VISUALMAPPER

ConceptDraw at MacWorld|iWorld 2012

2012-01-25T20:35:00.002-05:00

If you're planning on being at MacWorld/iWorld 2012 during January 26-28; drop in and meet Olin Reams and his team at the CS Odessa ConceptDraw booth #625.

ConceptDraw is without a doubt one of the most complete visual information/project management suites available. Three completely independent yet interdependent products to enhance and improve the ways you Create, Manage and Share your Personal, Academic and Business knowledge.

Goalscape for HR; by Richard Parslow of Goalscape

2011-11-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

Goalscape is ideal for many HR applications: recruitment, skills and competencies profiling, goal-oriented management and reviews

Recruitment and skills profiling

Hiring, training and retaining the right people are all essential for running a successful business.

The people who excel at HR and recruitment are very perceptive judges of skills, character and the often-nebulous criterion 'best fit'. This is usually the result of careful attention to the job specification: establishing the requirements and agreeing their relative importance, then accurately assessing applicants on every aspect.

Extracting a good job specification is a skill in itself. Managers may have a concept of the ideal candidate, yet find it difficult to express; or they may omit to mention vital aspects because they consider them ‘obvious’. And if more than one person is involved in the hiring it is even trickier, especially if a senior decision-maker is not going to be present at the interviews.

Evaluating applicants is demanding too, relying in the early stages on Resumes (CVs), previous work (if available) and perhaps personal recommendations from trusted sources. Face-to-face interviews can be even trickier: social bias (or “beauty contest syndrome”) can take over, so the interviewer chooses the person (s)he likes most, almost regardless of other factors.

This is the basis of the oft-repeated statistic that interviewers decide within 5 minutes (sometimes less!) whether to hire someone. While this sometimes works out well, it can cause problems later… and it may even have brought down empires!

Goalscape ‘smart jobspecs’

With Goalscape anyone can easily produce a ‘smart’ job specification that precisely matches all the key requirements. Because it is extremely fast, all the decision-makers can be involved at an early stage to ensure that nothing vital is omitted and everyone agrees what makes the ideal candidate.

The manager makes a first draft that covers the specific skills and experience profile for the role. Senior managers can contribute their ideas – perhaps to check that candidates’ personal goals align with corporate goals or to express a preference about experience in areas not directly related to the role. Even the team members can contribute to the final specification: team cohesion is vital.

Crucially the Goalscape representation incorporates an agreed assessment or the relative importance of each skill, experience and personality trait. This automatically applies a weighting to the candidates’ scores in each area.

The screenshot below is a real job specification, which we posted on the web when we were looking for a Data Services Developer. In this screenshot the ‘Basic Computer Science’ skill is selected, to illustrate the additional detail in the Notes field.

Note that each element has its own section under this skill, each with its own relative importance set.

The interviewers enter the applicants’ scores for each skill (either on the basis of written submissions and test scores, or interview, or both) as Progress. In producing the overall rating (ie Progress in the Main Goal), Goalscape automatically applies the agreed weightings. So the person with the highest overall score just is the best candidate, according to the agreed specification! This supports an analytical approach and reduces the influence of social bias.

Below is a screenshot of the completed goalscape for the successful applicant (who has since been extremely successful in the role).

COMAPPING: Information Mapping for the 21st Century

2011-10-03T14:12:00.003-04:00

Mindjet might just put the others out of business!!

2011-09-17T02:09:00.001-04:00

Words escape me regarding what Mindjet are attempting to accomplish with their latest acquisitions and extremely intelligent moves to absolutely corner the visual information management market.

The others (competing developers) may indeed be placed into panic mode with the realization they may not be able to compete with the FREE offerings and new acquisitions of Mindjet.

Via the entry level Free offering of Mindjet Connect (Thanks for being reborn) with 1GB of data load, and yes I'll say it again; it's FREE. No excuse ever needed for not experiencing the absolute power of visual information management in and through MindManager any longer. Mindjet shall exponentially grow their user base through Mindjet Connect. And I do believe many users of Connect at the Free level shall indeed migrate to the business and corporate subscription models for more functions, capabilities and security in the cloud.

