VISUAL MAPPING FOR BUSINESS

It’s a systematic framework for success

Using the tools of visual mapping within the business arena is a place where we experience the potential for superior information management. Having said this, there is a connection between the three main areas of visual mapping. Hopefully by now you understand the importance of the personal area as being the foundation of becoming a superior information manager.

The academic area is where we see an exponential increase in knowledge management and sharing capabilities. We now therefore arrive at the business area wondering where the tools, methods and mindset of visual mapping fit.

Whether you are involved within Industry and/or corporate business, you will more than likely be using a global accepted Business Management System (BMS) such as ISO 9001 or equivalent. Looking at the standards approach to BMS it’s very evident it’s very process driven.

If you’re not using an accepted standardized approach to business management: data, information and knowledge contained within procedure, process and system is equally evident in everything you perform within your business. From simplicity to complexity, we are driven by process, and this can be managed by applying to tools, methods and mindset of visual mapping.

Whether you’re the dominant left or right brained associative thinker and producer, is irrelevant. You have a whole brain that happens to have two main hemispheres, and they’re connected with heavy duty wiring that even computer hardware can’t fabricate.

While using your logical side of your brain; did you know that your right hemisphere is cooperating to associate an appropriate graphical expressiveness to your logic? Of course this system of brain function is equally right to left and right to left, we need the whole brain to function and start the process of enabling out thought processes to be made tangible.

Today’s businesses are driven by ideas, processes, and information more so than ever before. Take a hard look at your company or organization: how are you capturing the most important and crucial information‐which is the monetized life blood of your company?

From my perspective, far too many organizations have simply failed to sufficiently develop systems that can clearly identify, track and monitor the “information economy” that resides within your own organization. Yes‐there may be hundreds of documents scattered on network hard drives across your organization: you may eventually find them.

Is there a way these important processes, ideas and information, the “working capital” of your company, can be systematically accessed and updated? Key to understanding how these functions can be embedded in your organization requires that you understand the importance of the ₁“information economy”, ₂“data banking” and ₃“knowledge governance. I’ll be speaking more in depth about these functions in later messages.


Within my consulting work, I realize the power of graphical frameworks for creating, managing and exchanging the essential information processes that make up corporate knowledge capital.
The genesis of effective visual mapping begins at a personal level as the user learns how they can use visual mapping software applications to help solve and communicate ideas more effectively and naturally.


These skills then continue to evolve, and as they do, the user can begin to focus on using visual mapping in learning and training and finally within the business arena. The forward thinking professional through visual mapping can transcend the capabilities of traditional linear information management systems and gain clarity and focus that is the natural result of implementing visual mapping strategies.

My clients, who use visual mapping, experience an exponential knowledge gain regarding process and systems thinking. Further business success is enabled by realizing the capabilities and scope of use of this non‐linear approach to information management.

So what are the benefits of visual mapping and what can it do for you?

For busy business managers or administrators in higher education who are inundated with the onslaught of paperwork: they can utilize the visual mapping approach. The result is an exponential improvement to information management skills and certainly more control over essential processes associated with organizational systems. As a result, you shall experience a positive culture shift which is a natural by-product of infusing the tools, techniques and mindset of Visual mapping within an environment that adopts and adapts this systematic framework for success.

The image below expresses how we’ve integrated linear and non linear systems. Linear management is likened to a train with many cars; they represent the constrained communication direction of processes that make up linear systems.

The visually mapped information above expresses process and system; in other words, the visual map expresses the connectivity, relationships and communications of the whole system. Viewing the big picture now makes it possible to identify with clarity any system constraints. The issues are easily remedied by implementing changes to suit the evolution of the system.

The success of non‐linear information mapping is evident by the graphical framework that expresses defined and exact connections that communicate with processes that matter to the continuous growth of a system.

Visual mapping benefits the effective creation, management and exchange of information within an organizational management system to the point of exceeding the requirements of any international standard (i.e. ISO 9001).

Today’s business success is measured by the effectiveness of information management; and for the most part, information has been overlooked as a financial commodity. This monetized information has reframed our current understanding of knowledge systems that make the wheels of business turn. I call this the “information economy”; this is where people are recognized as being the most important function of information management. Train your people to use visual mapping tools and your investment will pay dividends.

