Recording and Publishing Events with MindManager

I have been in the last week recording and publishing two events. The first on Monday 17th was for Business Scene and their second London Connections event. About 500 people attended from a wide range of business networks. They listened to some short speeches, the main one being from an MP Mark Prisk - an upbeat response to the credit crunch, toured the 30 stands and networked. I worked with a photographer Andrew Sansom to create this record.



The second event last Saturday was the SouthamptonGOGREENfair with my second MP of the week. Probably a few hundred passed through the event and the largest audience was for Alan Whitehead with about 40 people listening to his personal experience of installing various micro generators on his house.



Both records were created using MindManager 8. Working in ink mode at the events to take notes and then later at my desk to create the web sites and clickable image maps. Some use was made of Microsoft Expressions and Notepad to tidy up and include some objects in the web pages. If only MindManager could include HTML in notes life would be a lot easier for me.

Click the images to visit the web sites.

All of this was done whilst enjoying this winters first cold.

Limits of the Mindjet Player for MindManager

We already know many of the things the Mindjet Player will not do but what are the limits of what it can do.

This map has 230 topics and 185 hyperlinks. Have you successfully published more than this?

Using MindManager 8 for Task Planning

MindManager 8 has a new function for calculating the dates in a task map. You can add topics representing the tasks with their durations. Then link them with relationships to show the order of the tasks. Finally add a start or a finish date. MindManager will calculate the latest start or the earliest finish and the dates for all the tasks.

This map shows a plan for redecorating a boardroom. One of those with plush carpets, paintings on the walls and a large table which you wonder how it ever got in there. No mini bar these days.

The project is partially completed. The tasks in pink are late and the Empty the Room summary task is in yellow because it is at risk of not completing on time.

Resources i.e task owners can be added as well but I have left them out to make the map less cluttered.

If you want to see this as a timeline you will need to use one of the following:

• MindManager Add In JCVGantt Pro 3
  
• Export it to MS Project
• Export to MPX and import to any project planning tool
• Finally the Sync with Microsoft Outlook tool and use the Task Timeline view in Outlook.

The first part of my Guide to using MindManager and JCVGantt is valid for setting up a working project plan in MindManager using this new functionality.

If you want to do what ifs on your plan, I suggest you save a copy of the plan with tasks, durations and relationships before you add any dates. After you add a date MindManager calculates and fixes all the dates. If you increase a task duration, the finish date extends but if you reduce a duration or parallel some tasks, the finish date is not brought forward.

My conclusions about this tool are that it will be useful for simple projects, the one shown is probably at the limit. After that any changes which shorten the plan will not be recalculated and the value of this functionality is negated. Of course many projects add tasks and the tasks take longer.

MindManager 8 - Tips, Tricks and Work Arounds

In the Cabre Community I am starting to assemble small tricks and tips which will help you get more out of MindManager 8. It also covers how to deal with things that do not behave quite as I expected. You can join the community and post your own tips and tricks or just ask questions.

My first two are:

1. The default owner for all the map templates is Mindjet. To save you changing this in every map when it is saved visit this tip.

2. MindManager 8 has a new set of images etc. If you want to continue using the old ones this tip will be useful.

Of course most of the tips I previously gave for MindManager 7 are valid for MindManager 8.

MindManager 8 is released today. What's new? The flash viewer

This is the first of a series of blogs about the new MindManager function. This is the Save As Mindjet Player which creates an SWF (Flash) File which allows the map to be embedded in a web page and lets you interact with it.

This map is a project plan for redecorating a room. All the dates on this map have been calculated using the new MindManager task function but more on that later. I should get my room redecorated just before 2009!



How did I do that?

Save As > Save as type: Mindjet Player Maps - SWF.
Upload the SWF file to my web server.
Use this code to embed the map player in a web page. You may need to remove some of the line returns reduce the empty space around the player.

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="https://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0" id="pyn2" width="610" height="460">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.cabre.co.uk/mindmanager_player/Redecorate_Room.swf">
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="samedomain">
<param name="wmode" value="transparent">
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="https://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" name="pyn2" src="http://www.cabre.co.uk/mindmanager_player/Redecorate_Room.swf" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="samedomain" wmode="transparent" width="610" height="460"></embed>
<noembed>
</noembed>
</object>

What could you use this for?

Mindjet Connect and the hidden web browser client invite

I was scratching my head and my Tablet PC for a while this evening trying to find the URL link for a Workspace, so I could investigate a comment someone had made about the MindManager browser client. I found it in the end. I thought I would write a note here for you and for me when I can't find it again.

It is under the Connect Button in the top right corner of the Workspace Manager. Click it and you can Send Workspace Link by email. You can click the link in the unsent email and see your Workspace, maps and documents in a browser of your choice. MindManager Web uses Flash.