Oh! and the mobile editions associated with MindManager are now FREE too.

The Desktop versions for both PC and Mac are the inevitable destination for many who shall experience the Free entry level to Mindjet Connect; and the Acquisition of Cohuman; a social media and team building/management product is ingenious, and this in due course shall be integrated right into the MindManager suite. And need I say; this will be FREE too.

MindManager desktop is a rather expensive product to own, but the serious visual information managers of this century shall indeed brush that issue aside; as the implications and power realized from adopting and infusing MindManager into personal, academic and business environments shall be more than mere finacial cost of having this excellent product.

Personally I'm still trying to get my very small brain around the implications of this ingenious move by Mindjet; so maybe this collage will inspire you to delve a little deeper into the upcoming changes to the apparent unbeatable leader and innovator of visual information management software and services.

Envision your best ideas with MindManager 9 for Mac

2011-08-26T23:32:00.002-04:00

Being singularly a PC user first and an occasional Mac user, I've always been reluctant to move over to the Apple OS due to cross functional capabilities and the clear dominance of the PC platform within business.

But there always come a time when I'm seduced into crossing over to divide between PC and Mac regarding visual information management. And; Mindjet have done a pretty good job of MindManager 9 for Mac (Lion compatible), and as far as I have delved into the Mac version (ever so slightly), I can say that I would definitely use the Mac version as much as I use my primary PC version.

Ease of use, innovative functions and capability enhancements have taken this version of MindManager for Mac to the next level of professional use for the discerning visual information manager. Like everything within the software development arena; continuous improvement within an agile environment is what is expected from the user base, and Mindjet seem to have adopted a more user centric approach to listening to the voice of the customer. Mac users of MindManager 9 have no doubt been accommodated by the distinct interface differences between the PC and Mac version; yet I'm unconcerned about that, and more focused on the capabilities of this product.

Mindjet have done a pretty good job and should please their Mac user base, while encouraging potentially new users to start using the Mindjet way to visual information management. And being a hard nosed PC user; I would definitely use the Mac version when I need to.

For an overview of the new Mac version: Go Here

3 quick tips to get started with MindManager 9 for Mac: Go Here

The Mind mapping arena: Perspectives

2011-08-20T23:41:00.003-04:00

Point of view, perception, side, angle; they all mean perspective, and I’m sharing mine.

The mind mapping arena has been good to me; from my perspective, I call it visual mapping and I’ve used the name Visualmapper to define my persona within the visual mapping arena.

My angle has been one of using multiple formats (Visual mapping) compared to using a single format (mind mapping); visual mapping includes but is not limited to mind mapping and other formats such as concept mapping and flow charts.

Whether you’re happy with using a single format or multiple formats, it’s all good as far as I perceive this arena; no problem whatsoever, or is there?

From the perspective of software development; the mind mapping arena is somewhat successful. Regarding software names and capabilities; Mindjet, CS Odessa, Simtech, MindGenius, NovaMind and Xmind are a few that deserve to be applauded for their software development work.

Many not mentioned here; they simply clone what the leader such as Mindjet have developed and many indeed make themselves irrelevant to the furtherance of this so called arena, by way of their apparent cloning activities. And if the “other” developers merely have cool functions that add up to maybe a timeline or a different brainstorming capability; hmm, me thinks this arena needs a shakeup altogether.

Who the F**k do you think you are? You may be thinking this if you’re one of the “other” developers. Well; I’ve been involved within the information management scene for some time, my genesis being within industry. I’ve used and abused quite a few information management products over the past 25 years, some are excellent and some are not so excellent.

From my perspective; the software mind mapping development arena is without a doubt indebted to Tony Buzan for giving them the initial seed of development motivation. Many software products though have struggled to get past the perception (by potential users) of the “stuck in a time warp” traditional mind mapping philosophy developed by Mr. Buzan. A note of recognition also goes to ThinkBuzan; the developers of a truly Buzan approach to software Mind mapping.

