Affirmation Tree Mindmap – By Paul Foreman at http://www.mindmapinspiration.com/

Today we’ll look at some mind-mapping resources. There’s tons more out-there. But i hope this post gives you at least a flavour of the versatility of mind mapping.

Feel free to leave a comment with your favourite resources!

Thought leaders

• It’s probably impossible to discuss mind-mapping without at least mentioning Tony Buzan, the British-born author and educational consultant. He’s been a proponent of mind-mapping for many years and has written several books on the topic. However, arguably Buzan’s thinking has evolved very little over the past few decades.
• So for the true ground-breaking, innovative players we’d probably have to look elsewhere. As a first guess, I’d be looking at tools that would perhaps
  • Offer 3D capabilities, such as Topicscape.
  • Allow building sophisticated networks rather than essentially hierarchical mind-maps, such as GraphViz.
  • Include easy-to-use yet advanced drawing features that mimic hand-drawing.
  • Integrate with other mainstream tools such as MS Outlook. Mindjet does this.
  • Extensive social media support. E.g. MindTweet integrates Twitter and mind mapping. Imagine working on a collaborative mind-map with some colleagues via Google+, etc.
  • Have dynamic / animated maps, see a prototype here for dynamic news updates.
  • Would somehow bridge the gap between hand-written and digital mind maps.
  • And of course be entirely platform-independent.

Social media

• In the blogosphere I like the The Mind-Mapping Blog, even though there’s been little activity in the past few months. Its corresponding Mind-Mapping.Org has valuable references to mind-mapping software too (3D mind-mapping anyone?).
• Chance Brown started a blog in 2008 on mind-mapping called The MindMap Blog and I find it quite informative. Well done!
• Topicscape has some good posts on mind mapping.
• The Mind Mapping Software Blog has some great information.
• Biggerplate is a free mind map library, blog, and community with 30,000+ members.
• Doing a twitter search on “mind mapping” could give some fresh insights, too. For instance, it quickly led me to TheBrain, which seems like an interesting product to explore.
• Paul Foreman – author of the image i used in this post – has some top quality information on his blog.

General references

As general references i’d suggest:

• Mind mapping in the wider context.
• Another big picture model.
• A great historical mind mapping timeline.
• The Wikipedia page on mind-mapping.
• (Dutch) Website (“startpagina”) with tons of links.
• Mind-mapping presentations on Slideshare, e.g.:
  • Mind-mapping: What is it? By MindProject.
  • Visual Thinking & The Writing Process. By Ryan Coleman. Not just on mind-mapping.
  • Getting the most out of mind-mapping. By MindJet (Michael Deutch). On mind-mapping and Getting Things Done.
  • There’s tons of valuable information on Slideshare and mind-mapping. Just do a search.
• Websites of practitioners such as at
  • Concise Learning
• These online videos
  • This Tony Buzan video (5m29s) is pretty good. Or this 6m30s video also from his company.
  • Here’s a more musical, and shorter, video (2m55s) outlining the basics.
  • Tracey Gardner’s video (9m06s) sticks to the Buzan party line, but her presentation style is lifely.
  • I also like Erica Douglass’ style, and she did a good job explaining the basics of mind-mapping in this post (and video).
  • Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk (19m29s) is a great illustration of how visuals can support a narrative (and an excellent talk anyways).

Examples

• For examples of very artistic hand-written mind-maps, this blog post provides some nice examples.
• Biggerplate.com (listed above) has an extensive library of mindmaps.

 Anything to add from your end? 

Next post

My next post will address the question: How does m/m relate to the wider field of data visualisation?

Related posts (most recent first):

• How to integrate brainstorming into mind mapping? (18 April 2012)
• What tools are you using for mind mapping? (17 April 2012)
• Why make digital mindmaps? (15 April 2012)
• Why do mindmapping on paper? (14 April 2012)
• What are the uses of mindmaps? (13 April 2012)
• How to make a mindmap? (Part 3 of 3; 11 April 2012)
• How to make a mindmap? (Part 2 of 3; 11 April 2012)
• How to make a mindmap? (Part 1 of 3; 11 April 2012)
• What are the benefits of mindmapping? (5 April 2012)
• What is mind mapping? (4 April 2012)
• Possible mind-mapping topics (29 March 2012)
• Pick of the week: mind mapping (26 March 2012)