The information that is created, managed and exchanged within an organization, feeds the knowledge database of a visual map. The visual map becomes an entity that grows and is generated by the exchange of information. Knowledge grows by the effective investment of superior information management. This database may be analogous to a bank and the information managers are the investors who deposit relevant “knowledge capital.” At the higher level, “knowledge governance” is required to oversee and direct the information investment. Zoom out and you have what is now commonly called “The Knowledge Economy”.

Again, the framework of a visually mapped business system enables effective knowledge governance by supplying a single source access point of being able to connect all relevant processes that support the business system.


Using dashboards and embedding documents within a visual map can exponentially increase your information management system capabilities and express a whole new level to the understanding of the “information economy” and what it has to offer your organization.

As of Mid 2009 we have what is being called a “revolutionary” approach to visual mapping for the information manager. It’s “Method Neutral” and it’s defined as “Multiple modes of information expressed within a flexible workspace”. Consider this definition well; debate, argue and study it, as I firmly believe we’ll be using this term to create, manage and exchange data/information/knowledge systems from this point forward. For more information about Method Neutral go here!

You simply can’t fail to experience the exponential gains to your business functions when using the tools, techniques and mindset of visual mapping. Connect with me and I’ll help you get there.

The Strengths Mapper interview

Mike Taylor is the owner and developer of Strengths Mapper, and has delivered an excellent interview to Visualmapper for your reading pleasure.

The third party add-in market for Mindjet Mind Manager is a thriving and active arena. You’ll find many interesting add-ins to suit your specific needs. This arena reminds me of what goes on within the Mac world; you get an app for just about anything.

One particular add-in is IMO going to be invaluable; it is called Strengths Mapper. Are you interested in discovering your personal strengths rather than your weaknesses? Also, at a corporate level; do you need to have productive teams consisting of personnel with well defined strengths? If so read on.



About P. Mike Taylor P. E
• 35-year Entrepreneur of 12 Businesses up to $7MM in annual sales
• City Engineer for a city of 200,000
• Licensed Professional Engineer
• Business Coach and Consultant
• Founder (ret.) of a regional consulting engineering firm with 3 offices in 2 states
• Chaired and Vice Chair of $300 MM/yr, 311-bed hospital system
• Director on a regional community bank board: $1.8 billion and 47 branches
• Recipient of numerous community service and business excellence awards and recognition
• Vietnam Veteran with Bronze Star (‘69 – ’70, DMZ)
• Avid MindMapper
• Happily married; 4 children, 6 grandchildren


About Strengths Mapper
P. Mike Taylor, LLC dba www.StrengthsMapper.com is dedicated to:
• helping individuals and teams learn, assimilate, retain, and share personal best strengths
• developing techniques to help assure their clients can put those best strengths to useful purpose every day
• promoting and facilitating continuous, positive personal and organizational growth and development
• using the vivid graphics of mind mapping technology to enhance left- and right-brain learning
• promoting a kinder, gentler approach to sharing our planet through enlightened self-interest

The Interview:

1. You’ve recently released to market Strengths Mapper for Mind Manager: what is this app and what can it do for us?

The application is a personal productivity/team building add-in for Mind Manager that comes in two versions.

In the Basic version, it is a personal development and improvement tool. It is designed to help you discover and embrace your own personal top 5 strengths (talents that can be put to useful purpose) by:
Building your own Personal Strengths Map (PSM);
Developing and enhancing those strengths by a personalized, transportable Action Plan.
Sharing your strengths map with others via vivid graphic posters.


The idea is to create a meaningful framework and dialogue to enhance your ability to work to your best strengths every day.

The Pro version is a tool to enable team leaders and managers to assemble and/or manage their teams to each of team members’ personal best strengths. Building upon the basic version Personal Strengths Maps, the user creates a Talent Pool of PSMs from which to draw. This can be a combination of in-house staff and consultants or specialists from whom they regularly draw.



When either creating a new team, or analysing an existing team, use the wizard to define team Roles and Responsibilities; and, select one or more of the 4 Primary Strength Domain attributes (Striving Skills, Relationship Building Skills, Thinking Skills and Impacting Skills) most likely to facilitate successfully fulfillment of that particular Role and Responsibility.