I’m personally not a Buzan mapper; yet I do have the utmost respect for what Mr. Buzan initially formalized, and for what it has become in and through the ThinkBuzan flagship product named iMindMap.

The landscape though, certainly is not pretty regarding the plethora (over abundance) of software products that have unashamedly claimed to be mind mapping product. It really is such a shame to see these other developers merely hijack mind mapping as an SEO advantage. But; hey its business and these other developer have the right to develop their angle on the traditional Buzan approach to Mind mapping.

Apart from what I view, use and write about; I certainly perceive the mind-visual mapping arena to be an arena based merely on what the developers create and release as viable product. This product may (or may not) be effectively used within the mainstream information management economy. A note about the “information economy”; it’s real and tangible by the way we have aggregated data into information and further contextualized into usable knowledge. Information/knowledge has become the commodity of business success.

The monetary value (ROI) of the data-information-knowledge evolutionary (development) process has indeed been realized through many people, academics and organizations becoming aware of the power of becoming visual information managers; in and through the use of the tools, methods and Mindset of Visual mapping IMO.

There’s a conundrum (puzzle) though; and it’s one relating to why we haven’t experienced a more wide mainstream acceptance of the tools, methods and Mindset of mind-visual mapping. After all; most developers offer really good, capable and effective tools for creating, managing and exchanging (monetary value) data-information-knowledge processes. The gap between fringe (where many approaches initially live) to mainstream may be read as a chasm.

I personally engage with many of the mind-visual mapping developers, and I must say the majority are definitely most giving and open; when it has come to giving me and the rest of my fellow colleague’s access to their excellent product.

There has been though; an obvious lack of engagement from the developers to the user base (Voice of the Customer); and this has raised its ugly head as discontent (from a user perspective) towards the mainstream developers that cries “WTF are you developing; we didn’t ask for this”. So it seems to me (my perspective) that we’ve certainly arrived at an impasse of sorts between the users and developers.

This impasse has been revealed by the developers focus on merely competing with their perceived nearest competitor. This competitiveness is certainly not bad; yet it does seem to have thwarted further relevant development (evolution) of the needs of the voice of the customer (user base).

There are indeed devotees of specific software packages, and I certainly understand this sentiment. I have a couple of products I simply need to be effective, capable and competitive within the information management arena.

My specific point of view would be one of challenging all developers to take a closer look at their own product and asking a few cutting question such as; are we merely cloning the perceived leaders capabilities and functions, or are we creating functions and capabilities that are enabling a quantum shift in the human condition relating to information/knowledge management. If you’re not enabling a shift in the way we humans create, manage and exchange data-information-knowledge; well I would challenge you to consider pressing the pause button and re-examining your positioning within this so called arena.

Merely my perspective and I would be pleased to publish your perspective.

MindGenius: Alive and Kicking, and moving Fast!!

2011-08-05T17:50:00.002-04:00

MindGenius Version 4 was recently released and has been well received by customers and those in the industry. Although the mind mapping software has been commercially available since 2001, it was really with the release of MindGenius 3 that the marketplace started taking notice again, with slick new functionality and far greater usability than earlier versions.

With a clear strategy in mind since 2009, the Management Team had created a product road map that focused on improving MindGenius's existing strengths and staying true to the MindGenius ethos of not adding features for features sake. Instead they must have a clear purpose and support business processes. Since MindGenius was originally conceived within a business (Gael Ltd) to support the company as it grew, functionality was only added if it helped address issues that the business was facing every day such as the capture of knowledge and information, managing tasks and projects, facilitating brainstorming sessions and strategy planning.

Version 3.5 was even more warmly received with its feature rich integrated Gantt chart which helped improve upon the extensive project management capability already in MindGenius.

