A practical mind map tester

I'm very proud to announce my first eBook "A practical mind map tester" in collaboration with Hans Buskes. It's of course about mind maps but more specially about an easy to use instrument to evaluate how useful they are.

This is a great event for me and a totally new experience. Thanks to my peer Hand Buskes (MasterMindMaps) who pushed me in the adventure and the Biggerplate Event at Utrecht where we decided to make it happen, I'm going to publish a first book worldwide.

The book is about mind maps, a domain on which I focused a lot these last years. But the book is not about how to create them. Hundreds of books already exist on the subject and it is very easy to find the answer on the Internet. Moreover, learning how to draw mind maps is not a question of days, not even hours, it can be taught in a few minutes. What is more difficult is to apply the technique efficiently.

The number of mind maps is growing exponentially. A Google search finds you hundreds of millions maps. Because of the vast numbers and the enormous variety, consumers of mind maps are confused. What is a helpful mind map? Which one should I use? How to prevent readers to be frustrated by consuming incorrect, incomplete, unreadable or incomprehensible content? How to ensure mind maps bring a real added value to the information chain?

All these questions about mind maps today, Hans and I have intensively analysed them. Mind maps have become a fantastic mean of communication but like any new medium, it suffers from a lack of maturity. We can rule (or not) the way the diagram must be drawn, it's not enough to ensure that the output will have a good quality and will be useful for the user. It would not be a real concern if everybody was creating mind maps for their personal use. The difficulty comes with the fact that a lot of them are shared with the world hoping it will help.
But then, what is the book actually about? The new book 'A practical mind map tester' introduces a value scan, an easy to use instrument to evaluate how useful a mind map is. It checks whether a mind map in question, whatever the type, is useful and helpful for its consumer. In other words, it tests functionality. It includes five key performance indicators:

• goal
• information processing
• readability
• understandability
• value

The elements of each individual indicator are described and tested extensively. Many of them are fresh to the mind map community. The scan isn't a final assessment. Following the results, further work can be done to strengthen the mind map making it more valuable to the user. Another possibility is to use the tester during the process of mind mapping, and proactively improve the mind map as you work on it.

Before you can get the book which will be launched first on Apple IBookStore very soon, enjoy this creative mind maps about the book. You can download it on Biggerplate.

"A practical mind map tester" - Book preview with a creative mind map

Our vision is to bring more value in the domain by seeking for simplicity, usefulness, uniqueness and quality in mind maps that are produced and shared. Our objective is really to connect mind mappers and invite them to evaluate how helpful their mind maps are for users. In that sense, we have designed a very simple to use instrument to operate.

You will notice that the mind map above is made with iMindMap 7, using the new creative branch feature. But in the book, you will find many mind map examples designed with a multitude of software and apps such as Connected Minds, DropMind, Freemind, iThoughts HD, Inspiration, iMindMap, MindMeister, MyThoughts and Mindjet. Our message is clear, we want to invite ALL mind mappers to grow and participate to the future of mind mapping, whatever mind map type they create or mind mapping software they use. That's also the reason why we invited some actors in the domain to express their point of view throughout the book. I want to particularly thank Reinhard Zinburg, Adam Sicinski, Toni Krasnic, Philippe Boukobza, Barry Mapp, Liam Hughes and Susanne Edwards for their contributions.

Note also that one-third of the proceeds of this e-book will be donated to the non-profit organization 'Dessine-moi une idée', whose mission is to increase the efficiency and autonomy of people, especially children, giving them more opportunities to succeed in learning and coping with unusual situations.

I hope many of you will enjoy the book. I'll meet you on the day of release.

In the meantime,

be creative,
be open-minded,

be yourself.

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Have you been kind this year?

In everyday life, you will encounter several occasions that require the creation of a wish list, with gifts for you or another beneficiary. December is a great month to talk about presents and a good opportunity for me to explain how mind mapping can really help you to manage such an activity.It’s December, the month of gifts. In Belgium, Saint-Nicolas is bringing toys to kids who have been kind during the year. It’s also Baptiste (my son) birthday. In other countries, Santa Claus will visit the children later in the month for Christmas. But adults also love Christmas presents, this evening during which we can exchange small and original presents to each other in front of the illuminated tree.

I don’t know how you proceed on your side but, on our side, kids traditionally prepare themselves a wish list of gifts (toys, books, clothes …) which they send to the old man. They usually use various paper catalogues we have received from different shops. They cut images and then they glue on a panel. It’s of course a very pleasant activity for them but for us, the parents, it’s not obvious to manage it further. Indeed, how do we track who will offer what? Or, how do we make it available for the gift makers? How do we communicate where to buy the toys?

