Posts Tagged ‘clickable map’

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Using Dropbox to share structured knowledge with MindManager

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Do you have a requirement which goes something like this:

  1. You want to share information with a closed group of people
  2. It’s less than 2GB of files but this could grow with the size of the group
  3. They need to be able to access it on and off line.
  4. Anyone in the group can add files to the store but you will look after the indexing
  5. Only some members of the group use MindManager

Had you thought about using Dropbox with MindManager’s web export?

Here is how:

  1. Get a Dropbox account, create and share two folders with the group e.g.
    1. Web site
    2. New files
      You will have to invite them and all that malarky but this will give you extra storage.  The folders will appear in your My Documents folder in the  My Dropbox folder.
  2. Create a map which links to all the files you want to share with the group.
    Do not use multiple hyperlinks, they are not supported in the web exports.
  3. Export the map using the web export. If all the text and explanations is in topic text you just need the Clickable Image export, if you add topic notes use the Static Outline or Dynamic Templates or Simple Outline or One Page.
  4. Export the map to the Dropbox folder web site. I suggest changing the name of the Root export filename in Customise > Advanced settings to something relevant.  A mini web site will be created with a folder called LinkedDocuments with all the linked files in it. Your original documents will remain where they where, these are copies by default. Other folders are created for the more sophisticated web exports to support the styles, images etc. used in the export.
  5. Give the group the link to the root export file and the web site will appear.
    e.g test-site 
    I have saved the web export to the Public Folder in Dropbox.
  6. Ask the group to add new files to the New files folder.
  7. Link the new files to the map and re-export.
Note: You cannot share local files via the PDF Viewer and Flash export. If you just have hyperlinks to web pages on the map then you could also store them in Dropbox and save updated versions.

Obviously there are many other file management systems out there but this may be enough for your needs.  Similar processes may be possible with Microsoft’s Skydrive and Google sites.

Could you use this?

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The MindManager Topic Notes Editor: Time for a big change?

Monday, October 17th, 2011

The Topic Notes editor has remained virtually unchanged for a decade.  A format painter (copier) has been added in MindManager 2012 and way back in 2002 the ink tools were added.  Nothing else has happened.  I met Blaine Mathieu Chief Products Officer at the Mindjet Revolution Roadshow, a few days ago.  After a short discussion, he invited me to send him an email on this matter. Here are my thoughts and your chance to help me write that email to encourage Mindjet to be evolutionary and well as revolutionary!

I have used the Notes editor to create hundreds of web sites: the notes become web pages.  Until last week I used it to create the Cabre web site but I had to do too much post processing to include bits of HTML for videos etc. and had other issues around site management not to do with the Notes Edtor. I have switched to WordPress with MindManager content where required.   The ConferenceREACTION web site is currently produced with MindManager but will switch to WordPress soon.  It’s a pity because all the content is produced with MindManager.

With the Word export I use Topic Notes to create the paragraphs in “Introduction to MindManager” (to be transferred to new web site),  a 20 page  booklet with 50 plus images in it.  I started with Mindmanager X5 and I will updated it to the sixth edition 2012 shortly.

So why change?

It lacks:

  • Word wrapping: you have to use tables.
  • The tables are unstable when they get big (more than 5 rowsish) and if you use cell merge.
  • You cannot include HTML, only links. So no embedded videos, maps or other “gadgets” e.g. mail list capture, twitter streams etc.
  • You cannot resize large images to suitably sized images as you add them to the Notes (or Topics) thus preventing map bloat!
  • It is difficult to manage the formatting in the notes to get the correct format in Word. If you transfer the MindManager Topic Notes format to Word, you can’t (easily) use the Word Styles to manage the formating.

Please add to this list by commenting below.