The importance of gathering ideas in an organization is key and the value of being able to gather knowledge was already recognized in MindGenius. The new brainstorming mode in Version 4 looked to take this to the next level and help users to facilitate personal or group brainstorming sessions.

The new brainstorming mode also brought the Question Sets into sharp focus. While Version 3 did have a small number of Questions Sets, they were quite hidden in the product and the user couldn’t edit or add their own. In Version 4, the user has control over this and can edit and amend as they require.

The new brainstorming mode also allows users to link ideas to questions & categories as they are captured and automatically create question & category centric maps on exit, meaning action can be started straightaway. This robustness in terms of delivering business processes isn't capable in all mind mapping applications as they don't have the ability to allow users to cope with large amounts of information or the functionality to make it possible.

With this functionality, MindGenius helps companies to improve the quality and productivity of brainstorming sessions, strategy planning, project planning and management, team collaboration and communications, and business meetings and presentations.

As the product functionality was enhanced, the company started making real inroads into the enterprise sphere and in 2010; MindGenius signed a series of large, global enterprise wide agreements representing thousands of software licenses with major companies including PZ Cussons, Baker Hughes, Champion Technologies and Konica Minolta.

From Birch Worldwide, who feel they have added $1 million in extra revenues in a 4 month period by allowing them to gather ideas from its worldwide workforce, to Star Refrigeration using MindGenius to achieve their largest ever export order, look at their business from a different angle and develop a ground-breaking heating system, MindGenius users are gaining value from easier understanding and manipulation of their ideas.

Other examples where users are going beyond mind mapping to deliver business processes include the international management team at Accenture using MindGenius to improve collaboration and productivity, Speedo’s global research and development team using MindGenius to collate data from scientific and sporting communities and BSG Valentine using MindGenius to visually represent financial strategy to engage their clients.

In addition, Baker Hughes,( the global oilfield services company) employees use MindGenius to communicate, collaborate and complete projects across geographical boundaries and to improve the efficiency of meetings, project work and team interaction and Elections New Brunswick, used it to help plan their 2010 provincial general election.

So, what’s next for MindGenius? Expect to see further business focused solutions delivered via desktop, web and mobile platforms as well as initiatives to bring together the ever growing MindGenius community.

The MindGenius Management Team:

Derek Jack is Director of MindGenius and sister company Gael, where he has been involved with the company since its inception in 1992. As the Gael business continued to grow, Derek was instrumental in setting up MindGenius Ltd in March 2008.

Donald Maciver formed Gael in 1992 and is now Chairman of Gael and MindGenius. Donald is a firm believer in MindGenius’s ability to transform the way businesses operate and perform and remains the products biggest evangelist.

Dustin Newport, Commercial Director of MindGenius brings 6 years’ experience in the mind mapping field with more than 18 years’ experience in software at some of the industry's leading technology organizations.

Kelly Robertson, Marketing Manager, has over 8 years marketing experience and is focused on developing a MindGenius community and further helping new and existing users understand the benefits MindGenius can bring in both business and education.

Jamie Rorrison is Development Manager. He has been involved in MindGenius development since Version 1 and led the development of the well-received Versions 3 and 4.

WikiSummarizer as a tool for “learning on your own"

2011-06-25T16:33:00.009-04:00

Notes by Michael Szostalo:

Michael is a Composer at Self Studied Music Theory and Composition at New York University lives in Kraków Poland

Autodidacts now have a very powerful new navigational tool at their disposal; and it's called WikiSummarizer.

WikiSummarizer from Context Discovery automatically creates hierarchical summaries of articles from Wikipedia or any other database, organized by keywords, based on the Cornell method of note-taking. In addition, it allows you to download and import this information to your favorite mind mapping software, giving you all the tools you need to make a mental map of any reasonably defined body of knowledge currently contained on a computerized database.

