As using the map made it very easy for me to complete and the original post about it was in 2008, I thought it might be worth reminding you of the benefit of using Mindjet for this. The process went like this:

1. Received reminder email from Companies House. Click link to submission page.
2. Open Cabre Finance Map > Companies House branch. Copy password, registration no. and authentication code to submission page.
3. Complete submission. Paste submission number and payment reference on this years return branch.
4. Use Outlook MindManager Add Ins to paste confirming emails on branch.
5. Add a topic with date and topic alarm for next years submission.

I use similar processes for VAT, PAYE, Corporation Tax, Insurance, Annual Accounts.  All the web links, log in details  and records of past transactions are on one map.

Simple.

I have a map with Topics and Notes which creates the agenda for a meeting in Word. I am going to the meeting shortly and I wanted to have this agenda on a paper map for taking notes. Printing it would not show the notes. So I tried this:

• Right click the Notes icon on the Topic
• Copy or Cut the Note
• And Paste

Your Notes are now Subtopics.

You may find the free Opti Add In Topic2 Notes useful if you want to reverse the process.

Perhaps you have a tip for managing Notes. Why not share it as a comment?

In all previous Tablet PC versions of Windows (XP Tablet onwards) when I clicked on a text entry field with my pen the Tablet Input Panel icon appeared. I clicked it and entered text using either the onscreen keyboard or ink to text panel.  In Windows 8 this is missing for legacy applications like Mindjet and MindManager.  When I tap a field in a new Windows 8 apps, the half screen touch keyboard pops up but its too big for pen input.  I can access the half screen keyboard in the old desktop apps by swiping in from the right hand side of the screen  > Settings > Keyboard or by opening the old task bar and tapping the keyboard icon.  This is a painfully slow process compared to the past.

After some searching on the internet I realised a solution.  It’s a combination of the old – Wacom Tablet Driver and the new – On Screen Keyboard.

1. Install this driver from Wacom  Tablet PC – Enhanced Tablet Driver. I know it says Windows 7 and beta but its been working fine on my Windows 8 PC for several months. I had the pen button programed to be the Ctrl key.
2. • Open Control Panel
   • Open Pen Tablet Properties
   • Open the Button drop down menu
   • Select Open/Run > Browse to C:\Windows\System32\osk.exe
   • Change name if you wish to “On Screen Keyboard”
   • Click OK.
3. Go to a field, press the button on your pen and the small on-screen keyboard opens.

If I have missed an easier way to do this, please tell me?

If you know a way to pop up a small handwriting ink to text panel, I would pleased hear about it?

Search engines are looking for indexable text, so how can they see your map?

An image or Flash file on the web is indexed by its file name and the text in the meta tag “alt”. Some Flash files do present more meta text to the search engines but I have no evidence the map exports from e.g. Mindjet make use of this feature. Adding these images and Flash to a PDF file will not help.

Briefly Mindjet’s web exports convert a map into:

• Outlines
• Clickable Image Maps
• Mini web sites where notes become web pages and the map is the navigation

The first and third produce text, and the second can have alt text on every link. These “maps” are visible to the search engines. However the HTML is archaic (developed 10+ years ago), the ability to add social tools e.g. Tweet this map, requires too much work compared to modern web publishing tools and coordinating more than one map into a multi-map web site is a pain.

There two significant map hosting sites for Mindjet maps Biggerplate and Maps for That. When a map is uploaded to Biggerplate, the main topics are extracted as keywords. You can add and subtract from this list. You can write a description but I doubt whether are many uploaders to Biggerplate that describe the full content of their map. Mindjet’s “Maps for That” does not have the keyword extraction.

For a couple of years I have been recording and publishing maps about presentations and speeches which are followed by the full text outline of the map. This has two benefits:

• Visually impaired people or their text readers came read the map
• and so can the search engines

And more recently I have published the maps within a WordPress website.

Last Wednesday I attended a presentation about “Mobile Apps” given by a software house in my home town. I mapped it and published it in ConferenceREACTION, Biggerplate and Maps for That. Yesterday I asked some friends in the UK, Canada and The Netherlands to search for the event using a generic search and a very specific search term. Here are the results:

It’s surprising that ConferenceREACTION is in the top ten for the generic terms! If you want your maps to be seen by people who don’t use the catalogues i.e. the non-software mind mappers, then perhaps you need to post them on other sites. Obviously and unfortunately text is important. If you want your maps to be found (and maybe understood) I believe they need to be fully described.