What would I like to see

Three and half editors:

  1. Keep it simple i.e.the current one.  For simple note taking
  2. A Word editor which uses the style selected for the Word export. Perhaps it opens a Word window and saves the file as an attachment to the map visualised in the Notes pane.  you can support this idea in Mindjet’s User Voice – Editing Topic Notes with Word.
  3. An HTML editor. Something like the ScribeFire for Firefox.  It’s great for editing and storing frequently used HTML fragments.  With the option of using Micrsoft Expression?  You can support this idea in Mindjet’s User Voice – HTML Notes Editor 

3.5 An editor for creating WordPress content. That is one which creates clickable image maps and other content that can be directly exported to my WordPress blog(s). I will write about this seperately.  One respected internet commentator Graham Jones said in his newsletter last weekend: “In my view, though, there is only one way to go: WordPress.” Repeating my dream: Just imagine if Mindjet had developed the HTML editor they had in early versions of MindManager we would be using MindPress now!

 There, that’s this week’s rant (so far) off my desk (chest).  Please add your thoughts here and in Mindjet’s User Voice.

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Keeping track of your Potholes!

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

It could be tracking anything you are interested in but on Sunday I came across the now fixed hole in a cycle path. Fortunately I approached it from the side the camera is facing in the light.  If you descended in the dark from behind the camera at 25 mph, you could have had a life threatening moment.

On the mapI have a link to Hampshire County Council’s problem reporting site, and the track links for each problem. Plus the photo and a link to the Google map location.  I used task info to store the date of submission and fixing.

You could use a simlar process for snag lists when commissioning equipment or factory inspections or event health and safety tours etc.

 

My Hampshire Potholes
http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000922949 http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000922949 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.073635,-1.289456&spn=0.004779,0.011362 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.073635,-1.289456&spn=0.004779,0.011362 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.084166,-1.304348&spn=0.002389,0.005681 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.084166,-1.304348&spn=0.002389,0.005681 http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000921925 http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000921925 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.0822,-1.18121&spn=0.000597,0.00142 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=206725967560823522050.00046fc3eb02bad73dca0&msa=0&ll=51.0822,-1.18121&spn=0.000597,0.00142 http://www3.hants.gov.uk/RoadProblems http://www3.hants.gov.uk/RoadProblems http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000922950&trackno=111000922950 http://maps.hants.gov.uk/roadproblems/StatusChecker.aspx?trackno=111000922950&trackno=111000922950

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Information Mapping Across the Organisation

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Mindjet have a series of seminars titled “Information Mapping Across the Organisation” running in Europe over the next two weeks.  Scandinavia this week. The Netherlands and UK next week.

I am speaking at Lord’s and Old Trafford (the cricket grounds) in the UK.  I will be showing the audience some Customer Use Cases with MindManager featuring: Brainstorming, Strategy, Projects and Communication.  It would be great to meet you there. The events are free, in the morning from 08:30-12:30 and include breakfast.

In London: Paul Lawrence and John Barber from Mindjet will be speaking  plus Jim McNeil, The Ice Warrior! and me.
In Manchester: Hilary de Rover, John Barber and me.

If you have any special requests, make them below and I will see if I can weave them in to my 45 minutes.

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Mind Mapping Software ranked by Google Search Results

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

This is research and background material for a presentation I am giving on Thursday evening called Using Mind Mapping Software to Organise Your Business at Wired Wessex in Winchester Guildhall.

The results are variable in their accuracy because for some applications it is easy to create a unique search e.g. MindManager, iMindMap, MindMeister, XMind, ConceptDraw or Mindomo but others produce results which are nothing to do with the software e.g. Freemind, Inspiration, MindMapper, Visio, or Curio.   Another issue I frequently encounter is people referring to MindManager as MindMapper and I guess iMindMap has a few variations etc.

Do you think these results reflect your understanding of the market and the relative positions of the applications?

I have produced the results in three forms:

Which format do you prefer?

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Using Mind Mapping Software to Organise your Business – Wiki Maps

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Unfortunately MindManager does not have a Wiki facility but you can answer the question “Please give examples of how you use it in your business?” by adding comments to this blog.