How might you use such a toolkit? The simplicity and elegance of the interface means that anyone who wants to learn something can use it in the way that suits him or her best. The summaries themselves are very valuable. I've spent the last several months studying for graduate school entrance exams in music theory and history. I have a very limited amount of money for books, so I decided to fill in the blank areas of my knowledge by scanning Wikipedia articles and taking notes. In other words, I've spent countless hours making handwritten pages that look like what WikiSummarizer produces instantly.

On the next level of functionality, it allows me to form an idea of what I do know and what I have yet to learn. It's very difficult to fill in the blank areas when you don't even know where they are or what they are. (I will take this opportunity to point out what I hope is self-evident: Wikipedia alone will not make anyone an expert on music theory, any more than an intimate knowledge of music theory alone will make me a good composer or a virtuoso flute player).

WikiSummarizer helps you to see larger patterns in the body of knowledge itself, to see where that body of knowledge intersects with other bodies of knowledge, allowing you to then group and link ideas by affinity. Then, you can zoom between the most general and the most specific aspects of any subject as often as you need until you synthesize them, giving you greater insight into the primary sources to which this search may lead you. With this power of near-infinite zoom, you can see not only cooperations, affinities, and recursions in a body of knowledge, but also potential contradictions and dead ends. The more points of reference you synthesize, the more the idea comes together in your mind like a hologram. To help you illustrate some of what I'm saying, I invite you type the terms "Recursion" and "Cantor's Theorem" into WikiSummarizer, and let your mind roam.

At its highest level of its functionality, WikiSummarizer helps you to coordinate your left-brain activity with your right-brain activity. People with strong left-brain activity are excellent with deductive tasks, but have some difficulty with synthesizing information and taking a holistic view. People with strong right-brain function are often very good at synthesizing information, feeling its outlines, and performing highly complex feats of inductive logic. This same trait, however, makes it difficult to approach a complex body of knowledge from a small part without first having some conception, however nominal, of the whole.

WikiSummarizer, in combination with mind maps, has the astounding capacity to both guide your inductive intuition in a purely deductive way, and to help you synthesize huge bodies of bare facts and draw helpful conclusions.

Gregory Zhukov Re: Universal Mind Mapping File Format

2011-06-19T12:14:00.002-04:00

Greetings from Gregory Zhukov; founder and CEO of CS Odessa to all the readers of the universal mind mapping file format proposal blog at Visualmapper.

I am indeed very pleased and excited to read the enthusiasm and energy behind this idea. I personally see this (in the long term) as the ability to interoperate between applications in a fluid manner, and also extending this capability to all desktop and web products.

For many years now, users have been asking mind mapping software developers; when will our applications be a standard among individuals and organizations? The answer is; when we provide the conditions for infusing mind mapping into the mainstream. I believe this condition is provided in the guise of a Unified Business Graphics Format (ubgf).

For the past 5 years at my developer organization (CS Odessa); we have been studying compatibility issues that often occur between our respective mind mapping products and other graphic applications; especially within our own ConceptDraw office productivity suite. The end result of our work has been realized with the successful integration of our own three software applications of Mindmap, Pro and Project using our "In Gyre Technology".

Looking at the wider implications of the interoperability success we have experienced with our own products; the issue of file standardization was one of those epiphanies that screamed of importance, for CS Odessa, and more importantly for the wider group of mainstream mapping developers too. The benefit for the end user community is why I am committed to supporting a Unified Business Graphics Format within my particular software and that of my fellow developers at other notable organizations.

From an approach viewpoint I fully agree with Craig Scott that the file format should "not be over engineered"; but make it a well organized step for delivering to mind mapping users a file format which will provide major benefits, and a seamless data exchange of mind mapping data.

The ubgf format (in my opinion) must first of all be focused on servicing the needs of the customer over that of the vendor. Adopting an existing format may be a consideration, but I challenge our fellow developers to push their thinking further, and think out of the box.

It's simply not about any particular developer at all; it's all about, IMO; a collective work of immense importance for the furtherance of the products we, as developers, produce.

Let’s agree to work together for the purpose of building a better file framework to help address customer requirements of interoperability and also assist the drive for mainstream adoption.

