I’m originally a
mind mapper; and at the beginning I mapped out everything from my
shopping to my music and the dreaded To Do lists.
Yup that was a long
time ago and I was younger and a tad more adventurous with my newly
discovered tool that led me to believe I was way ahead of the
information curve at that time.
And it was, in my
experience, at that time; a tool that provided a tangible gain to the
ways I enhanced my information management abilities.
I very rarely came
across fellow mind mappers in my early days of mapping during the
early 80’s. And thus I used it as my secret weapon for information
management and staying ahead of the competitiveness within my field
at that time. Hey if I could map out my shopping list, music
collection and to do’s; I was an information manager right?
Of course reality is
a slap isn’t it? When the mind mapping tool appeared way back in
the 70’s we didn’t have software that could do what we do now in
the semblance of mind mapping that we now call Visual mapping,
Info-Graphics or even Database knowledge mapping.
The hand drawn maps
in the vein of what Tony Buzan
presented and formalized: they were awesome for gathering thoughts,
making connections and expressing it all in what was then looked upon
as a funky, almost hippy expression of information and knowledge.
I eventually came
across a few fellow mind mappers who surprisingly enough were
extremely similar to my profile as an addict to graphical
expressiveness. Yes we were addicts and expressed all the attributes
of an addict when it came to how we believed everyone should think of
and express information/knowledge.
Mike
and Bettina Jetter managed to popularize software mind mapping
via their Mindjet Mindman software; later to become so well known as
MindManager. Of course there
were other developers, but the Jetter’s managed to grab a fledgling
audience of users, and were more commercially successful that their
existing competitors.
Original mind
mapping was on paper; yes we had to draw it all out long hand, make
all of those damn spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and then
there was that dreaded lack of context and content for relevance. So
we often ripped up that hand drawn map and started all over again.
Thank the gods of knowledge management we no longer have to willingly
endure that. Yet hand drawn mind mapping is a staple of the Buzan
approach even to this day, and indeed is the ideal intro to
information mapping for many who’ll more than likely go on to use
the Buzan endorsed iMindMap cross-platform mind/visual mapping
software/service developed by Chris Griffiths and his team at
OpenGenius
Yes there’s other
products that came along too, only a few are relevant to the bigger
picture that is now developing via Visual mapping and what we are now
experiencing as graphical knowledge mapping/management.
And
then: there was Biggerplate.
Of
course you know who Biggerplate are: they're the go to place for mind
map image sharing. Have you shared snapshots of you maps at BP?
Initially BP was a MindManager centric site that has nicely developed
into a business model offering numerous services for personal,
academic and business users of mind/visual mapping/management.
Do you
want to share your maps with other users of mind maps? Go to BP,
create an account and off you go. The file formats may expand when
users of other products create a groundswell of file format exchange
that equates into a need for users to have a place for their specific
software product file formats at BP.
Biggerplate
have in recent years developed a rather good get together series of
events that have toured via significant global locations and the
events have been recorded for all to see.
Sharing
maps though is a conundrum for some (like me). I am constrained by
NDA’s that restrict much of the meat and potatoes I may offer for
fellow mapping viewers to read and study.
Do we
need to share maps at all? Good question, as it does seem much of the
map sharing I and many colleagues have taken part in privately have
been at best minimal for detail and at most embarrassingly short of
context and content to make it anywhere near as interesting for
recipients due to my NDA choke hold.
Have
you had good or not so good experiences regarding map sharing? Please
share your experiences.