Using Mindmanager to Tame Travel & Meetings ...

My last post was creating a new powerpoint using the Beyond Bullet Points system .. as I went through my presentation, I realized that it was eventually in a close to one on one situation and there was a better way to do this ...

I am meeting with a client next week to present some ideas to him regarding a collaboration and of picking up some of our products to distribute in a foreign country ... as I started thinking this through, I went back to method I had employed successfully earlier ... see the map ...

This is a template I use to plan meetings with travel involved ... I then use the highlight or F4 to isolate the different parts of this as needed ... let me start with the Itineray ... I use this to document all my travel and accomodations on the trip along with contact info, etc. ... this will serve as my trip diary as thoughts emerge during travel ... just add as branches.

The second section is info for the meeting proper ... I will also google the map and directions, use snag it to capture an image of the information and then attach as an image that can be called up if I need directions, etc ...

The meeting itself is then outlined in the Agenda ... this area carries the meat of the meetings and in this case is an open ended repository of possible agenda items ... each with detail and discussion points and relationships ... the broad branches allow for items that need to be covered and the children represent possibilities and allows for expansion of the thoughts .... I go over this after the meeting and move items not covered into a new category "not discussed" and then elaborate on the discussions of the points above ... also there is the ability to add things that may come up without prompting ... this branch then serves as the meeting recap and start of the action items to follow up on along with any documentation and to dos that may come from the meeting. The one nice thing about structures like this would be the combinations that could be made on multiple meetings that would be scheduled on a trip ... this structure will keep the ability to see the forest from the trees at all times while allowing you to focus in on the "tree" in specific meetings ...

The last item is the Support Files area ... I use this as my quick lookup section on all info that I might need ... I will link to folders, files, spreadsheets, presentations, pdf's, etc ... whatever I may need to call up during a meeting ... I have found this invaluable as it has saved my hide more than a few times by being able to call up documentation or schedules with an impressive speed ... by using this area to include all of the supporting information, you no longer have to fumble to find things during the heat of a meeting ... it is all there for you ...

By forward planning, you will be completely prepared for whatever twist and turn that may happen (it ALWAYS happens ...) during a critical meeting and you can proceed to flow without the normal stresses in this type of open ended meeting ... the next post will get back to the presentation aspect that will be part of this ....

Beyond Bullet Points ... A Better Way to Present

I read with great interest a new technique of creating a vibrant and engaging powerpoint presentation without the tried, or should I say tired format of the proverbial bullet points .... Cliff Atkinson has published a book called Beyond Bullet Points ... he uses a technique based on the ages old method first used by Aristotle to convey ideas by telling a story ... fast forward to the business and entertainment worlds and he parallels the use of this method to produce successful movies and to bring presentations to life ... the book is an engaging read and highlights a very structured approach to creating or should I say crafting a presentation .... when you think of all the presentations you have seen and put it into his context, you will quickly see the power of his strategy ...

Enter our old standbye Mindmanager as a tool to quickly enable the process ... the first shot is a map I created to highlight his method ... notice there is a little redundancy, but you will see why in a minute ... In this map I have taken his structure and created slides for a powerpoint export.

The second shot is the exported map in powerpoint viewing it as a slide sorter view ... this allows you to look at the flow of the presentation and follow like a storyboard ... I see there will be two options to create the final presentation from this framework ... I can either modify the map and export it or work in powerpoiont and do the editing there ... if you notice how I have the Act slides to kind of summarize the following slides, normally to make a presentation flow, you would take or hide those slides in the final version ... take a look at this book and his website for a better explanation fo the process ... I created this mindmap to help me along, and as always, I am back to our reliable tool to simplify almost any task undertaken ...

I am preparing a presentation to be shown in a couple weeks, so I will add more to this subject as I go along ....

Quick Presentations ....

Here is a great way to do presentations on the fly ... no pics yet, no great graphics ... just quick and dirty presentations ... I have had to do this many times in the past ... you travel to a meeting and find out that you need to get across a complicated concept either to clarify a vision or create a framework for discussion ...

Well, working through comapping I started playing with their Make Presentations tab (the implementation of the ribbon interface is becoming standard but takes getting used to if you are not an Office 2007 person yet) ... well here is a brief example made in less than 5 mins ... I think you will see how this can work for you ... pretty slick ...