I had an idea how mind mapping could help us to better manage the whole stuff, keeping the pleasure at the centre of our considerations. But I had to make it practical in order to verify my thoughts. Therefore, I proposed to my sons to move away from the traditional panel and create a mind map instead.

A very efficient structure

At the centre of the map, the idea was quite obvious: something like "What do I want to receive from Saint-Nicolas". Then, in order to identify the main branches, we made an interesting exercise. I asked the kids to look at the different tickets they had cut and to group them in clusters that made sense for them. At first sight, they found it a bit useless because they thought everything was just a gift or toy. But with a deeper analysis, they finally identified main types such as board game, books or clothes and main domains such has sport, WII or electronics.

Future main branches of the mind map

Once the main branches were created, it became easy to place the items on the map and also quite natural to create sub-branches when appropriate. Indeed, during this generative thinking activity, the brain is stimulated to produce more thoughts. When looking at the structure and the items already in place, new ideas came to their mind; new wishes, very interesting and valuable ones were added, giving more choices and flexibility to the gift maker. The end result is a very well presented list, easy to understand and memorise. The kids appreciated the initiative.

A mind map replacing a traditional wish list

A fantastic communication tool

Beyond considerations of the children, there is additional information to collect and communicate to the different persons who will make a gift. Indeed, although children think you will send the letter to the North Pole, we all know that you will have to distribute it to the different members of the family (grand-parents, godmother, uncle …). Those people will be happy to know where they can buy easily the item, what it looks like and how much it costs approximately.

The mind map is absolutely perfect for adding and maintaining this kind information. When you use a computer application such as iMindMap, it becomes even easier. For the place to buy, you can either mention a physical shop (the brand is usually enough) or even a web shop, with a direct link to the product on the internet. You can also find on the web a nice picture as well as other details that might be interesting to add on your map. For those who are interested, the resource file is available for download on Biggerplate, the mind map library.

Using a digital support, you will benefit from features that are not possible with the traditional approach. You will be able to export it as an image that you can send via e-mail. You will be able to print and distribute on paper if necessary. New technologies allow you now to upload it in the cloud and just send a link to latest version. People are sometimes embarrassed in the shop with the choice. Using smart devices, they will be able to access the wish list on-line, check out the picture in order to make the right choice or decide to take another present if they cannot find what they were looking for.

Management made easy

Once the mind map is created and distributed, there is still a problem to consider: “who is going to offer what?” It’s not easy to keep in mind all the feedback you received. Exchange efficiently the information between those who have already made their choice with those who still have to decide is not an easy task. Again, the mind map will help you a lot to manage all of that. All you have to do is to mark each gift with the name of the person who will offer it, using an additional sub-branch. Looking at the big picture, you can easily monitor what is already booked and what is still available.

Another interesting task is to define preferences, especially when the amount of gifts is important. Using a typical rating with stars, you can ask the children to define what they want to receive first. You can also communicate what are you own preferences as parents, knowing the educational or practical value of the gift (single versus multi-players, creative, powered by battery …) or maybe its redundancy with existing ones.

Other types of wish lists

The case I detailed here above is quite representative of the effectiveness of mind mapping for managing a wish list. Here are a couple of additional examples where you can use a mind map for organising a list of gifts:

Promotion or retirement at work: It’s not always obvious to define what you should offer to a colleague, especially when you are several to decide. Why not create a mind map with all the ideas and discuss about the alternatives according to the personality of the beneficiary. The mind map will be a nice support for collaborating and finally selecting a couple of options according to the budget you collected. The person will more than happy to receive a great gift instead of cash.

Wedding, birth or baptism: Shops usually offer services to manage wish lists, from the creation to the consultation, including money collection and frequent updates. If you want to think about what you need or would like to receive, you can create a mind map before going to the shop. You will certainly save some time. If you start early enough, the support will be ideal to generate ideas and make a selection. If you want to present your wishes in a creative way, you can also publish your mind map (on a website dedicated to the event for example). It will be an original manner for your family and friends to discover your desires and a different way to invite them to make gifts.

Birthday: Very similarly to the Saint-Nicolas or Santa Claus case, the beneficiary can organize the wish list with a mind map. If necessary, parents or friends can contribute and influence the content in order to match some of their expectations. All the benefits explained earlier remain applicable.

Saint-Valentine: Do you want to make a gift to your partner that will surprise him/her and will really make the difference? A bit earlier in the year, start your mind map. Listen to your partner and capture both ideas and domains of interest. Try to read between the lines and add everything you thing is interesting to consider. When the time has come to decide, review your notes and imagine the gift that match the most. 

Christmas party: Imagine that you want to offer several small and creative gifts to different persons (family, friends …). Start your mind map with a main branch for each person to satisfy. If you already have concrete ideas about what to offer to them, add it on sub-branches. If you know what characterize them or what domains they appreciate, add it as well. Along your visits in shops or on Christmas markets, collect ideas or buy some presents. Assign them to the persons on your map. Looking at the big picture, you will easily see what you still have to find or buy. You will also see who will be happy and who won’t.

