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Mind Maps are a great way of gathering and organizing material for books, articles, theses, and technical documentation - in fact, any sort of writing.

The example Mind Maps in this video are taken from the two books: Teacher’s Guide to Mind Mapping and Business Guide to Mind Mapping, and are therefore only available as downloads when you buy the books, but you will be able to understand the concepts from just viewing the video.

When I write books or articles, I start by creating a Mind Map of the outline for the book, with the concepts I want to cover as the top level branches, and then details as necessary so that I have enough information there so that I know what I want to cover. At this stage, it is more along the lines of a brainstorming session, as covered in the video about brainstorming. Sometimes, it also includes note taking and research, as covered in the video about note taking, where I will add branch notes with excerpts of the material, and hyperlinks to the source material on the branches.

I have heard from people who use NovaMind for writing novels and short stories they tell me that they create similar Mind Maps with the main points of the story lines, and sometimes create character profiles with the physical appearance, language patterns, character traits, and personal history and relationships all mind mapped out. There seems to be a lot of variation in the way novelists approach their writing, and seeing as I haven’t yet written any novels myself, all I can do is pass on these suggestions.

So at the end of this process, you have an outline of the story, book or article, but it’s not usually grouped and ordered in the way you want it for the finished work. So how I approach the organization process is that I graft the branches so that the main concepts and supporting concepts are arranged as branches and sub-branches.

This gives me an idea of the size of each area of information. At the same time, I’m thinking about the order of the information so it is presented in a logical progression and the information is being introduced in order, building on the previous information.

Now I group it into chapters, and for ease of understanding, I keep each chapter to about 7 main points, because people can on average hold 7 concepts in their short term memory at once, and that’s a comfortable number to work with. Sometimes I’ll go up to 9 main points where necessary, but try not to go beyond that because there is a high likelihood of inducing information overload in the reader.

This may sound like qute a few steps, but in fact this process is usually pretty quick, and you will have the outline and overall content organized in very short order.

The next step, if it’s a book rather than an article, is to use the New Map from Branch function to take each chapter and create a Mind Map for that chapter. If your overall Mind Map had detailed information on it, you would remove the detailed level information and just have the main points on that Mind Map so that you can use it as an overview of the book.

Now for each chapter, you have your approximately 7 main points, and you extend add as many child branches as you need to cover the main points, which will become your headings and subheadings in the text, and then add the body text to each branch.

Of course, being in Mind Map format, you are not constricted to write sequentially. You can add the body text in any order you like.

When you are ready, you can export the Mind Map document with all the chapter Mind Maps into Microsoft Word format, and all the branches and sub-branches will come out as outline levels within the document, and the branch notes will come out as body text, so you can easily apply MS Word styles to the document to format it nicely, and also you will be able to generate a table of contents from it directly.

But in doing this, you are losing the power of Mind Mapping for your readers, so what I do is spend a few minutes on the layout of the Mind Maps and then export them as PDF images and then embed them into the document, with the overall outline Mind Map at the start of the book as another form of table of contents, and then at the start of each chapter, I have the chapter Mind Map which shows people the main points that are covered in that chapter.

I try to make them visually interesting by having different background colors and different styles included in the Mind Maps, but at the same time, if there is something related across chapters, I’ll use the same image in both places so you have the visual connection. Our brains love color and flow, and having different shapes and colors makes them both visually appealing as well as memorable, while the structure makes the information content easily understood and remembered too.

If the book is the type where you want people to take notes, you can include a blank Mind Map at the end of each chapter with just the main branches there so people can make their own notes as they go.

Having the Mind Maps in the book means that when a reader returns to the book later, they will be able to just take a quick glance at the Mind Map and instantly recall the content.

So using Mind Maps can dramatically speed up the writing process and at the same time lead to a much higher quality of output, and completely avoid writers block, because you have the structure in place right from the start and can work on the content in any order, and if you get stuck at all, you can just use the techniques we covered in the brainstorming video for coming up with new ideas which get your thinking going again.

I just can’t imagine writing a book without using Mind Mapping now - it would just be so slow and tedious! So get stuck in to your next writing project using the power of Mind Mapping.

 

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Make your Mind Maps look even better using the new image reflections, branch image layout modes, glossy button look branches, new corner styling and new themes. This allows you to more effectively present the Mind Maps to other people and to recall information more easily.

Brisbane, Australia, June 2, 2008. NovaMind has long been recognized as the Mind Mapping program that produces the best looking Mind Maps. These new features take that even further, allowing you to create stunning looking Mind Maps that really grab your attention and make the Mind Maps even easier to remember.

These new capabilities are available immediately in both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of NovaMind.

The image reflections for attached images allow you to create stylish “Web 2.0” look images to enhance the look of your Mind Maps. You can now also apply both the chamfered and rounded corners to attached images, to further enhance the look of the images.

Using the new branch image layout modes, you can fit, fill, or stretch the images to suit your needs within the branches. This allows you to maintain the shape of the image where necessary, or to fill the branch with the image as required.

The glassy look branches give you a “Web 2.0” look for your branches. Whether they are rectangular, chamfered, rounded or oval, the glassy look can be applied to instantly add that extra visual pizzazz.

The existing themes have been updated, and new themes added to take advantage of the new visual styling that is available. This gives you professionally designed themes for your Mind Maps to make them look great by simply applying a theme.

About Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are diagrams that work the way you think – they organize the information in the same way your brain organizes information. They make it easy to understand, remember, and communicate complex information.

Our brains like thinking in pictures. The smooth curves and colorful pictures used in Mind Mapping create powerful images for your brain to remember.

Mind Maps cater to both logical left brain thinking and pictorial right brain thinking at the same time, which makes them a very good way of storing and recalling information, presenting things to other people, and brainstorming new ideas.

About NovaMind

NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 6 years, and is rapidly gaining recognition in the Windows market. NovaMind makes Mind Mapping intuitive and fun.

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If you’d like more information about NovaMind, please visit www.novamind.com or e-mail Gideon King at gideon@novamind.com. 

You can use Mind Mapping to make your opportunities and priorities clear. It makes growing your business easy and systematic.

Many businesses struggle because the owners and managers don’t have the right strategies to grow their businesses in the marketplace, or even if they do know the strategies, they are either not sure how to implement them, or are overwhelmed by the number of different things to think about all at once.

In this article you will learn how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Included in this article is:

• a Mind Mapping case study,
• Mind Mapping tips,
• some ideas to help you with your project planning,
• the results of a Mind Mapping survey,
• techniques to help with getting things done,
• and videos on the 5 business growth factors.

So hop on over to find out how you can grow your business using Mind Mapping.

Gideon

There are a number of key factors in learning how to mind map, like:

• Using just just key words rather than long sentences.
• Using images wherever possible to make your mind maps colorful.
• Start in the center with a clear title and where possible a strong visual image that shows the general theme of the map.
• Use color and boundaries to group branches, and colors to depict themes and make things stand out.
• Make ideas stand out using color, humor, images, fonts etc - it will then stand out in your mind.
• Use link lines (with arrows where required) to show secondary links between different elements.
• If you run out of ideas in one place, just move on to another area of the mind map.
• Record ideas as you think of them, wherever they fit. Don’t judge or hold back.
• Get emotionally involved. Have fun. You remember more when you are having fun.

These are just a few of the important factors to consider when making your mind maps.

I have written a full article about How to Mind Map which gives you everything you need to know to be successful with your mind mapping.

Gideon

This is the final part of a 3 part video series which goes into detail on the 5 key factors of business growth and teaches you how to Mind Map each of the different drivers of growth.

You will learn quick and easy techniques for implementing these strategies in your business.

The presentation is given by Gideon King, Mind Mapping expert, author of two books on Mind Mapping, and founder of NovaMind Software, using the NovaMind presenter…

In this second video, Gideon presents detailed information on the final two key factors in growing your business using Mind Mapping:

• Number of transactions
• Profit Margin

Using Mind Mapping, you can create similar Mind Maps to represent the opportunities for your business.

As you create your Mind Map, you can brainstorm ideas and add them to any part of the Mind Map, building a picture of the possibilities and how they relate to each other.

Gideon also gives some useful tips for making this work in your business without feeling overwhelmed by all the different opportunities. So without further ado, here is the video:

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 3 of 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 3 of 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is part 2 of a 3 part video series which goes into detail on the 5 key factors of business growth and teaches you how to Mind Map each of the different drivers of growth.

You will learn quick and easy techniques for implementing these strategies in your business.

The presentation is given by Gideon King, Mind Mapping expert, author of two books on Mind Mapping, and founder of NovaMind Software, using the NovaMind presenter…

In this second video, Gideon presents detailed information on the second and third key factors in growing your business using Mind Mapping:

• Conversion ratio
• Average dollar sale

Using Mind Mapping, you can create similar Mind Maps to represent the opportunities for your business.

As you create your Mind Map, you can brainstorm ideas and add them to any part of the Mind Map, building a picture of the possibilities and how they relate to each other.

Here is video 2:

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 2 of 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 2 of 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The videos on this blog are now available in iTunes - you can get directly to the NovaMind news podcast at:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=275341730

Enjoy!

Gideon

This is part 1 of a 3 part video series which goes into detail on the 5 key factors of business growth and teaches you how to Mind Map each of the different drivers of growth.

You will learn quick and easy techniques for implementing these strategies in your business.

The presentation is given by Gideon King, Mind Mapping expert, author of two books on Mind Mapping, and founder of NovaMind Software, using the NovaMind presenter…

In this first video, Gideon introduces the five key factors of business growth:

1. Number of leads
2. Conversion ratio
3. Average dollar sale
4. Number of transactions
5. Profit margin

He then uses a Mind Map to present a wide variety of ways you can increase the number of leads you market to in your business. Using Mind Mapping, you can create similar Mind Maps to represent the opportunities for your business.

As you create your Mind Map, you can brainstorm ideas and add them to any part of the Mind Map, building a picture of the possibilities and how they relate to each other.

Here is video 1:

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 How to grow your business using Mind Mapping - part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We now have a video available in which Stephen Feber, a long time NovaMind customer tells about how he used the planning and organizational capabilities of Mind Mapping to obtain £22m (US$43.5m) project funding for an urban regeneration project.

In the process, he beat 312 other competitors for the funding, making him one of the top 1% of all bidders on the proposal.

In this video Stephen shares his secrets of success in detail in an interview with Gideon King, founder of NovaMind.

And without further ado, here is the video:

For further information

Please see http://www.novamind.com/Business/case_studies/stephen_feber.php for further information and a PDF report with details about the project.

 

 Business Mind Mapping Success Story: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Business Mind Mapping Success Story: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download