Here is a map that I made ....















Here is the clip showing the Make Presentation tab and shows how you add slide ... you need to highlight the branch you are isolating and hit create slide ... you can see the thumbnails on the bar and can create, delete, edit order and juggle the presentation as you see fit ...









This last one is the full screen showing how it looks in presentation mode ... it will run in the browser window and it then looks like any other presentation ... very concise and great tool for your work ... the only downside now is the need for the internet hookup, but I think the solution is coming ...

Further Thoughts on WHY This Works ....

I have been playing with the comapping web based application for a couple days and have been dazzled by the ease of creation and thought input served by this new iteration of the mind mapping paradigm ... from their Q&A comes this gem ..

" Before we started this project, we had a feeling (based on the many years of developing and reviewing mindmaps with learning objectives with people all over the world), that we should look further into how people were actually working with mindmaps. We then observed quite a few users both in terms of their mapping process in general. We also analysed more specifically how the use of a computer facilitated building - and reviewing - the content and semantic structures in the mindmaps. The conclusion was striking: people were more confused - and less efficient - when they were building or trying to review a part of a map that had the topics around a center especially going from right to left.

We have a hypothesis that the reason is tightly related to the fact that we read from left to right: Topic organized from left to right gives a much faster overview of the semantic structure - probably because you can physically see the topic in less eye spans."

I think their research has paid off as the ease of use is noticeable ... things seem to flow and ideas are captured rapidly ... this takes the interface out of the way and allows the creation of the map to be effortless ... there are very few distracting additions and it really appears this was designed (and successfully I believe) to enable the process rather than to be the process ... I have played with the export both to MindManager and to Word and I can say that this creates entirely useable outputs that speeds the creative process ... I used a quick export to word to format a document highlighting a sales presentation ... really really efficient ... I always use some sort of mind mapping tool to do this as it ensures the flow of the work and also allows the overall picture to be easily grasped and also to make sure the details are properly presented ...


I am also enthralled with the way the interface re-layout function functions in a seamless manner and again functions without conscious effort ... I have included three screen shots of the same map, the first is the overall map ... when you highlight one of the branches and hit the focus button, you get screen two .. do this again and you drill down to the third shot ... all effortless and all very intuitive ... the best programs are those that don't require thought or get in the way of the work ... I think from what I've discovered this may become one of those that enables creative expression, thought processes enhanced by technology ....

Some Thoughts on Thinking ....

I kept coming back to some points in my mind today that have clarified why I am feeling comfortable with the new mapping program comapping .... the thought process is explained in this excerpt from their FAQ ...

"We have spent a significant amount of time on this subject. We are highly passionate about human-computer interface stuff and this challenge appeared to be right in the middle of it.

Before we started this project, we had a feeling (based on the many years of developing and reviewing mindmaps with learning objectives with people all over the world), that we should look further into how people were actually working with mindmaps. We then observed quite a few users both in terms of their mapping process in general. We also analysed more specifically how the use of a computer facilitated building - and reviewing - the content and semantic structures in the mindmaps. The conclusion was striking: people were more confused - and less efficient - when they were building or trying to review a part of a map that had the topics going from left to right.

We have a hypothesis that the reason is tightly related to the fact that we read from left to right: Topic organized from left to right gives a much faster overview of the semantic structure - probably because you can physically see the topic in less eye spans."

Through my many years using maps to illustrate concepts to business colleagues I thought not so much about how I got there, but rather the end result ... several other points were made that goes to address why this app feels and acts so differently ... are you primarily right or left brained, do you get concepts with color and organic layouts or are you more for presentations that flow more linearly ... I have found that though organic, art filled, maps do convey a message and can be a quick take ... but in a business setting, it can distract from getting the message across ...

The shot at the right is a map from the Australian Buzan Center Web Site (Tony Buzan is the acknowledged father of mind mapping ... as you can see this is a wonderful depiction of thoughts and what a mind map should do ... Conceptually vivid this for a whole brained person makes a very visual presentation ...



Now I have taken several of the key branches and transferred to a simple mind map using the new comapping website (took 5 mins max) ... this is the type of layout for presenting concept in a business setting that I use ... there needs to be more emphasis and relations than this, but just the feel is illustrative of the point being made ...