Once the desired roles and attributes of the team are set, the leader / manager selects the trial team members from the Talent Pool(s). They are, of course, pre-qualified by education and experience to be even considered for a team role, but once that qualification is met, their team chemistry is the focus.

This program automatically summarizes the skill sets by Domain; creates relationship arrow depicting which potential team members possess sought attributes; and, demonstrates whether or not there are skill gaps or mis-matches for talent versus roles and responsibilities.
Then, the manager has an opportunity to decide to either change traditional role assignments; or to select a different team member to better match roles and skills.

2. Why did you choose Mind Manager to be the API of delivery for Strengths Mapper?


This was simply because that was the program I was using, and familiar with; and, it was the most dominant mind mapping program in existence. At 73% market share according to Chuck Frey’s survey, they were the unquestioned leader. The next highest user was at about 10% of market share and then they really dropped off the chart. It is a very feature rich application and had the ability to attach graphics, photos and quotations to enhance and vividly personalize the user’s Personal Strengths Posters.

3. What is the mindset supporting the application of Strengths Mapper?

People work best to their strengths. This is a tool to enhance personal understanding and sharing of those strengths so that they are enabled in that pursuit. It will happen within a genuine framework and dialogue. This is a way to help that to happen. It is also fun to do. I have yet to meet someone who was not fascinated by; and did not engage in conversation about, their Personal Strengths as depicted in a handy and graphically pleasing map. They get it.



4. Is there a connection with the; Strengths Finder 2.0 and Strengths based leadership books?

The theme is that evidence has demonstrated that people are much better at enhancing their natural talents than at overcoming their weaknesses. So the traditional management technique of hiring for education and experience, then hammering on people to overcome their weaknesses is essentially counterproductive (and wrong). People are who they are. The older they are, the more ‘set in their ways’ they become. So, capitalizing on one’s natural talents is more fruitful; and, as the evidence points out, more fulfilling. Working to their strengths, the evidence is that groups of people are more productive, profitable, happier and have lower turnover than their peer groups. Who loses when people are both happier and more productive?



5. Are users of Strengths mapper required to take the on-line Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment?

Yes. They can get them in any book store (the most expensive route); or order them from an on-line vendor like Amazon.com (about $12, currently). If they have a Kindle or an ipod, they can order the electronic version of the book (currently under $10) and have instant access to the key for the 20 minute on-line test. The test is one of those easy, first-impressions tests that even have a 20 second limit on each question. Gallup has a data base of more than 4 million employee’s world wide from which they have devised and refined their strengths test questions.

6. What arenas are Strengths Mapper being used?

What is interesting is that they tout a 70% repeatability of results over time. In other words when individuals take the test again in 5 years or 10 years, they have, on average that high of a consistency of their personal strengths attributes.

7. What’s the difference between the personal use and professional editions of the app?

The personal use edition is really geared to personal growth and development. Understanding what you are best at; honing and developing your best skills; and, sharing them with meaningful people in your life so that you enable them to let youwork to your best strengths.

The pro version is the next step up. How do we put this to best use in groups of people? Define the necessary roles and responsibilities; assign the important attributes to assure success; select from the Talent Pool; and, either adjust the team composition or re-arrange roles to have each team member work to their strengths to the maximum possible. They’ll be happier and more productive; and, you will get your mission accomplished in good order.


8. Is there a correlation between HBDI, Belbin team profiles and Strengths mapper?



Strengths Mapper is a compilation of many best practices concepts. HBDI is a concept of which I am not directly familiar. However, I have read quite a bit on how the human brain receives, processes, stores, and recalls information. Our understanding has certainly changed and progressed with the advent of the EEG real time experiments begun in earnest in 1994. This work, for example, quashed the idea of left brained versus right brained. It did note that both sides are usually involved in activity; and there are specific areas of the brain associated with specific functions. Their relative involvement can be modified by current moods, as well.
Suffice it to say that there is a lot of evidence that assimilation, retention and recall of information is enhanced by graphic depictions over strictly linear, textual representations. Mind mapping is a very useful tool as are many other graphic depiction media.