What is your experience and your suggestions for making maps appear more frequently in search results for the non-mind mappers you want to see them?

Okay map pickers, an update on the Top 100 for “matt clarke firstthing apps” 4 Feb 2013

The UK chart: Google.co.uk

• ConferenceREACTION remains at No. 1
• Biggerplate are creeping up at No. 25
• BUT the new entry at No. 2 is MindMeister (the map was only posted on 30 Jan)
• Maps for That are not in the top 100

The US chart: Google.com

• ConferenceREACTION remains at No. 1
• A repeat new entry at No. 2 is MindMeister (the map was only posted on 30 Jan)
• Biggerplate are hanging back at No. 44
• Maps for That are not in the top 100

The Mindjet Map part for Google searches chart: which I presume is via Google.com

• ConferenceREACTION is at No. 1 and 2
• Biggerplate are straight in at No. 3
• MindMeister and Maps for That are not in the top 65 (the maximum Mindjet Google map part will report on)

Knowledge Map – A new window will open with a map whose central topic is the keyword and the branches are the secondary keywords.  Keep on clicking to dive deeper.

Keyword Search – Shows a map of the blogs with that keyword. Click the plus sign at the end of each topic to reveal a blog summary.  This allows you to quickly review the entries before visiting a specific blog by clicking Source.

The maps can be exported for you to continue your research in application which suits you.

The best thing is to select a keyword and give it a go.

I have already given Henry some feedback:

• Some of the primary keywords need hiding e.g. MindManager in the Applications of MindManager are redundant and the blog owner needs to be able to hide them.
• I think anything that is a link should be a consistent colour. Some are blue some are black.  Don’t miss the black ones like I did!

What would you change or add or improve?

Visit these sites to try BlogSummarizer on your blog or WebSummarizer to get summaries of other web sites.

I am preparing for Biggerplate Unplugged on the 31st January in London. 70 people are going! Some I know well, some are acquaintances and some I have never met. The map below outlines how I prepare for such meetings. It’s a technique I have used for many years. It helps me to get the most out of the day. You can’t expect to meet everyone, you know you must meet some people, you know you must avoid others for good (you frequently interact with them) and bad reasons (you can work that out for yourselves). This is what I do.

Preparing your Meeting Map

Get the Attendee List

Copy the attendee list from the web page, Word, PDF etc.  Pasting it direct to a Mindjet work may work but quite often I go via Word or Excel to tidy things up and then paste to the map.  This blog about Converting tables in to MindManager maps may help.

Add Markers

Use markers to categorise people:

• “New to you”
• “Recent acquaintances”
• “Old friends”

I rename the flag marker set for this purpose.

Identify your targets

• Which “new to you” people do you want to meet?
• Which “old friends” do you want to catch up with?
• What’s your strategy for “old friends” you don’t want to spend time with?

I use Task Priorities for this.

Participants

• Which “No Shows” do you need to follow-up with afterwards?
• Maybe there are people attending via the web.

I use my participant marker set. Note I have edited one of the standard Mindjet icons to create a “no-show” marker.

Use the Index Tab

It’s on the right hand side of your screen. It displays groups of markers and lets you click to the indexed topic.  Use this to double-check that people are in the correct marker group.  It also gives an indication of quantity in each group.

Use Power Filter

Show high priority people you want to meet, the Priority ONES. Focus your pre-meeting research on them.

Add Content and Links

• Add an e-mail link
• Add their Outlook Contact
• Web links
• Twitter Stream
• Notes
• Questions for them
• Further research action pre-meeting for you

For Biggerplate Unplugged in London you may find these maps which have been uploaded useful starters if you are attending:

• Keynote Speakers – A visual summary
• Getting ready for Biggerplate Unplugged – A map of all the attendees plus links to web pages relevant to them. Download this map to get the Map Markers mentioned above.

I will publish a blog about creating, editing and managing map markers shortly.