I have linked the Q&A, there are many points that are made in the design of this ... I think the points are a valuable insight into thoughts on thinking ....

New Application Shows Great Promise ...

Hi all, been feverishly working on a new project so have been a little quiet ... I was emailed by a new group that has an application out called Comapping .. this is a great web based tool for mindmapping ... I tried it over the past few days to work on some of my project and was totally blown away by the interface ... see first shot ... I see the purpose of this application to create an interface that doesn't interfere with the idea flow .... normally in the course of my day I tend to switch between machines and have several different settings for the screen real estate ... this new web based app truly shines in fully utilizing the screen ... it is truly seamless in the way the map grows out and extremely fluid in highlighting your work ... one of the big problems as your map grows on a small screen is readjusting the view as you go from branch to branch ... in this app, you just go to the branch and hit tab, it then fills the screen .... everything is fluid and is the best implementation of a web based map that I have found to date.

Of prime importance to my work is the interchange between anything I am doing with my MindManager desktop app ... Comapping shines in this, below is the mind map that I took to MindManager ... really smooth ... so far so good, I would give this 5 stars on ease of use ... this is simply an app that was made to work and get out of your way while creating ... in that sense, it is what this genre is supposed to be ... (PS, Maps are all in one flavor of presentation format ... interesting discussion on their site re that basis for this ... there seems to be a lot of basis and thought behind the design and implementation ... it works for me )

PPS ... service is free to try and will be for charge after 30 days ... $11.99 for 6 months

When Evolution Becomes Revolution ....

I was fortunate yesterday to get an invitation to the early unveiling of the new MindManager 7 product from Mindjet ... it was an incredible look at something that I feel will be both an evolution and revolution for users .... my first impressions were extremely favorable and look forward to getting my hands on the new version to work with.

Let me start this with a little background ... I have been a user of Office 2007 for several months now as I really rely on the OneNote 2007 application, so getting the rest of the suite was the best deal for the money. At first, I was not happy with the "ribbon" interface (teaching old dogs new tricks), but have come to really like it and have seen a jump in speed and productivity from just this feature ... I now really like the interface and find the old one very cumbersome ... SO, when I first saw the demo screen for the new Mindjet product it was a great surprise to see the "ribbon" up there and functioning on the presentation ... it was one of those "wow" moments that Microsoft has been pushing and served to make my enthusiasm for the new product ratchet up a notch ... not that the old UI was bad, but this new look is truly breathtaking ... it is like a new product has been made.

I think this is evolutionary for many long time users and sets the stage for that unified working space that has evolved ... I normally go back and forth between word, powerpoint, project based software and mindmanager ... all of these tools function in my normal workspace to tackle all sorts of tasks ... I think though, this represents how a user who has come down the long road of applications will view it ...

The new product now has the potential to truly revolutionize the user base .. with the now consistent ribbon interface and ease of generation of concept .. I think the instant gratification of a beautiful finished map of an idea or project will immediately appeal to new users ... it has the potential to become the paradigm for creative thought and conceptual presentations ... even more revolutionary will be showing this to a user for the first time using inking ... when you take it to that level, it reaches the point of being a must have ...

If you are interested in all the features, here is a great writeup of the new product features (many of which are useful to me, all of which will be useful to many) ... The Mind Mapping Software Weblog is a great source on information and commentary on this topic ... The release date is the end of the month, so until then I will keep mapping with MM Pro 6, but will post more on this after I use the new product and create maps ...

Quick Presentation & Proposal ...

I was faced with multiple tasks today and it was quickly solved using several techniques that have been refined over the years ... again, the importance of having a framework to start from to keep the work consistent cannot be overstated ...

Here are the screen shots of the work, first the starting point for all my ideas is necessarily my MindManager library ... within it, I have created several maps that I use as templates that contain both the framework and helpful hints ... I have created this mindmap to flesh out a proposal for presentation ... needing to keep things simple creates a cleaner and far more effective presentation ... so the mindmap was done quickly to show my important points ... the export capability of MindManager is always handy as I exported the map to Word 2007 and quickly arrived at a look I wanted and I refined some of the information to create this final draft ... as the ideas are floating around in your head, by giving a framework to your communication, a quick and effective presentation can be accomplished in minutes rather than days ....

