MindManager map of the Twitter and Related World

This is an example of how MindManager can be used to quickly aggregate knowledge for sharing with others. I started the map at 9:38 this morning and the first version was on the web at 10:46, it was in the Ecademy twitter Club at 10:54 and I Tweeted it at 10:55.

Click for the full screen view. Click the map to go the web page indicated.

For those wondering what this is all about. Twitter is web application which allows you to publish 140 character messages to the web. Sort of SMS on the web but rather than one to one it's one to many. You follow other peoples Tweets and they follow yours. Click my Twitter link to see what I mean.

What you Tweet about is up to you. It can be social, it can be business, it can be a mix. You can have multiple accounts with different purposes. The search tools above allow you to find people with similar interests and start a conversation. Of course if you publish frequently about your niche knowledge, service or product. You may be found. See what Mark Shaw is doing with respect to ebooks.

My thanks to the members of the Ecademy Twitter club for providing all these references in their threads.

The map above is self explanatory. What follows is for Google to find and was created by exporting the map to Word and removing the links because I want you to interact with the ones in the map :)

CCabre's Birdworld

1 Twitter

= 140 character messages to the world

1.1 Bird Feeders - Ecademy Twitter Club

1.2 Blog Baths - GottaBeMobile

1.3 twhirl a twitter client

= Managing your twitter

1.4 Twitter4Skype

= So you can call or chat with a Twit about their Tweet with one click

1.5 The Twitter Club

= Share twitter know how

12 Ways Twitter Can Improve Your Efficiency

10 to Follow

Ecademy club posts & comments to Twitter

1.6 Summize Conversational Search

MindManager

1.7 Real-time Twitter Search Tweet Scan

Ecademy

2 Wakoopa

2.1 Ecademy Team

3 Flock

3.1 The Social Web Browser

4 FriendFeed

4.1 Aggregate all your friends guano

5 Twits

ajwilcox, thomaspower, markshaw, clarocada, hensel, mgpoole, simon_morice

Producing event signs with MindManager

I used MindManager to produce the signs I need for a recent Open Space event on an A3 Canon iX5000 printer. This proved to be a very effective way to do it. MindManager by default fills the printed page. Simple signs can be made using the Central Topic for the text and using the line and background colour to produce signs like the meeting location names.

Note each of these signs is the same width but because of the number of letters the width height ratio changes. Padding out with spaces or changing the topic margins can help.

Slightly more iconic signs can be produced using the image library. For instance the one Law of Open Space is you can use your feet.

For the Four Principles of Open Space I used a music festival as an analogy. 120,000 turned up for this one, it always finishes dead on time (they want to use the same field next year), queuing early is good - you start meeting people and the comic folk singer brings along an opera singer. The audience switched from mass morris dancing to Nessun Dorma. Photos mine, event courtesy of Fairport Convention. Here I placed the images in floating topics and arrayed them around the central topic.



But next time I will make them separate central topics and print them each on their own sheet of paper. They were too small on a big wall.

Or I could use the poster printing function in the print menu to produce a 10 foot banner like this one. Which is just an image and text in central topic with no shape.



You can see what happened at the event in maps, video and photographs at Open Minded Day 01.

I hope this give you some ideas for your events. Any questions, please ask.

Using MindManager to track the promotion and the results for an event

On Tuesday 22 April, I facilitated my first Open Space Technology event. It was attended by 29 people from Ecademy and their theme was "How can we work better together so that we all get more from Ecademy?". The event was the result of three months of discussion between principally four people. Most of our discussion was on-line using Skype chat and conference calls, and using the Ecademy forums. Two of the people I have never met face to face. One of them attended the event. Apart from the obvious note taking during these on-line meetings, one of the uses for MindManager was to track the promotion of the event and results of that activity.

Use 1 - Monitoring Progress

Initially we had two dates and the map tracked those registering, those who said no or maybe and those that had paid, each linked to their Ecademy profile. I had a MindManager spreadsheet (not Excel range) in the map which noted how these numbers changed on a daily basis. It also showed the home page views for our host Ecademy club for the event.

Each promotional activity was tracked by linking to all the blogs and adverts for the event. Click the image below and you will see the map I shared on line with my colleagues. Each topic with an Ecademy icon clicks through to a page on the Ecademy web site,



Some things I learnt I would like to share with you.

- The MindManager spreadsheet does not work beyond column Z. Mindjet are aware and will fix this.
- Regardless of the bug next time I would use an Excel range for a large spreadsheet such as this. This would allow me to show the summary in one topic and the details in another.

I will publish some more ways in which I used MindManager with these events over the next few days.

Planning a meal with MindManager

An annual event for the local charity I work with called the Alresford Pigs Association is our progressive or safari supper. This year I offered to do a main course. My speciality is Chinese cooking. Below is the map I used to plan the menu and the shopping. I also used MindManager's built in spreadsheet to see how I was doing against my budget of £42 including drinks. Providing it does not all get drunk I might make it under budget.



p.s. MindManager does not do the cooking.

Phew! They left me with a bottle of wine (very nice French White - Picpoul de Pinet from The Naked Grape) and a beer! Leaving me £3.50 under budget.