Belbin team profiles are a fine bit of work done to characterize the enormous myriad of ways in which we humans organize ourselves for various useful purposes. I tried to paraphrase types of work in a similar fashion in our wizard to make it easier for the novel user to complete the process of defining Team Roles and Responsibilities. I also wanted to appeal to the user’s intuitive understanding of their fellow man in building team maps and looking at them in a completely different way than the traditional “Can they design this feature? Can they write the report? Can they present the concept? Can they document the findings and conclusions? Can they complete a project?” I want them to be asking and assigning more of the “Should they...” questions: “Who is the best Relationship Builder to lead the team? Who is the best Impactor to tell the story and/or sell the product? Who is the best person to meticulously document the process, results and conclusions? Who are the best thinkers to generate ideas and to brainstorm? Who is the best gate keeper to keep everyone on schedule and on budget?” That may very well point out non-traditional roles. People need to tuck away their egos to do this well, but once they have the courage and the conviction to do so, the evidence is strongly in their favor. My personal experience over 40 years, and in significant organizations, is that it really works well.


9. How easy is Strengths mapper to use and apply?

According to our alpha and beta tests, users find it quite easy to use. Ease of application will very much depend upon the user. The basic version makes it quite simple to create a Personal Strengths Map to just remind yourself of your best strengths, their definitions, and then to create a portable Action Plan to work on enhancing and honing those strengths. We feel we have made that easy and handy.

Making a PSM poster to share with friends, family and colleagues is also easy with MindManager. And, it makes a non-artist able to make a pretty impressive looking professional piece to share. You can play with colors, line weights, clip art, photos and quotes to really personalize this piece. I believe it will be a very popular attribute of the basic version.

The users of the Pro Version will likely be the more open, progressive, free-thinkers who are more focused on outcomes than on turf and egos. Understanding the concepts and applications is really quite intuitive, once you have created and spent time studying your first team map.

What we have noticed is, once you have created your first team map, you get some real “Aha’s” as to why individuals respond or react in their particular manners to different requests and assignments. You literally change how you interact with them and with their fellow team members to enable working to strengths while focusing on the mission and the overall team environment.

People much prefer being viewed as able as to incompetent. I see a big use for this in the current corporate world where down sizing has left managers with substantially modified teams. They really need to know how to get more done with what they have. Wouldn’t it be something if they could both get more done and have a happier, more profitable team?

10. Are the results something I would want my colleagues, clients and employer to know about?



Very much: How else do you create a framework for; and affect a meaningful dialogue on, what you and they are best equipped to do?

This is not narcissism, it is reality. One of the worst statistics I remember reading was that upwards of 85% of the american population dreaded going to work every day because of their work environment or of mismatched responsibilities and skills. We feel that StrengthsMapper can help change that situation for those who are willing to make that positive change.

11. I found the on-line assessment very accurate, but what about my other potential strengths?

The test results are your Top 5 strengths. In your test result report, Gallup offers personal trainers and coaches who can provide you with the rest of your 34 strengths, rank ordered highest to lowest. If you are serious about corporate or institutional implementation of Strengths Based Leadership / Management, your test results report also points you to additional consulting resources to avail yourselves of. We do not pretend to be organizational coaches or mentors. That is up to the users. We simply provide a powerful, versatile and handy tool to make it happen.



12. What is your elevator conversation piece regarding Strengths mapper?

Evidence and intuition supports that people working to their strengths every day are happier, more productive, and more profitable. StrengthsMapper is a versatile tool to help individuals and organizations effectively put those principles into practice.

13. Where can we download Strengths Mapper for Mind Manager, and what’s the cost?

You can find it at www.StrengthsMapper.com in a free 21-day trial version or for direct purchase.

The basic version of Strengths Mapper sells for $37;

Strengths Mapper Pro sells for $187;

The upgrade from Basic to Pro sells for $157.

There are also hot links on the web site to purchase the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book from which to get your own top 5 top strengths.

The MindGenius interview

Visualmapper recently invited MindGenius to be interviewed, and Commercial Director, Dustin Newport agreed to represent MindGenius.