A Better Business Plan ....

Have been very busy on a project getting funding for our new project. In the process I am framing our new venture using my normal tool for any sort of work, MindManager ... I am using a form created by Guy Kawasaki and put down in his classic book, The Art of the Start, a plan that gives you what the guys on the other side of the table would appreciate and hopefully get you through to the next round ... I have included a look at what this will be composed of ... you need to make this the framework of the presentation and make it concise and short ... I used this process to make both a presentation (export to powerpoint) and the offering document (export to word) .. by using mindmanager I was able to focus on each point easily and move from point to point as my mind wandered, but still being able to see how the ideas were developing and how the flow of the document was progressing. Another valuable trait of doing a presentation and proposal from this framework is consistency and keeping everything tight ... when you are competing with people that all are worthy, you need to make sure your presentation is read and your idea realized ... this is essential in this day and age where information is readily available but new ideas and processes are few and far between ...

His book is great reading and the process works ... this is a great starting point to define the process and keep you on the road ...

Approaching the Perfect App ....

Today I tried a new app called Peepel ... It is very impressive and holds much promise ... this is an alternative to the web based docs and spreadsheets that promises soon to allow the use off and on line of the app and related files ... I have used the Google apps to much utility in the past month or so and find now that I fire up the web based apps first to do my work unless I need to really make a complicated doc or spreadsheet. Having the ability to work in one browser page makes this new application unique.

As you can see from the pic, I have both a spreadsheet and document open on the same "desktop", I like the speed and look of the app so far. Notice the toolbar floating above the windows, it changes like the ribbon bar on Office 2007 and more importantly changes as you change windows ... pretty nice interface ... I will be trying this more extensively in the near future and will relay my thoughts on it ... suffice it to say, the web application arena is heating up and the new generation of web based office alternatives are getting very very good ...

Another Neat Net Tool or NNT ....

I recently had to create a diagram for inclusion in a paper, this during the computerless period, so I happened on Gliffy - a neat new tool for diagraming and doing all sorts of drawing in a really presentation ready format ... this net based app will round out your toolkit to create useful work on the net ... there is a special offer for an annual subscription to the premium service of $20 for the year to have unlimited documents ... this could be handy for small business that needs to collaborate and share drawings and diagrams .... I actually prefer this program over others that reside on my machine ... take a look at their examples for ideas ....

The capture rather than printing using SnagIt makes for a great way to annotate drawings and capture them for use on the web or in brochures by jpg or gif ... another neat trick will be to include infor on mouseover points on the diagram using the SnagIt editor ... makes a really standout web item ...

The Death of Desktop Apps ...

I noticed an article on TechCrunch today that highlights a coming phase of web utility that should open up a whole new ballgame and has the potential to change the landscape of computing as we know it ...

It appears that we have several applications released and in the works that will accomplish the feat of allowing you to use web apps both on and off line. This would mean that all of the apps that I have been mentioning and using while computerless might be candidates to enter into this new universe. As we have been tied to the desktop application universe since day 1 of the PC era, the internet era may be ready to enter Web 3.0 territory or maybe even the beginning of a new era.

Picture the ability to do any of the work chores normally associated with a PC or even a Mac as the web does not differentiate originating OS ... once connected you could work on any myriad of tasks ... the magic comes when connection is unavailable ... you would still be able to work and the environment would not change ... save you work and the next time you hook up to the net, you are now saved back to your program there with a copy on you PC ...

The implications on hardware design and portability are incredible ... you could resurrect old laptops to become work stations with access, you could recycle countless old desktops in the same way ... the insane need for storage can then be shifted onto the net and away from your hardware requirements ... the list goes on ... it appears that in the coming months as this unfolds we are going to be treated to the emergence of a whole new internet utility ... maybe the FireFox 3 will be the poster child for Web 3.0 ...

Life as a Bedouin ... Rethinking Computing Power

The ongoing saga of the absent main computer and the article I read yesterday has led me to reflect on what it will take to equip my "office" going forward. Yesterday was a watershed day in the life of this cyber nomad ... I have come to the realization that it is no longer necessary to be have "power applications" readily available on my desktop to keep up with my work flow (tomorrow I will write on GWD ... work flow and getting work done) ...

