Marketing Productivity

The Marketer: Mind Technologies

The Marketing Blurb: Visualize Your Thinking and Organize Your Work
The Product Link: Visual Mind

What It Does:

Stand alone software, 30day free trail available

What it does: Does the mind mapping thing -You will want to have a look at Visual Mind’s product comparison chart before you purchase - to make sure you all the tools you need - pay particular attention to the export functions. To have the most flexibility - choose the business version.

What they do have that is a nice add-on is a program called the realizer - it helps you do “chunk” sideways brainstorming, and you can get this kind of tool elsewhere for no cost - so this may not be a big priority.

The Marketer: Gael Ltd, Scotland

The Blurb: Bring Clarity and Purpose to Individual and Group thinking and greatly enhance productivity

The Product Link :Mind Genius

Stand Alone Software, free evaluation trail available

What it does: With very similar functions to MindManager by Mind Jet - Mind Genious too exports to Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint, MS Project, PDF, HTML files. Different views are available - including a nifty - map explorer view - which for anyone who is used to used to exploring and working with windows explorer - will find it an efficient way to organize thoughts.

The Marketer: Mind Jet USA

The Blurb: Work Smarter, Think Creatively, Save Time - Everyday

The Product Link :Mind Manager

Stand Alone Software, low cost trial available - integrates with outlook, excel, Gyronix and more

What it does: This is one of the best known and coach friendly mind mapping software programs available.

I have been a daily user of Mindmanager since 2001, and have purchased every upgrade since then. This is one of those indespensable tools that helps me organize my day, track committments, projects, sessions, meetings and brainstorms. Creating images, pdf, and word documents are a snap with this program.

The program itself is a bit pricy for some - but this is one of those life- tools that I could not do without. I use Mindmanager with Gryonix to help me tame my inbox. What used to take me hours to do - now takes me minutes.

• Be creative - creativity helps with memory, and ideas, and flexibility.
• Take a large piece of paper. Flip chart paper works really well for this task.
• Get some coloured markers
• Create a focus or starting point - somewhere near the center of the paper.
• Make the focus a point a strong image that will show the theme of the map
• Create sub centers for sub themes
• Use key words, or wherever possible images.
• If your ideas dry up for a moment - move to another branch
• Start from the center of the page and work out or where ever you have energy.
• If you run out of space just get more paper.
• Hold back your inner critic - this is fun - put your judgment aside for now.
• Make the center a clear and strong visual image that depicts the general theme of the map.
• You can include Words on the lines - this will enforce the structure in your mind.d
• Print - it makes it memorable.
• Use colour to make associations and to make things stand out. Colour each theme as you create it. Add in Icons or Images where ever possible.
• Use arrows, icons or other visual aids to show links between different elements.