Biggerplate Unplugged particularly
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.
Do you want to share any of the following between team members or versions of MindManager?
Once added the new folders will appear in your Task Panes and Template Organiser. Last week I added a Dropbox folder. Later that week I took some pictures of the Royal Yacht with a mobile phone and saved them in Dropbox. They were available short afterwards to add to a map. For example this is useful for data gathering during site surveys with a mobile device. Then writing a report back at the office using a standard report map template which exports to Word.