May I suggest the first order of business is to identify all of us (developers) who have an interest in this project to assemble in a group on Linkedin? We can rough out our objectives regarding how we may work together on this significant groundbreaking project.

I have taken the bold step of opening a Linkedin forum titled; Mind Map Developers - Unified Business Graphics Format Group.

Please go here and join the group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3954324

Best regards

Gregory Zhukov

Mind mapping: the ideal information exchange medium

2011-06-18T21:29:00.001-04:00

During my many years of consultancy; I have noticed one aspect of the power of mind mapping that is recognized by all of my colleagues and clients alike. It’s the use of a mind map to graphically convey, communicate and present data, information and knowledge.

The graphical capabilities of most of the mainstream mind mapping products are borderline Photoshop. The ability to insert, manipulate and position images into the framework of a map has been one of the functions that have been the focus of my work as a consultant.

The use of images and icons within a mind map; borders also on the Information Architecture/User Experience arenas and the graphical facilitation arena. I don’t classify myself as being qualified to distinguish my skill set within the mentioned professional arenas; yet it is clear to me that we information management types bisect (on many occasions) the established professions of the IA/UX and graphical facilitation arenas.

Here’s an image I shared with a colleague relating to the Ford Production System (FPS). FYI; the software used to create this map image was Mindjet MindManager 9; this is IMO the most polished and capable product for creating this kind of result.

The Image above was used as a means to convey, communicate and present (to both staff and labor) the basic understandings and self auditing capabilities (potentials) of all employees. This approach to using mind mapping mixed with paragraphs of text as questions/instructions and inserted relevant images were noted as being extremely powerful as an information exchange medium.

If you are using mind mapping within your established business environment; consider using this format of use as the ideal information exchange medium.

I would be pleased to help you use mind mapping in this way to enable a more unambiguous format for information exchange within your organization. I personally printed this image off as an extremely large (poster) format. This image was placed strategically at positions within a manufacturing facility. The feedback was excellent, and the employees regardless of position were impressed enough to make note of the power of the mapped format for future information/training use.

Let me know how and where you use mind mapping in this way and the feedback from your colleagues, suppliers, staff and labor?

UNIVERSAL MIND MAPPING FILE FORMAT PROPOSAL

2011-06-11T14:46:00.013-04:00

I recently received communication from Gregory Zhukov; president and founder of CS Odessa based in the Ukraine. Gregory has proposed the standardization of an Universal mind map file format. This is not new of course Vic Gee wrote of this during 2007 and nothing came of it. So this proposal comes at an opportune time IMO.

The proposal of a universal mind mapping file format coming from a mainstream developer rather than a consultant/writer is rather significant though.

I certainly understand the leading mind mapping software developer, may indeed perceive this proposal as a threat to their established and most deployed/exchanged mapping format. And; for the smaller developers; this would simply be perceived as an open door to the larger developers market place.

Let's not forget about the users; they are the most important part of the process that enables the further use, development and evolution of all respective software products. The users are privately asking for some kind of standardized XML format that can be read across product range.

Regardless of the perception of this proposal; an open mind and forward thinking philosophy may be best rested upon for this proposal. The plethora of software products relating to mind mapping as a base graphical function and capability has, even until this time, struggled to break into the mainstream.

At this time; Mindjet, CS Odessa, NovaMind, ThinkBuzan, Simtech, Matchware, MindGenius and Seavus are to mention but a few (apologies if you're not mentioned here) product developers that are, and remain to be relevant. Cloud developers such as Comapping and Mindmeister are without a doubt leading the cloud Mind mapping revolution.

So maybe; just maybe this proposal by Gregory Zhukov as a mainstream software developer; may spark positive debate and an outcome that gains more exposure for mind-visual mapping products period.

So here's Gregory's proposal, it is verbatim of an email invite that was posted to quite a few developers and thought leaders within the mapping arena. And; I look forward to reading Gregory's input and feedback, which shall be posted as a new and separate blog post; in order to create a clear and unambiguous reply.