I want my article to be as much practical as possible because I truly believe it's the best way to invite you to test the mind mapping technique and discover by yourself the benefits. This is my gift to you. I wish you a great December month, with plenty of other warm gifts. Not big ones, not expensive ones but presents that will mean something for you or will make you laugh; the kind of presents that will make you happy.

Be open-minded.

Be creative.

Have fun.

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TMMT update #1: True mind mapping benefits explained

Time has come to show you the progress of The Mind Mapping Team. I picked a couple of interesting subjects that kids brought to me from school and we reworked them using mind maps. I identified plenty of benefits that I am please to share with you.Here is the time to give you some feedback about the members of the TMMT – which stands for The Mind Mapping Team - and what they achieved during the first month of experience. I told you how the story began a couple of weeks ago with an open-air workshop. The participants learned some of the mind map rules and they created their first personal map. My plan is to coach them and follow their progress throughout an entire school year. Let me now show you a couple of interesting educational subjects we picked in their respective curriculum, how we reworked them with the mind mapping technique and what are the benefits for the children.

Vocabulary with Baptiste (9 years old)

Very recently, the teacher gave to the kids a dozen words to remember and to spell correctly. The test consisted in writing the right word in a definition that contained a blank placeholder. Although Baptiste did the exercise in the classroom and wrote the definitions down several times, he was still badly associating some of the words and therefore more study was required.

But what was exactly the problem? Why Baptiste could not associate the new words? It’s simply because he was considering each definition as an indivisible block that he did not fully understand. It was too difficult for him to memorize and associate so many new things without understanding properly the meaning. Indeed the definitions were long sentences and contained other complex words and grammar which were not serving the initial purpose. At the end, he mixed everything, saying for example that a “pasha” was an old cloth or a "piloti", a man applying the law.

"It was much easier to associate and understand ideas in my head once I started to use keywords on a mind map." (Baptiste)

And then everything became clear and easy with a mind map. We put a dictionary picture as a central idea and we created a main branch for each new word. Then, I asked Baptiste to read again each definition and extract up to 3 words that were key in the sentence. Without noticing, Baptiste was performing an important task of mind mapping which consists in identifying and selecting keywords for branches. But he was also eliminating all the complexity that the grammar and the language have introduced in the definition. The result was a straightforward mind map with very few terms to memorize and explicit associations between single and simple words. Knowing the rules, Baptiste also proposed to look for images on the internet that could illustrate each definition. Finally, I checked the level of learning by removing all the words and images from the main branches and I asked Baptiste to guess what was written on each main branch only by looking at the keywords that remained on the sub-branches. He did it with ease and without any mistake.Here are 5 key benefits for Baptiste in this exercise : 1) He is self-satisfied to have mastered the lesson without too much effort;2) He understood the importance of keywords compared to long and complex sentences; 3) He discovered the power of associations (both for keyword and images); 4) He achieved more than expected by now being able to rephrase definitions without looking at the sheet; 5) He recognized by himself the benefits of mind mapping and remains motivated to do more of it.

Mind mapping benefits for Baptiste

Personal diary project with Robin (13 years old)

Robin was very busy at the beginning of the school year. Soccer is his passion and he reached a level that requires a lot of investment in time and energy. In collaboration with his parent, I would like to experiment how much the use of mind mapping could save him time when learning lessons or doing homework so that he could continue to invest in soccer without jeopardizing school results.

Robin has recently received a project which consists in understanding the characteristics of a personal diary and writing one by Christmas. It’s a fresh request and we have some time to work on it. It will be very interesting to see how mind mapping will help Robin to write a special type of story.

"It's cool and fast to draw a mind map with iMindMap on my computer." (Robin)

I noticed during my first face-to-face workshop that handmade mind maps would require too much effort for Robin. That had a negative impact on the mental activity he was performing and the underlying goal he was targeting. For the personal diary project, I decided to introduce iMindMap, the mind mapping software. Children of that age have no difficulties to use computers and they are already familiar with most of editing functionalities such as font size and color, alignment, copy and paste, … In iMindMap, it’s easy to understand how to draw a mind map if you know what are the rules. The process is intuitive thanks to a very well-thought user interface.

We have just started the work. The first task we did was to reconsider the paper based theory and we transformed it into an organic mind map which will evolve throughout the project. I invite you to keep following this story and read about Robin’s personal diary project in our next episode.Here are 5 key benefits for Robin in this exercise: 1) He really enjoyed the activity on the computer and he knows now how much it’s easy and fun; 2) He discovered that a mind map creation can be iterative; it is not necessary a one shot; 3)He understood how easy and useful it is to associate images in iMindMap, especially with the use of icons from the library; 4) He developed some autonomy in the mind map design by reorganizing branches several times; 5) He realized that the energy spent to draw the mind map was in fact enough to remember all the characteristics of the lesson.

