Mind-Mapping

1. Tools

1.1. Mind Manager

1.1.1. Gold Standard

1.1.2. Deeply linked to MS Office

1.1.3. Expensive

1.2. FreeMind

1.2.1. Open source and free

1.2.2. Java: works on all flavours of PC

1.2.3. No connection with MS Office

1.2.4. No way of embedding maps in blogs or collaborating

1.3. X-Mind

1.3.1. Open source and has free version

1.3.2. Also fishbone, organizational, tree, and logic charts

1.3.3. Comes with account on XMind.net allowing maps to be embedded

1.3.4. Collaboration requires premium account

2. MindMeister

2.1. This software... being evaluated now... Let's get your comments?

2.2. MindMeister's tech support is super speedy!

3. Advantages

3.1. Simple

3.1.1. pop

3.1.2. oioi

3.1.3. ooi

3.2. Intuitive

3.3. Interactive

3.4. Non-linear

3.5. Collaborative

4. Objections

4.1. Trivialises arguments into keywords

4.2. Write once - read never

4.3. Over-complicates a simple task

4.4. Purely descriptive, no analytic usage

5. Applications

5.1. Brainstorming

5.2. Project Planning

5.3. To-Do lists

5.4. Meeting Agenda and Notes

5.5. Document outlines

5.6. Scrapbook/personal knowledge base

5.7. Rapid note-taking

6. Concept-mapping

6.1. Alternative to mindmaps

6.2. Captures relationships; links carry labels that explain connections (see diagram)

6.3. Tools: IHMC CMapTools