefits.

1. Mind map - is one if the best way of thinking. And you can use special tool for this. For example, this article was created with Mind Pad 2.0. I did not use any special opportunities - only those which are intuitively understandable for new user. For example – it is very useful to use text on links – you can creat connections between arguments.

2. You make sure that your topic is relevant and that those you refer to will refer back to you.

3. You easily organize your key points, link them to existing blogs using hyperlinking, and make your argumentation crystal-clear. You also can use images, manipulate them to decide - which of them give the best fit.

 

Hello, dear reader of this new weblog. 

We have a good experience running an RSS channel and now it's a time to run a fully-features web-log. We were reading a lot of great blogs for the last months and have learnt a lot. We wish to stay informative for both: Mind-Pad web-site visitors, blog readers and those who use RSS aggregators.

Here are our key ideas:

• We are going to run this weblog as a full-content. We will not cut our articles so you will not have to click "Read more..." links several times - just read post if you are interested;
• We worked to bring our Mind Pad brand identity closer to our readers, so we used Mind Pad logo at blog page. Also, you will find our logo in your RSS aggregator if it supports <image> tag.
• We are going to publish "html" content (not text), so the text will be easy readable;
• To bring some content to our weblog we have published some old posts here first;

To blog owners and active readers:

• You are welcome to visit our weblog and write your comments (good or bad, we like criticism if it's detailed and useful);
• Quote our posts and articles at your blog or web-site, use trackback urls. If you are running blog about mapping, then will be glad to add it to our "links" section;

Finally, few words about publish periodicity. We are going to publish new articles every week. If we have some news, we will publish them too.

Thank you!

Balanced Scorecard is a strategic planning approach that describes companies goals in four perspectives - "Customer", "Business Process", "Financial" perspective and "Learning and Growth" perspective. We created a Balanced Scorecard mind map to support creation of scorecard for personal or business needs.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/balanced-scorecard/balanced-scorecard-map.htm

It's now a time to change the way you manage your contacts. It's now easy to replace your old contact list with a new contact map. Mind-Pad object oriented mind mapping lets you visualize all your contacts and relation between them.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/contact-map/contact-mind-map.htm

Nowadays information security is a big challenge for most organizations. Threatening inside the company multiply outside threatening from hostile information environment. Developing information security policy is the first step of organization to manage its' risks and safety. Developing a policy is a difficult process and mind mapping can help.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/mind-map-security-policy.htm

Select group of CIOs from a variety of industries/sectors came in response to the challenge. As a consequence of this survey, I can draw a conclusion that most of them permanently using different mapping technologies. The most popular technique is process mapping, of course.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=55

Six Sigma is a highly structured program for improving business processes. It was created by Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder at Motorola in the early 1980's. Support Six Sigma process with mind mapping and Mind Pad.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/quality-management/six-sigma-quality-management-mind-map.htm

Use Total Quality Management with mind mapping for managing quality process in your company. Quality assurance through statistical methods is a key component in a manufacturing organization where TQM generally starts by sampling a random selection of the product. The sample can then tested for things that matter most to the end users.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/quality-management/total-quality-management-mind-map.htm

A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. You can use Mind Pad to support your SWOT analysis with mind mapping or custom designed SWOT object.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/quality-management/swot-quality-management-mind-map.htm

As different researches show, 38% companies use Six Sigma process. You can use mind map to support Six Sigma processes. or example, if we want to create a map of Six Sigma, we will get something like this...

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=54

AKS-Labs has released v 2.0 of Mind Pad, a .NET mind mapping software for Windows. The new version is much more user-friendly, the new interface was designed, some new techniques were created for managing map topics. Also, Mind Pad 2.0 now has ability represent new custom-designed frame called Person.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/solutions/new_in_mind_pad_2_0.htm 

TiddlyWiki is an experimental Micro Content WikiWikiWeb. It allows anyone to create personal Self-Contained hypertext documents that can be posted to any web server, sent by email or kept on a USB thumb drive.

 

It could be very interesting if mind map software could output and input into this approach, especially in producing simple wikiwebsites,

either for personal on desktop or even websites.

 

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=71

KeyNote  is a virtual tabbed notebook for organizing information. It has a tree structure that is highly useful. It could be used to augment the notes function on mind map software.

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=52

CmapTools is a software environment developed at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) that empowers users, individually or

collaboratively, to represent their knowledge using concept maps, to share them with peers and colleagues, and to publish them.

 

Read more: http://www.mind-pad.com/support/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=51

We are glad to start this new blog. It’s about mind mapping and personal productivity techniques. As publisher of Mind Pad we are interested in promoting our product too, but we are going to do this only when Mind Pad can really add a value to some article or post.

You are always welcome to share your thoughts in comments.