Dustin's role is the Visual mapping visionary and evangelist utilizing strong customer and partner relationships, leading the company’s explosive growth in the productivity software market. Newport has more than 18 years of experience in software at some of the industry’s leading technology organizations.

Previously Newport, was UK Managing Director at Mindjet. Other positions held included Sales Director at Novium Plc; EMEA Vice President of Sales for AppsMall LLC and held senior sales roles at Novell, Remedy Corporation and Informix.

About MindGenius
The first MindGenius applications were released in 2001 by software developers Gael Ltd and, since then, the user base has grown in excess of 300,000 registered licenses.

In March 2008, MindGenius Ltd was set up as a separate trading entity. In September 2008 MindGenius Ltd became certified Microsoft Partners with an ISV / Software Solution competency, and the MindGenius application achieved certified for Microsoft Vista status at the same time.

THE INTERVIEW:

1. Who are the leading minds driving MindGenius?

MindGenius is a collaborative enterprise taking inspiration and input from a variety of sources. The direction and guiding principles of the application and the user experience are born out of the fact that MindGenius originated within Gael, a leading Quality Management System vendor.

Unlike other Mind mapping software applications, MindGenius became fully tried and tested and evolved out of the needs of an organization managing big ticket and highly complex end-to-end sales and implementation cycles. This sets MindGenius apart from its competitors as it was essentially developed ‘on customer site’ over a number of years where the specific needs of a sales and implementation team could rapidly be developed into the product itself on an ongoing and iterative basis.

Responsibility for the vision and technical road map are shared by the co-founders and owners of the business Derek Jack and Donald McIver. Dustin Newport takes full responsibility for the commercial ‘taking to market’ of MindGenius which is including the development of global sales channels, alliances and sales team.

2. Give us a brief history of the organization?

The product itself was created as a must have tool within Gael as no other mind mapping product on the market could effectively synchronize the actions and results orientation that the business required with the initial free form map created within the client.

The first version of MindGenius was released in 2000. Despite very little efforts to actively market and promote MindGenius, the product sold over 300,000 licenses up to 2009 via the web shop and a handful of channel partners.

In 2008 it was decided that MindGenius should be separated out from Gael and the independent organization was created. At the beginning of 2009 a significant investment of private financing took place and the company elected to invest in bringing in proven industry knowledge to drive its commercial business.

Since the beginning of 2009, the following key milestones have taken place;

- Re-launch of Website giving a refreshed look and feel and clear explanation of the product.

- Setting up of a new sales office in the South of England, providing global reach through phone and web based product demos.

- Launch of a new ‘Premier Partner’ program providing a best in class lead management system via a Partner Relationship System (PRM) Portal.

- Launch of our first monthly customer newsletter

3. List the environments where your products are being used?

MindGenius is used across a very broad array of environments. Our initial dialogue with customers revealed a surprisingly large community of users requiring ‘assistive technology’ due to learning or working difficulties such as Dyslexia. Specifically MindGenius has some unique functionality that resonates well with Dyslexic users such as the ability to maintain a linear and non-linear map view pain simultaneously on the screen. Other key environments are the more typical you would expect of Mind Mapping users such as;

- Sales professionals: Managing customer meetings, Gaining consensus and clarity with clients, Strategic Sales Planning.

- Project Management Professionals: Six Sigma/Lean Sigma professionals, creating ‘work break down structures’, specific use within project planning and inception work prior to exporting to MS Project.

- Independent Consulting Practices: Used extensively in client facing scenarios for problem solving and requirements gathering.

- Bid and Tender Response Teams: We find we have extensive use within this particular profession. Specifically the ability to import an MS Word document into a map and break into its constituent parts to assign key actions and owners is seen as a killer feature. This enables a far more rapid engagement with the contents of the ITT (Invitation to Tender).

- Teaching Professionals: Used across all areas of the teaching profession from adult learning through to Universities and schools at all ages. Specifically used as a highly visual and engaging way of presenting the lesson. Also used in the process of lesson planning.

- Students/Learners: Used at all levels of learning. Visual maps improve the cognitive retention of information for the students. Helps with revision process and structure for essays.