If you have Mindomo or MindMeister accounts you will be able to edit the maps below. I will be using the maps as examples of collaboration in my presentation on Thursday entitled “Using Mind Mapping Software to Organise your Business” at Wired Wessex in Winchester, UK.

To edit click Mindomo icon top left

To edit click pencil icon bottom left

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The MindManager Web Export is great for summarising discussions?

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

A couple of evenings ago I attended a discussion about “Community is Essential to Building Brands”. As is my habit I inked the discussion on my Tablet PC using MindManager. Today I have processed it in to a web page which summarises the discussion, links to the web pages mentioned and “borrows” a few logos from their sites. The content is very interesting but here are some tips on how this map was created.

The central topic uses an image “shape” rather than the standard shapes on the ribbon. You will find these in the library under Shapes!

You can drag hyperlinks from links or the favicon in the address bar of your browser on to your topics. If the topic goes green, the link will be in the topic and if it goes red, it will be add as a subtopic with the title text from the web page.

Mostly the logos were grabbed, by right clicking on them, copying the image (not the link) and then pasting them in to a topic using Ctrl-Shift-Alt-V. This does not work with Google Chrome, it just adds the image link. So I reverted to Mozilla Firefox (Internet Explorer will work as well).

Occasionally you will get an image which has a black background. I then use the Windows Snipping Tool that comes by default with the Tablet PC. You can enable it on other PCs by turning on the Tablet PC tools in Control Panel > Programs and Features > Windows Features.  Many image applications have screen capturing tools built in.

The web page is two exports combined:

Main Page:  Is produced from one map. It is a customised combination of the clickable image and outline web export templates that I use for ConferenceREACTION and other reports. It’s nearly in a state that I could let others use it.  Are you interested?

Social Networks Map:  A clickable image export of the social networks map was pasted into the main web page. It’s easy to do: Copy the map image to the same folder as the main export. Copy the text from the mapname.html.txt file and paste this into an appropriate part of the main web page .html file. Change the default file name for one of the exports from index.html to something else e.g. map.html or you will be wondering why things don’t work.

I think those are the interesting bits of the export but if you have any questions please ask them below or contact me.  To see the full maps please visit

Community is Essential to Building Brands

Community is Essential to Building Brands

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Mapping Twitter Favourites, Conversations et al with MindManager

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Recently Mattias Kareld asked on Twitter:

“Is there an easy way to get my favorite tweets into a mindmap? Would be great to sort them in a #mindmap. I mainly use #mindmanager.”

My conclusion is there are two ways:

  1. Use a News Feeds – Map Part to add your favorites ( favourites ) or anyone elses using an RSS feed of the form http://twitter.com/favorites/twitteraccountname.rss to your map. You can do this from at least MindManager 6 which is what Mattias is using.
  2. Use the TweetJet experimental web / cloud application to capture the tweets, save to a xmmap file and process with MindManager.  This process can work upto a point for non-MindManager users. Anyone can access the experiment.

Twitter conversation in a MindManager mapI entered into a conversation with Mattias and we came to a solution using the former method.  He has blogged the details of the Map Part solution in Organising my favorite tweets in a mind map

I used the latter to map the conversation with Mattias and others.  There were 45 tweets related to the question, mainly exchanges between Mattias and myself.

You can see the scale and complexity of the conversation in the thumbnail view opposite.

Here is how I mapped the Twitter conversation and note you do not need MindManager to create a map.

Mindjet the developers of MindManager have created a free (under-development) online cloud tool which imports Twitter information to a map. It can be saved or printed but the map you create only exists whilst the page is open (vapourware!). Read the Mindjet blog summarising the Twitter Tool.  Or jump straight to the simplest version of the Twitter Mapping tool, (it takes some time to load on first use), connect it to your Twitter account, ignore all the instructions and click on My Profile. Now you can click on any of the normal Twitter groupings such as Sent, Direct, Favorities etc and the map will be populated with your tweets or ones to you.  Go back and read the instructions if this grabs your attention!