My thought process created a basic flow pattern when things needed to be done ... this led me to focus on the related enabling technologies ... I had relied on my machine to basically house all of the applications that were necessary to generate normal work outputs ... brainstorming, papers, projects, proposals, etc ... I had come to rely on my key application, MindManager which is the starting point for most of my thinking and ideas. This was probably the biggest stumbling block ... in the last two weeks with the advent of both MindMeister and Mindomo, I am free of the desktop and the need to have my base computer with me.

I normally also work on spreadsheets and word docs to round out the arsenal ... this was addressed more than adequately with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho Office ... I am now using them to generate work and storing it online ... when I get my machine back from repair I intend to download my finished work onto my work directory which will then be copied over to my pocket hard drive so I can keep my key items in three places that are basically instantly available to me.

I can see how this will play out on travelling ... I have picked up on Ebay an old IBM Thinkpad X31 ... this machine was one I had considered a while back and was THE ultraportable executive computer for road warriors several years ago ... it is configured with a small hard drive (40G) but has Win XP Pro ... I think with it's long battery life and light weight can serve as my main machine while things get sorted out on the vista front. I will miss the tablet functionality, but for now will forego that luxury while awaiting the kinks to be worked out on vista enabled machines.

In reconsidering the power I will need to work, it became evident to me that all the key elements to make a machine travel friendly were more important than bells and whistles ... I can work effectively using a computer that does not have the latest and greatest hardware of speed ... and many things that I used to rely on the computer for are now better served by a browser and fast internet connection ... I still need to keep my old files available, but that too can be addressed in a myriad of ways now ... tomorrow I'll get into the concept of work flow in my environment and follow that with the continuing saga of creating a good fix to being computerless ....

GWD ... or On Becoming a Bedouin ...

I remember seeing for the first time "Lawrence of Arabia" and being awestruck by the desert and it's vast beauty ... equally striking was the Bedouin life where it seemed that all of life was carried and made into the next camp ... imagine also these memories being resurrected as I read this article today on the "New Bedouins" of the cyber frontier ... it struck home as today was another without computer and I am getting into the "GWD" mode (Getting Work Done) after suffering from paralysis and withdrawal ....

All of this was prompted by an inquiry and subsequent dialogue with a client that came into the picture through a web inquiry ... in my normal workflow I would reply by email, structure the situation on a mindmap, structure a proposal (collaborating with my partners on both) and then formally preparing a proposal for consideration ... this was GWD in my normal and previous computer aided life.

Fast forward now to this week as I have had to master the ability to GWD without basically having my trusted computer and files ... if you have followed this journey, you have seen how the recent surge in web based applications, especially the mind mapping genre, have been a boon to my ability to tackle a more or less normal GWD situation. Well, in this vein, I attacked this process with my present toolkit and wonders of wonders, it worked ... in fact, it worked almost too well ... the speed and simplicity of the web based applications take a lot of the extraneous dressing away from the task and allow an economical flow that allows for a different approach, but the same results ...

I took the email and defined the situation using MindMeister ... once I got the ideas down, I created a gif of the map and shared with my partners for comment ... once that was done and changes incorporated, it was a simple matter of exporting to a word file (rtf) which was the outline form of my map ... from there the work was flushed out in its final form to be presented to the client ... I would download or save to my desktop and use google docs for the word processing, so basically all I used to complete my flow was the browser ... all of my final work is saved on the net now and I will download later when I get my computer back ...

If anything good can be said about the situation, it is the lack of computer has caused a drastic rethink of the process of GWD ... I have now also started to question my need of computing power ... I will reflect on that aspect in the next installment ...

Creating a Starting Point ....

It is with always great anticipation when I first fire up the computer in the morning .. what wondrous things have transpired overnight and what do I have to do today ... makes everyday an adventure ... well, in the last few months of my journey I have become more enamored with the new breed of web pages that provide live feeds from all sorts of things ... used to be if you got news and stock quotes that was the start, then you needed to go to your emails, update todo lists, see the calendar .. etc etc, you know the drill ....

Well, I am down to my final two choices and they have been going at it with almost daily additions to my ability to monitor all things from one page and get going .... I am using Google and Netvibes as my two pages of choice .... here are examples of how I use them ...