4. What are the capabilities of MindGenius?

MindGenius enables rapid capture of ideas and/or information in a visually contextual ‘map’ interface. The map view can be either traditional ‘mind map’ view or tree diagram, organagram or affinity map.

MindGenius captures information simply through the typing of key words of phrases, no ‘hot keys’ are needed to insert parent or child branches onto the map. This makes MindGenius one of the most effective and least cumbersome tools for data capture.

Data captured in MindGenius can be ordered and sorted using ‘Categories’. In turn, comprehensive business rules can be applied to help prioritize key action areas or address key problems.

Additionally, MindGenius also supports exporting functionality to major Microsoft Office applications such as Word and PowerPoint as well as Visio, Project , PDF’s and HTML files.

As mentioned above, MindGenius also enables the importing of data from MS Word back into a map.

5. Within the UK and EU MindGenius has an established footprint; what about North America?

MindGenius has an impressive user base in North America despite no office and light channel presence in the market. We have key blue-chip customers in North America ranging across several key industries and reaching several hundred users in a number of instances.

A combination of technology and cultural shifts have led to an almost universal acceptance of entire sales sales cycles now being conducted over the phone and via web based demonstrations. Customers are more than happy to jump onto an ad-hoc ‘web meeting’ in order to view our software, look at sample maps and ask key questions.

Therefore we find we are being highly effective in both stimulating demand AND closing business among key business in any part of the world, including North America. If any of your readers requested a demonstration, it would be highly likely they would be able to receive it on the same day, driven out of a sales office in the UK.


6. MindGenius has recently been slightly updated; can we expect a more aggressive push to market from MindGenius?

As discussed earlier, MindGenius is in the process of re-launching itself this year. A significant investment in key staff, infrastructure and marketing is being well received by our customers and prospects.

This is just the start as we are planning on further sales staff and developers before the end of the year.

In the last 3 months alone we have trebled the number of visitors coming to our website and downloading a trial version of MindGenius. Each trial user receives individual contact either from a MindGenius sales representative or channel partner within (typically) no more than 2 working days.

We believe these stats and this sales process are already demonstrating a much more aggressive push to market for the company. Such approach is already driving a significant uptick in our revenues.

7. How do you differentiate MindGenius from the other leading visual mapping tools?

Having worked for a major competitor and been in the mind mapping software industry for nearly 5 years I am well placed to specifically identify the key strengths and differentiation of MindGenius. They are as follows;

 The ability to manage simultaneous ‘Linear’ (outline), and ‘Whole Map’ views on the screen at the same time. The MindGenius ‘map explorer’ pain enables large complex maps to be navigated highly effectively. It is possible ‘zoom in’ on a key branch or component of the map from within the explorer pain and see this immediately represented on the main map pain. This feature has long been praised by MindGenius users.

 MindGenius has the ability to create ‘Category Centric’ maps. This is highly unique. By understanding which categories have been used within the map, it is possible to create an entirely separate map view that separates out the original ‘parent’ and ‘child’ relationships and puts each item into their respective category ‘buckets’. This is a hugely powerful feature, particularly among project management communities as they need to allocate resources and assign actions by ‘High Impact’ items for example. Other mapping technologies have a ‘filter’ function (as does MindGenius) but you still end up with the data being contextually dispersed across the map. The Category Map function enables relevant data to be viewed through a single lens where the context is no longer relevant.

 MS Exchange ‘Resource Allocation’ is also a highly unique feature. Rather than assigning tasks to names that have no relevance to corporate data, MindGenius enables the importing of the local contacts or corporate MS Exchange database. In doing so, all resources used within a map are aligned to the corporate database for correct Contact, Email, phone, title information etc. Thus tasks can be rapidly synchronized to the correct users via their Outlook system.

 MindGenius has the ability to tailor Q&A templates within the product that drive the user to explore a topic within a predetermined manner such as a SWOT analysis. These template styles are built in and prompt all the relevant questions to be asked in the context of the engagement. We supply core sets of templates relevant to our different product versions of ‘Business’ and ‘Education’.