I used the Search Twitter topic to assemble the Tweets I needed for the conversation map. Click that, enter a search term and you get a set of Tweets. You can repeat for different search terms. Using this I gathered together the Tweets in the extended conversation with Mattias and others.

The only editing (apart from adding more sub-topics / Tweets) you can do on this map is deletion. So prior to saving or printing you may wish to delete the instructions, feedback and other unused topics. Printing the resulting map is also possible.

The map can also be saved in .xmmap format to your computer. This file format can be opened by at least the following applications: MindManager from version X5 onwards (PC and MAC), MindManager for iPhone, iThoughts HD (iPad), ThinkingSpace (Android). I saved the map, edited it and then exported it with MindManager to produce the Big Clickable Picture, an Outline and a Flash viewer. You can also save the file, change the file type to .xml and open it an XML viewer or editor.

Is this a useful process?

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Mind Mapping Software – a review

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Mind Mapping Software: Applications, Platforms, Sources of Info

Yesterday I gave a 45 minute session at the Winchester Jelly about Mind Mapping Software.  The first two parts were based on MindManager and the third part was a general review of the market:

  1. How it works, sharing your maps and its interactions with other applications.
  2. How I use it in my business. They saw the live applications on my PC rather than the public summaries linked in the map.
  3. A summary of the platforms and applications available. I know have not listed …………. but they all get a mention in the linked guides and other blogs.

You can see the examples, applications and blogs etc. on this clickable map.

Next date for this presentation is the 24 February 2011 at Wired Wessex.  I would be pleased to run this session or Mind Mapping for Business (a paper and software session) for other audiences.

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Making the Most of LinkedIn and Thinking Space

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

I am experimenting at the moment with the Thinking Space app for the Android Smartphones. An HTC Wildfire in my case. It allows you make maps and save them in MindManager xmmap file format. It will also import xmmap (it’s one of the MindManager save options) within reason.

This evening I went to a presentation in a very pleasent new hall in the Hampshire County Council offices in Winchester organised by Wired Wessex.  I decided to leave my Tablet PC behind and map the event on my phone.  Not an easy thing for me to do. :)

The presentation was given by Stephen Dann a veteran of LinkedIn and a very professional user of the platform.  Using Thinking Space presented two problems for me: 1. I am still learning the UI. 2. You have to be concise. You can’t type in a phrase quickly enough.  Here is the result which  you can make appear by magic in the My Pictures folder of my Tablet PC.

Stephen Dann - How to make the most of LinkedIn

Then I opened the Thinking Space file from the folder in my smartphone via Bluetooth and edited it in MindManager.  The unusual thing about Stephen’s presentation was that he used presentation mode with MindManager 7.  There was a lot of talk about groups but Stephen is not a member of those groups.  So I have added links to them to this map and some expansion on the topics in the original.  You would be very welcome Stephen.

Making the Most of LinkedIn Stephen Dann at Wired Wessex 14/10/20

http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=48466&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=48466&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2741549&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2741549&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.wiredwessex.com/home/ http://www.wiredwessex.com/home/ http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=118439&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=118439&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=3242183&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=3242183&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2356315&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2356315&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 https://www.xing.com/net/mindmap https://www.xing.com/net/mindmap http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=76011&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=76011&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sjdann http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sjdann http://events.linkedin.com/Making-most-LinkedIn/pub/403473 http://events.linkedin.com/Making-most-LinkedIn/pub/403473 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2921373&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=2921373&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=79063&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1 http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory?itemaction=mclk&anetid=79063&impid=&pgkey=anet_search_results&actpref=anetsrch_name&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1287087573768_1

Is the phone and Thinking Space better than pen and paper? Yes if you want to publish to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, WordPress quickly or export to MindManager. No it is not as fluid.

Is the phone and Thinking Space better than MindManager in Ink mode on the Tablet PC. No but it does weigh a lot less and I cycled the 8 miles to Winchester.

Here is Stephen’s PowerPoint version of the presentation as 10 second per slide silent video. Change to 720p resolution and full screen for clearer slides.

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