Innovation using Mind Mapping

May 27, 2011

in Articles

Click to download this Mind Map document.

Mind Mapping is intuitive.

It unlocks your deep creativity and combines logic, art and information.

It also breaks down communication barriers, bringing your ideas to others in a way you can’t easily express.

Let’s look at some examples of just how powerful this can be:

Group Mind Mapping: Connecting Across the World

A classroom that spans the globe: how are you going to keep in touch?

The first step for people using NovaMind is usually mind maps sent over the Internet.

Mind maps, as jpegs or PDFs, can be sent from one individual to another. For the first time, you can SHOW people your ideas and they can be inspired, develop them further, and customise them to their own needs.

For real-time communication, you can use one of the many webinar systems to share the Mind Maps, so everyone can see the updates as they are made.

If you are a group that creates strategy together, check out our article on Brainstorming to learn how to mind map as a group.

As communication between cultures accelerates, this abbreviated yet powerful form of connection can have us doing more than share. We can extend what we receive, by customising and modifying each other’s maps as we receive them! Adding a topic, expanding sub-topics as our local knowledge informs, these changes are communications with unlimited possibilities for the future.

Viral Mind Mapping: A Second Variation on a Theme

Like any other element on the net, Mind Maps can be viral, being referenced and passed on over and over again due to the interesting and powerful representation of the information. This creates truly powerful documents.

Mind Maps provide users with the capability to link information in a variety of ways, both within the Mind Map and through hyperlinks and attachments.

You can link information to topics to fill in the detail. Everything connects to everything else.

Let’s place this in a real-world perspective.

Let’s say you need to tell a story but want to tell it from many points of view, or highlight a section of history with many fragments coming together. If you need input from many people, mind mapping with NovaMind is the perfect tool. Your Mind Map can become a living document, growing and collecting more information in all directions.

Mind Mapping Contests

Given the fact that globalization is upon us, opportunities for connecting our world exist. Using Mind Mapping, a third opportunity arises.

What if we were to facilitate sharing and extending the content of Mind Maps by way of a contest? What if the same challenge was put forth to two or more groups and those groups were all asked to solve it?

It could be an environmental problem, like water supply or unhealthy air, or a technical challenge, like developing a block of land into a new housing estate. All you have to do is set the criteria and the technology takes care of the rest! Your experts can pull together some wisdom from all over the world and make it easier to show the results in the end. Just look at how easily this multi-million dollar project came together for Stephen Feber and his development team.

These are just three examples of some exciting opportunities ahead. The innovations you arrive at for yourself will be entirely up to the connections you want to make.

Conclusion on Innovation Using Mind Maps

Mind Maps are flexible and powerful tools to help you push the limits of what’s possible while keeping your mind focused. To innovate, we need that flexibility, and we can’t think of a better way to get you going there too.

Take these innovations to heart but be sure to dream up your own. Let Mind Mapping work for you, and let your own innovations shine through. This is science mixed with art. The results are beautiful and powerful.

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