 As well as product differentiation, we believe it is very important to differentiate ourselves commercially too. A combined proposition of product functionality AND commercial value is important to our clients, particularly in these more austere times. We approach this from 2 different angles;

o 1) MindGenius has a very low cost operation due to fully embracing a channel and web approach to conducting global business. MindGenius runs its’ global operation from just 2 UK based office facilities. MindGenius has therefore managed to avoid the costs and complexities of running several multinational offices with all of the associated staffing and management overheads. MindGenius passes on this low cost to its customers through one of the most competitively priced business Mind Mapping solutions on the market.

o 2) MindGenius takes a very flexible ‘can do’ approach to alliances and partner relationships. Our flexible approaches to commercial positioning and packaging have made us a highly attractive partner for bundling and solution propositions with Alliance partners. One of our core values is to be ‘easy to do business with’. Customer and partner feedback alike is suggesting that we are differentiating ourselves from our rivals substantially with this approach.

8. What are the benefits of using MindGenius within, Personal, Academic and Business arenas?

I believe these examples and illustrations have already been covered above.

9. What do you envision in the visual mapping arena as trends for future use of visual mapping software?

We envisage a number of fundamental enhancements in mapping software that specifically address the dynamics and interactions at a ‘human layer’ within teams. The notion of how team brainstorming unfolds and needs to be captured is open for tremendous enhancements (across all mapping technologies), and we are working on a number of areas in future product releases that focus on this important area of increasing value and productivity.

This is an exciting yet proprietary area for us and therefore cannot be divulged in any more detail at this stage.

We envisage that visual mapping software will continue to permeate into the lives of any student or professional that uses a computer.

In my 5 years in the industry I have witnessed a fundamental seed change in the acceptance of mapping software as a key ‘must have’ application for the desktop, but we still have a long way to go.

We can well envisage that within the next 5 years no consumer or business customer would expect to receive a PC without a mapping based application installed upon it – much in the same way that we expect a word processing application today.

This view appears to be shared by the many vendors that appear to be entering this same space. Whilst clearly this is competition, this is also further legitimizing the maturing of this particular sector.

10. What are your users saying about MindGenius?

Our users are telling us that MindGenius is highly integral to the way that they work. We receive daily feedback that MindGenius is a favored mind mapping application specifically because of its simplicity and ease of use and that it is fundamentally engineered around actions and results. We have many customers who have been using MindGenius for many years and remain very loyal to us.

11. What can we expect from further development of MindGenius?

There’s nothing we wish to disclose on this at the moment as commercially sensitive.

12. Where should a potential user of MindGenius purchase the software and what’s the cost?

We list local resellers on our website, OR a user can purchase from us directly via our web shop. Any prospective user can download a 21 day trial free of charge from our site. The product then still enables users to open maps as a ‘viewer’.

MindGenius ‘Business Edition’ is available for;
GBP 147
USD 235
EUR 169

MindGenius ‘Education’ (for Students and Teachers) is available for;
GBP 57
USD 91
EUR 66

INFORMATION HANDLING: A NEW DEFINITION!

Method Neutral is defined as:
MULTIPLE MODES OF INFORMATION EXPRESSED WITHIN A FLEXIBLE WORKSPACE.

Method neutral in my opinion, is going to revolutionize the ways in which we create, manage and exchange our information processes. If you’ve been following my blogs to date, you’ve probably read my thoughts regarding, a new software application.

This app is without a doubt going to challenge, change and improve our information handling at the personal, academic and business levels.

Mindsystems is the developer and Amode is the product; remember that name because you’ll be hearing a lot about this software associated with information/knowledge management.

Imagine having access to a software application that enhances your management skills EXPONENTIALLY! You’ll be able to effectively aggregate data, contextualize information and database relevant knowledge essential to your personal, academic and business successes.

This is done by having at your finger tips access to a workspace that provides multiple productivity tools. These include, a tree structure, Gantt, calendar, multiple project view (briefcase): import and export functions to and from MS Office, Open Office, outlook and yes even Mindjet Mind Manager.

Process, project and systems management is the FOCUS of Amode, so move beyond your current information handling capabilities, and you’ll become more valuable to yourself, your colleagues, clients and your future potentials.

So let’s start creating, managing and exchanging information in a flexible workspace using the METHOD NEUTRAL approach.

The revolution starts RIGHT NOW!