Netvibes .... as you can see from this a lot of information in one area ... the main things are the Remember the Milk module that is my running todo list ... actually a lot more by going to the site for here for projects and notes, etc. I also have my Gmail being monitored along with weather and ebay .. notice the tabs at the upper left corner ... there is the RSS feeds that I monitor and I can go to read and the Meebo tab allows IM from this web page without having to load a client ... this is a great service and the modules are endless so you can design you own info portal ....

Now to the Google Home page ... very similar but with the integrated gmail, gcalendar, and the addition today of gtalk which gives me a good idea of who is online, this gets increasingly useful a service ... I have a countdown clock to make sure I have enough time to train for the next marathon, horoscopes just because ... notice the use of tabs here also for news and other information ... both pages have the Remember the Milk and Del icio us bookmarks ... I use both now daily and keep evolving in their roles ... they are both great, you can make them your own way to start your day ....

Comparing Mind Mapping Web Apps ...

I am still computerless (long story still being written) so today I thought I might share impressions as I am have more time on these two really good apps .... I took a mindmap from the Mindjet newsletter and saved it to my desktop to import into the two applications and here are the results ...

The first to go was Mindomo (both loaded quickly and without incident) ... the richness of the choices and the ability to add task info and a more visual layout are instantly appealing. You can see the Office 2007 like ribbon above for use and the export options are good (PNG, JPG, GIF) ... also notice the publish and print options that give you even greater flexibility especially if you have printer drivers like OneNote or PDF printing ... you could use this almost exclusively ... the app loads into a separate window to create a large piece of working real estate ... so far this has worked without incident ...

The second load went into MindMeister ... this application is not nearly as rich or visual, but it is quick and efficient ... as you can see by the capture, this presents a much more spartan choice of options ... this may be an example of the less is more school of thought ... I find myself less distracted and focused using this ... the strength though lies in the export choices .... as you can see below, you not only can use FreeMind (good freeware mind mapping tool) but go to text which would be an export in an outline for word processing and the other option to go to a MindManager file directly ... you have pretty much got it covered by doing this ... two compatibility with MindManager ...


Love both of them you can see where you could use one or the other depending on your mood and what you want to accomplish ...

So in keeping with the mobility issue ... having these two choices for your toolbox enables project management, brainstorming, idea forming and ??? on the fly from anywhere ... mission accomplished ....

Truly a WOW moment ...

In keeping with the latest advertising campaigns created by Microsoft, I had one of those moments today while getting my morning java ... I had seen on an ad for McDonalds last night that they have a unit now to preload their premium coffee ... I decided to stop in today and try this out ... well, in a way to do away with waste, they installed a dispenser system that you can tell them how many creams and sugars to put into the cup ... actually a great idea as all the little paper packages for sweetener and plastic tubs for cream can be done away with ... I applaud that and hope more will follow .... then the WOW moment occurred when I paid my bill ... a large coffee was $1.86

HMMMMMM ... things started to go around in my head and I remembered buying coffee at my local Starbucks just the other day ... the memory was that the charge was not too much north of what McD's had just tagged me for ... SOOOOO ... I stopped at my cafe in the local Borders just to check out this seeming incongruity .... there is was right next to all the latte mochiata frappacino double soy listings ... Grande coffee (read large) $1.85 .. in fact for 10 cents more you can get the mega Venti size and sit there for most of the morning sipping ...

What is this world coming to ... when you picture McD's and Starbucks you see two different cultures and related prices of admission ... how can this be ... I know McDonalds now has WiFi access, but somehow sitting in the McD's stalls does not have the same ambiance ... and I would think meeting a client for business would not go over too well in the face of Big Macs and fries ... truly a WOW moment ....

Mindomo ... A New and Rich Web Based Mindmapper ...

In one of my daily reads (The Mind Mapping Software Weblog) I read about a new application that really fit the bill, Mindomo ... I am thrilled with Mind Meister, but this one really blows the application space to a new level ... it is rich in formatting and fast ... creating a really good looking map is simple and easy to effect. It does not have all the functionality (map imports in particular) ready, but as a beta version it rocks ... I used it today to create a project board for some work that I am doing presently (see attached clipping) .... as you can see this interface really looks like a desktop app and it is deep as you change the menus by hitting the various items above .. this layout is very similar to the ribbon variety in Office 2007 ...

