Collaborative mind mapping with computer illiterate

Posted by Dr Andus
Sep 13, 2012 at 04:51 PM

I need a tool to collaborate remotely with someone who has poor computer literacy. The nature of the collaboration is simple project management, involving mostly brainstorming and work break-down, task development and tracking, and some very basic financial management. Also, I don’t want it to cost any money. We both have PCs and we both have Dropbox and an iPod Touch each.

I tried Google Spreadsheet first but it turned out to be too complex for the other person. I checked out a number of online mind mapping software but free versions rarely include collaboration or there were some other problems.

In the end I set up Freeplane on both PCs and have the .mm file saved in our shared Dropbox folder. The problem with this solution is that if the other person deletes some content or does something to our shared file, it may render the file useless. So an online mind mapping service might still be better.

It would be also good to be able to view and edit this .mm file on our respective iPods. I am currently testing Mindjet, which, amazingly, is free for iPod and iPad. It looks fairly good feature-wise but my confidence is a bit dented because the very first test file lost some branches on the mind map after I synced the Mindjet file with Dropbox. Also, it saves it as a Mindjet file, .mmap, though I was able to import it into Freeplane. Moreover, Mindjet on iPod creates its own Dropbox folder, so anyway, it’s a different file and folder, can’t be synced easily with Freeplane.

I also found out about MindMeister for Google Drive, however I don’t like it that they are requesting access to my Google profile and email address before allowing me to see what the service actually looks like. I just find that too intrusive.

I guess another option would be to bite the bullet and by iThoughts for both iPods, and sync them with Freeplane via Dropbox.

I would actually consider paying for some good value online mind mapping software, as long as it is really amazingly good for this kind of purpose.

Any suggestions?