Have you ever joined a Skype group chat after the other participants have exchanged several messages? Scrolling down the conversation you get some sense of what has been going on. But the questions and answers are sometimes interleaved and there are multiple threads going on between the participants. Here is my solution for unravelling the spaghetti.
Select all the messages and paste them on to a MindManager map. You will get a topic for each message with the Skype ID (writer) and date/time included. Pick a principal statement or question and then drag the responses to the principal creating subtopics. Often responses can be found several unrelated messages later. Additional marking up you could do:
- If topics relate to each other, you can add relationships or colour code the topics.
- Search for Skype ids and then mark the topics with an avatar.
- Search for keywords and highlight the topics.
- Add Call Outs with your private thoughts
This is the map (without the text) from two other peoples conversation that I was not able to participate in yesterday. It gives you some idea of how MindManager can be used to convert a complex stream of messages in to coherent digestable groups!
Click the map to see a larger image.