Wallace Tait: visualmapper

Fellow developer colleagues,

Mind mapping software users have for some time, been voicing their frustrated need for a universal mind map file format (ummap). This would make it so much more convenient for users to effortlessly share mapped information with fellow mapping users who may use alternative mapping products.

The growing number of mind mapping product logically express a critical need for standardization. At this time; the dominant obstacle to a mainstream adoption of mind mapping product is the lack of an ummap format enabling interoperability in and through a wide scope of information processing product.

Gregory Zhukov; president/founder of CS Odessa cordially invites you to join a round table group of fellow mind mapping developer organizations. The purpose of collectively developing an ummap format would be for the benefit of participating developers with a laser focus on current and potential end users.

The ummap format would indeed be a new standard that shall remove many barriers to market adoption of Mind mapping software product.

By participating in this initiative we shall collectively benefit by:

Ensuring attachment (embedding) requirements are addressed
Solving compatibility between products
Realizing a wider marketplace exposure
Developing standardized benchmarks that address the real needs of information management
Enabling interoperability with a wider group of business products
Improving customer satisfaction

Raise your hand of interest in this revolutionary change to the Mind mapping arena. With your participation; the work is about to begin.

Best Regards

Gregory Zhukov

NovaMind 5 for Windows get a significant update

2011-05-31T19:35:00.000-04:00

new topic shapes, templates, gallery, PDF export and more

Gideon King founder of NovaMind announces:

We have just released a new version of NovaMind 5 for Windows with a number of exciting new features we thought you should know about.

How to get the update

The update should be found automatically when you start NovaMind. If for some reason it doesn't download, you can go to the download page on the NovaMind web site to download it.

New topic shapes

There are a number of new topic shapes available to make your Mind Maps more interesting. The new shapes are: Parallelogram Left, Parallelogram Right, Arrow Left, Arrow Right and Cloud. We have reworked the topic shape gallery to make these shapes easily accessible, and also to improve the presentation of the shapes we already had.

Enhancements have also been made to the advanced settings to be able to deal with the new shapes, in particular the cloud shapes, where you can choose different shaped clouds.

The new topic shapes are very useful for adding visual impact to your Mind Maps, and conveying more meaning through the topic shapes.

New boundary shape

Boundaries have also been improved with the ability to have cloud shaped boundaries, and again, there is the ability to choose different shaped clouds.

PDF Export

You can now export to PDF - the PDF export is a proper resolution independent PDF drawing (except for any bitmap images in your Mind Map), so will scale to whatever size you need without loss of quality. This is far better than the PDF export we had in NovaMind 4, and provides you with an excellent way to share Mind Maps with others.

Office 2010 style application menu

We have adopted user interface enhancements similar to those included in MS Office 2010 to give a new application menu. This allows us to provide you with a wider range of options for creation of Mind Maps, imports, exports etc, all in one common location.

Templates

Built in to the new version is the ability to create a new document from a template, and to save a document as a template for future use. It also comes with some templates to get you started.

The templates we supply are for common tasks - making a decision, a status report, and a to-do list, but if you have common requirements for documents, or particular layouts you want to reuse, you can save any Mind Map as a template and have it easily accessible through the template chooser.

New from existing document

You can create a new document from an existing document - this opens the existing document as an untitled document and requires you to name it when you first save it.

Recent folders

In the Recent menu, you now have easy access to recent folders as well as recent documents. This is very handy for easy access to documents that you keep in the same folders as documents you have opened recently, so you can more quickly find what you are looking for.

Gallery of example Mind Maps

You have easy access to a gallery of over 50 example Mind Maps that you may like to use as a starting point for your Mind Maps. An internet connection is required to use the gallery. The documents contain one or more Mind Maps, and you have a preview and description of each of them so you can see what it is before you download the document.

This gives you a great resource for creating stunning Mind Maps.

