Your choice of mind mapping software

Posted by Graham Smith
Oct 19, 2006 at 04:17 PM

Stephen

>For pure brainstorming, I still most prefer BrainStorm. I find that
>mindmapping is useful only if I compress branch titles into tight informative
>phrases.

I think we may be using the brainstorming in a slightly different way, as I only use mind mapping where one or two words are all that is needed for each branch. I may occasionally add a note if I feel something needs explained.

So if I was preparing a lecture on animal behaviour I might have a branch called “communication” and then sub-branches called “sound”, “vision”, “chemical”, electrical, etc. I may then further extend each of these sub-branches with one word headings. This would be thrown together rather quickly and would be refined by moving branches around to try and create the lecture structure.

I would then turn then turn that into an outline, which may be in Brainstorm or NoteMap and write the lecture notes. The same outline would also form the basis of the PowerPoint. But then I would use the Mindmap, probably modified now to match the final presentation, to keep my place during the lecture, and make sure I dodn’t miss any key topics or sub-topics.

If I was brainstorming something that was based on writing paragraphs wherr I had no particular order in mind, then I would use Brainstorm, but then by the time I start to write paragraphs, I normally have a structure in mind.

>I use mindmapping to explore and clarify the relationship between the items I have
>brainstormed,

I suspect that I am using the visual relationship in the mindmap to prompt me to think about the topics that need to be included. In some respects this is against the idea of brainstorming.

I think its rather nice to have the option of different tools.

Graham