1. The iOS apps on iPad and iPhone are check in/check out editors. Mindjet Windows, Mac and Web do support simultaneous co-editing.  The implications are that when an iOS app opens a map in Mindjet Files, all other users lose the right to edit the master map. They may continue editing local cached copies and think they are doing useful work. But actually you need to stop because your edits will be difficult to incorporate in the master map when it is checked in from the iOS device. You will be offered this latest version to overwrite your cached version. And you can do the reverse, overwrite the latest version from the iOS device with your cached version. This will annoy the guy who finished editing on the iPad because their edits will be lost.
2. On the iOS app the number in the circle next to the refresh symbol indicates a change is waiting to be uploaded to the server. I have just stopped my iPhone because it was not synchronising, restarted and now the Synchronising indicator is in a wait loop. I have no idea which file has not been synchronised.
3. At the moment neither of my iPad nor my iPhone can access the folder on Mindjet Files but Mindjet Windows is displaying and editing folders. I can move quickly through all the folders and files in Dropbox on the iOS devices and can load a map. Consider using Dropbox or similar if you do not need the simultaneous co-editing and you can agree a simple protocol with other collaborators for asynchronous editing of files. e.g. add their name to the file name whilst editing it and delete their name when finished.

What tips or questions do you have for collaborating with Mindjet’s portfolio of applications?

Ink has been available on Tablet PCs since Windows XP Tablet PC edition in 2002. Mindjet released an ink version of MindManager in 2004.  I think this tool has been under exploited except perhaps by artists (see these galleries on ArtRage and DeviantArt) and delivery men taking your signature. Will Windows 8 revitalise this functionality for business applications?

I have my doubts. Have you seen any native ink applications for Windows 8? Is the ink “keyboard” a useful alternative to the touch screen keyboard? Why does it have to take up half the screen. It’s not optimised for the stylus users. I liked the smaller pop up inkboard that Windows used to have.

I have enjoyed using MindManager’s ink mode since it was first released in 2004. It’s a quiet way of recording a boardroom style meeting. Ink does not intrude in the same way as either a traditional or virtual keyboard. It’s a fluid way of building the map. As the meeting wanders around the agenda or a comment on one item becomes relevant to another, I can easily add subtopics in different locations on the map.  I think it’s a powerful and under developed tool. Mindjet having only made minor improvements to their ink tool set since its release?

Yesterday at a Business Scene event sponsored by Dell I had the opportunity to see their new Tablet PCs. Neither have Wacom (pressure sensitive and very precise stylus) screens but they are making good use of Windows 8.

The Windows 8 RT XPS™ 10 Tablet is a light weight iPad sized slate which plugs into a keyboard docking station. Reminiscent of the HP TC1000 & 1100 both of which I enjoyed using between 2004 and 2008. I still have three TC1100s in my draw, so I can send a squad of MindManager inkers to events. No RT version of Mindjet as yet, so no immediate use to me. It is a tempting piece of kit. It only weighs 635g compared to the 1470g of the keyboard less TC1100, is a lot more powerful, has two cameras and I bet the battery lasts a bit longer even if it isn’t replaceable.

I knew I could do this with Mindjet 11 or earlier versions of MindManager. I used table 5 as the central topic but you could use the title. All the other tables and title are floating topics.  The arrangement of tables and the doors approximates the actual layout. All topics have an area around them that cannot be overlapped by other topics. You may have to compromise.

I had all the names in two Excel spreadsheet columns (first name, surname). These can be copy and pasted direct to the map and form topics whose text is “first name surname”.  I had already allocated names to tables in the spreadsheet but you could paste the whole set in the map and then drag and drop to tables.  Letters in names have been replaced by #.

On Saturday afternoon one couple cancelled on a table of 8. A table of 10 had a couple dragged to another table. Print to A3 paper or poster print. Table plan done.

Formatting tips:

• The Main Topic Handles are hidden with View > Detail > Show/Hide
• Line Style has been set to: No line
• Main and Sub Topic Shape has been set to: No line

Download Table Plan Example Mindjet Map

This project was completed with Mindjet 11 for Windows. It will work with all previous versions of MindManager for Windows, Mindjet Web and, Mindjet and MindManager for Mac. The iPad and Android versions do not support floating topics but you could use the standard map arrangement.