Streamlined update process

The update process is much better, with the ability to see the download size and what has changed and decide whether to install the update straight away, or a very useful option if you have some pressing work to get done, where you can tell NovaMind to apply the update when you exit NovaMind.

While the application still automatically checks for updates at startup, there is now also the option to check for updates whenever you want to.

Easier access to tutorials and documentation

Now when you mouse over the tabs in your NovaMind document, you will see a preview of the Mind Map related to that tab, so you know what's there without having to click through the tabs.

Quick print

You now have a quick print option which allows you to print using the existing print settings.

Presenter updates

We have had fantastic feedback about the Presenter in NovaMind Platinum. We're so glad that you're enjoying it and finding it so useful. We have tweaked a couple of things - the tweets in the intro are slightly smaller so that they look better in lower resolutions, and an issue with paragraph spacing in the notes has been fixed.

And more...

There have been about 20 other minor enhancements and bug fixes throughout the application.

Stay tuned: another announcement coming soon...

And while our Windows development team have been busy on producing those updates for you, we have had another small team working away at something else that will be launched sometime in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned - we'll be in touch.

Regards
Gideon King, founder
NovaMind Software
Be Smart - Today

NovaMind
NovaMind Connect
HubPages Squidoo

MindGenius Version 4 Now Released

2011-05-26T16:52:00.000-04:00

26^th May 2011, MindGenius Ltd has now released Version 4 of its popular mind mapping software, MindGenius.

MindGenius 4 boasts new ways to brainstorm and present ideas and information, and adds improved analysis, task and project management capabilities that let users develop and deliver more innovative solutions and projects than ever before.

The new brainstorming mode offers maximized space to view information in a new unstructured layout and makes full use of the unique MindGenius Question sets and categorization features. Users can move from brainstorming to action quickly using automatically created category or question centric maps on exit from the brainstorm.

The new presentation mode extends the power of visual communication to presentations with the ability to easily convert maps into slides and deliver fully formatted presentations directly from MindGenius. Users can deliver interactive presentations where information can be captured live onto the slides during the slide show.

There is also a range of enhancements to the existing analysis, task and project management features of MindGenius, including visual categorization, improved filtering and new Gantt chart link and constraint types.

Derek Jack, Director of MindGenius, believes that this latest release will further strengthen MindGenius's reputation as the Mind Mapping tool that helps users deliver business processes:

“This new release was developed to capitalize on the existing strengths of Version 3, as well as take the brainstorming, presentation and task and project management capability to the next level. As with all MindGenius releases, every feature and piece of functionality was added to support a specific business process and have been tried and tested in a real business environment.”

Stuart Orr, Managing Director of EALA Comms Industry, Accenture, believes: “Since I started using MindGenius it has enabled me and my international teams of managers to greatly improve our collaboration and productivity. Through utilizing MindGenius for brainstorming we are able to rapidly assemble key topics, sort the data and immediately assign priorities and actions. In addition, now being able to present ideas directly from MindGenius means our presentations can be interactive, and more visual. MindGenius is a key tool in our application suite to help give us competitive edge.”

Find out more about new features and functionality, and download a 30-day free trial at www.mindgenius.com, or view a short video on what’s new in version 4 at www.mindgenius.com/New-in-Version-4.aspx

About MindGenius
MindGenius has been producing mind mapping software for business and education since 2001 that allows users to capture, visualize and manage their information. In doing this, personal and organizational productivity can be enhanced.

MindGenius is the only mind mapping software tool that focuses on aiding key business processes such as brainstorming, presentations, strategy and project management and was originally conceived to support the successful compliance management solution, Q-Pulse from Gael Ltd.

It is one of the few mind mapping software applications that has evolved from these core beginnings inside an actual business environment, and every single feature and piece of functionality has been added to help businesses successfully tackle the issues they face on a daily basis.

Customers in over 130 countries use MindGenius with over 600,000 licenses sold. MindGenius are Microsoft Certified Partners. Find out more at www.mindgenius.com, or contact info@mindgenius.com or +44 (0)1355 247766.