It allows for task management of resources and dates and allowing icons to show progress and priority ... this is enough for a down and dirty work and having it available from any machine makes it immenently useable ... one thing I find really handy as I create larger and larger maps is the ability to hide branches coupled with the shrink and grow view so I can look at a whole map or concentrate on just a branch ... repositioning the map is a simple matter of dragging and making the map fit the screen ... really essential to the way I like to work ....

This may be a beta version, but the promise the first look holds is amazing ... there will be several levels of service available starting with a feature rich free version that limits you to 7 private maps ... additional options open up this amazing app to maybe become a significant part of your tool box .....

A Great Experiment ....

Well, it has been a week now without my trusty tablet and I can say that it was a good week and full of revelations ... for one who has been stuck to a computer for over a decade, being without for this whole week was truly eye opening ... broadening my vistas (no pun intended), and has left me with a much calmer outlook on work and the related technology ...

And the winner is ... I do believe using an adedquate (8 Gig in my use) pocket hard drive to carry all my work and key working software has allowed me an unprecented ability to function and function well ... I do believe that this has all be made possible in the last few months by the bugeoning plethora of web 2.0 applications ... I know you are all tired of this phrase, but in real life some of the apps that have come our way are invaluable and have allowed this untethered work style. With the last piece of the puzzle being the mind mapping capability (more on another new app tomorrow) my tool box is now full ...

This week brought several moments of anxiety as I had to pull old files and get several reworks done ... using my google docs and sheets and uploading from my drive to the storage area, and then adding the collaboration have made this effortless ... in fact, I think this is even better than I used to do it, as the versions and rewrites are all on the site and can be undone and reworked with ease (once a final is done, I download and save on the drive again) ... works like magic and towards the end of the week, I was using this as a matter of course on both docs and spreadsheets ...

There was also a time where I had to make a product white paper, so my normal workflow is to conceptualize the project and presentation using MindManager before exporting to word and fleshing it out ... well using a web based mind map program and then taking it into google docs accomplished the same thing and then I was able to polish the document using open office to a final form .... all of this done on a computer (any computer with a hard drive) and not leaving any traces of work behind ... what a great way to go ...

I have populated the drive with apps from portable apps that will make you self contained ... that is a winner .... and all accomplished with just the cost of the drive ... double winner ... enjoy!!!

Google Pages and Apps ...

Here is the second candidate for information and work hub ... I have started to gravitate towards work on this site because I find that useability of the apps to be extremely good ... the info hub that I described is the Google personalized start page ... I have 4 tabs configured with my home tab as the starting page ... in it I have my gmail, docs and spreadsheets, delicious bookmarks, a note pad, weather, horoscopes, and a world showing daylight ... all of these things make for a one stop page .. the google start page like the netvibes is extremely configurable so making a unique look as you wish is an easy task ... I also find that there is a recipe module that I have used many a time to create quick meals in a snap (good stuff) ...

I like this setup as with the MindMeister mindmapping software I can actually do quite a bit of work without leaving or booting up any programs on the pc (essential if you are to be travelling and need to work from a cafe or business center) ... the google docs and sheets really are more than functional and any work can then be stored and downloaded when you get back to your home machine (or in my case, getting my main machine back from repair). Yesterday I was going through a product development with two of my colleagues ... I used gmail to notify them and did the map outlining my ideas, I then exported to rtf file which I then took into google docs for fleshing out ... at that point, I notified them of the draft and we all then worked on the doc online ... it is a very handy and quick collaboration tool and done almost entirely web based ... when we get the document done, I will then take it into my Word 2007 for final formatting and dressing up ... by doing collaboration in this way, you will also save the clutter on your machine that always piles up when you have many cooks in the stew ...

A final thought, I have also enjoyed some of the games on google pages like two of my old favorites, pac man and bejeweled ... I find them to be a good refresh when I need a break and yet don't want to go too far or spend a whole lot of time ... quick reset for the mind ... Both of these pages give you a gateway to productivity and allow the mobile user the luxury of work on the go .... so far the experiment has helped me to hone down this configuration .... flash or pocket drive with firefox configured to go to Netvibes and Google ... great combo ... more thoughts to follow ...