Mind Mapping Master?

Don't know about being a master, but I've been using mindmapping software for many years and have tried keeping up with what's available.

For a long time, my personal favorite was Inspiration, which a few years back refocused on the education market, but is still very useful in that you can easily switch from a classic mind map presentation to an outline, which sometimes makes it easier to rearrange items and identify categories. It also facilitates a variety of other tree and branch type hierarchies.

Recently I've been intrigued with Personal Brain (http://www.thebrain.com/), which is highly dynamic and allows for very creative inter- and cross-relationships. It's also perhaps the most robust platform which supports very complex mapping and interconnectivity with Outlook to do lists and calendars (if you up for the "pay" version). I just use the freeby, which is plenty for my purposes.

On the Open Source end of the spectrum, the current "standard" is Free mind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page). There are Web-linking capabilities, although the overall interface is a little clunky.

Oops, of course the first question is what you want to do mindmapping. I use it for personal brainstorming, and have on occasion used it for group or team brainstorming and organizing. I tend to stick with text-based nodes, but nearly all the software I mentioned (as well as other Web-based tools like MindMeister) support graphic nodes.

Anyway, that's my brain dump for now. Let me know if you have specific questions or want advice on specific uses.

I've been using mind mapping for years as an artistic and creative methodology for processing my ideas. I don't use the software so much, but that's because I prefer to use paper and pen for it.

Hey, talk about timing. A colleague of mine just came across this. I haven't screened it yet (probably will start this weekend), but it looks like it covers the ground, and it's FREE! (Although it also looks like it's a come-on to a specific software package).

But still maybe worth a look.

Power Mind Mapping Video course: http://www.novamind.com/power-mind-mapping/

I love Mind mapping and I use it all the time and I help my clients move past mental blocks and obstacles by doing mind mapping with their business goals. In my book, Create a Map of Your Business, mind mapping is one of the main tools that I use to take people through a process of building a road map for their business growth.

I am not sure I'd call myself a master, but I do enjoy using it and it works!