Mind mapping benefits for Robin

Poetry with Corentin (6 years old)

One day in October, Corentin came back home with a huge challenge: memorize sixteen lines of poetry. It’s a lot for a kid of his age. Of course, he worked intensively on the subject in the classroom with the teacher but he was still not able to recall entirely and perfectly the poetry. On top, he received the text with some illustrations that he colourized. It helped him somehow to remember what the story was about.

But poetry is more than a story and you have to remember each sentence in detail, all the words it contains in a precise order. So why Corentin could not recall it with so much time already spent on it? Would I have obtained the expected result by asking him to repeat the text again and again whereas he was already in a disappointed mood because of his failures? I had to find a better idea.

"The pictures and the colours we used on each branch of the mind map allowed me to better remember my poetry." (Corentin)

I propose to Corentin to rewrite the poetry with a mind map. The principle was quite simple. In the centre,  I wrote the poetry title and I drew an image illustrating it. Then we agreed with Corentin that while he was telling the story with as much details as possible, I would create main or sub-branches and I would add illustrations for each sentences in the poetry (not keywords because he’s still unable to read). Of course, each image had to perfectly correspond to the mental representation Corentin had in mind while telling or hearing the sentence. Once the mind map was complete, the last step consisted in checking what gap was remaining between the initial text and the one Corentin was able to recall when looking at the map. For each difficulty, I made the appropriate change in order to obtain a perfect match. Immediately after this process, Corentin was able to visualize the mind map in his head. He told the sixteen line of poetry without any hurdle and he still able to declaim it today.Here are 5 key benefits for Corentin in this exercise: 1) He was much more confident after the use of mind mapping than before; 2) He is proud of the mind map we build together because he’s showing it to everybody; 3) He learned how to visualize mentally a mind map in order to trigger the recall of information; 4) He achieved more than expected by adding a great interpretation to the poetry, having no more difficulties to remember the text; 5) He recognized by himself the benefits of mind mapping and remains motivated to do more of it.

Mind mapping benefits for Corentin

Book summary with Manon (13 years old)

Manon is following what we call in Belgium the secondary school (second cycle of 6 years). Time has come to read several books during the year and pass exam about what you retained from it. When we started to work together, Manon was on the point to finish the first book and I made a small check about the level of knowledge she reached so far. Let’s say that she knew the story superficially but not much more of it.

Why Manon was not able to remember the key elements of the book? Why couldn’t she express its structure efficiently? Isn’t it a bit frustrating for a young student to discover that all the time spent to read hundreds of pages was somehow lost? But Manon wanted to improve herself and increase the probability to succeed. She was particularly open to test the mind mapping technique in this specific case. She surprised me a lot with the progress she made in a very short time. She’s my proudest so far.

"It's difficult to believe but true: Manon is making better results in those courses where she used the mind mapping technique to study." (Manon's mother)

I taught her a technique for collecting meaningful information while reading a book. Basically, you have to capture who are the main characters and their characteristics, what is happening to them and why (key adventures in the story), when those events happen in time as well as their places (where) if relevant. But you also need an efficient way to write it down, to access and to update it any time  That’s where the mind map brings a lot.

I knew Manon was spending some time on her laptop and on social networks during the evenings. That was a unique occasion for me to test if a teenager was ready to replace some of her recreation time by a mind mapping activity on the same device. I made the bet that she could immediately use iMindMap (ThinkBuzan) so that we could exchange the files electronically and check her progress. She went on the internet and she searched for the book cover image. She found it and with an easy copy and paste, she replaced the central idea of a default mind map. Then, we created a kind of template with main branches for characters, places, moments and adventures. I checked immediately what she understood from the technique by asking her to populate the mind map and its sub-branches with some of the information she could remember from her reading. She was on track. I let her go and reviewed several times the document which was growing days after days until she finished the book. She was ready for the exam.Here are 5 key benefits for Manon in this exercise: 1) She learned a practical technique about how to capture and structure a book story; 2) She discovered that a mind map creation can be iterative; it is not necessary a one shot; 3) She understand that the mind map is only a support for achieving another goal; 4) She passed the exam and got a very good score; 5) She realized that the questions were exactly the one she had answered on the mind map, which reinforced the idea that she used the right technique.

Mind mapping benefits for Manon

You will discover even more benefits of mind map by coming back from time to time and by following those amazing young people experiences. Do not hesitate to subscribe to the RSS feed or via e-mail if you wish remained informed.

The Mind Mapping Team (TMMT) hopes to see you next time.
Be open minded!
Be creative!

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