So what’s happened to the company since it made a big splash at last year’s conference? (This year’s Net:Work conference in San Francisco is just a few weeks away on  December 8^th.) In short, they’ve become a piece of a larger puzzle, being acquired by Mindjet to help create a broader solution that takes ideas all the way from inception to execution.

Around a year ago Mindjet, known for its mind mapping and brainstorming solutions, decided to expand from just helping people generate and capture ideas to also helping them realize them. To do that they needed some new technology, and after keeping a close eye on the project management space as well as pondering building a product themselves, they happened upon Cohuman, which met their needs and which had been struggling to find funding.

The acquisition went through in August of this year, with Mindjet releasing a rebranded Mindjet Cohuman on September 22. But don’t worry if you loved Cohuman last year, explained Blaine Mathieu, Mindjet’s chief product’s officer in an interview. The new product is still very similar to the one that won raves at Net:Work 2010.

“If somebody was a historic Cohuman user they would recognize Cohuman today other than some enhanced feature functionality and the Mindjet logo on it,” he reports. But the company plans bigger changes going forward.

We’re working through a phased integration between Mindjet’s other products and Mindjet Cohuman. In fact, we’re just a few weeks away from releasing our first beta integration between our application for information mapping and project planning called Mindjet Connect and Cohuman, sharing data back and forth. Then during the course of 2012 we’re going to be merging these applications more and more closely together, so users of either application will see additional functionality being borrowed from the other one. We’re moving down the path in 2012 of making them one thing.

Thos who originally came to Mindjet for a brainstorming app and those who chose Cohuman hoping to manage their projects socially will, hopefully, see the functionality of both products expand until they morph into an integrated offering that handles your projects from first inspiration through to the details of making them reality. The freemium business model will remain the same.

Besides logically expanding Mindjet’s offerings and solving Cohuman’s funding woes, the acquisition also brings Cohuman’s technology to Mindjet’s already existing large user base. “That’s the cool thing,” says Mathieu. “As Mindjet’s been around since 2001, we have over two million paying users today for our applications already, so obviously the first thing we’re doing with Mindjet Cohuman is taking that application to our existing user base and saying, ‘hey, look at this great new application we have for you.’”

“There are a lot of interesting little startups in the social task management area doing some interesting things,” says Matthieu, “but the big advantage that Mindjet has is we’re not a startup starting at zero – zero users, zero viral effect. 80 percent of the Global 2000 use a Mindjet solution today.”

That should mean more exposure and more users for a rebranded and expanded Mindjet Cohuman in 2012.

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You don’t even need to register to use Think, but if you want to save your mind maps (Think calls them “thoughts”) you’ll need to log in using an OpenID account (such as a Google or Yahoo account).

There’s a tutorial to show you how to use it, but it’s all pretty intuitive. Clicking on a node selects it, giving you the options of deleting it, creating a new node or joining it to another one. To edit the text on the node, you double-click it. You can reposition nodes by dragging and dropping them, and delete the connections between nodes by clicking on them. At the top right of the screen you’re given a choice to save the mind map, export it as an image or make it public (which means that anyone can then access it, so you can share your mind map with others — you can make it private again using the same menu option).

Think is very basic indeed; it doesn’t have anything like the range of functionality found in tools like MindManager or MindView, for example — but for quickly sketching out a mind map, or just getting to grips with the concept of mind mapping, it works well.

It’s worth pointing out that although Think looks a bit like a Flash site, it actually doesn’t use Flash at all. It’s built using using HTML5′s Canvas element, which means that it works best in Safari or Chrome (it doesn’t work properly on Mobile Safari, though — it was buggy when I tested it on my iPhone). It doesn’t support IE, and the developer says that there are some bugs when using it with Firefox, although I have to say that I didn’t encounter any when I was playing with it.

What mind mapping tools do you use?

(via Download Squad)

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SmartDraw 2010 from SmartDraw.com offers an easy-to-use drawing and diagramming solution for Windows, targeting those of us who aren’t professional graphic designers. It integrates with other tools, and has built-in features for creating diagrams for pretty much any business purpose: charts and graphs; floor plans; flow charts; matrices; mind maps; network diagrams; org charts; storyboards; project charts; timelines; and maps.

The application is available as a direct download from SmartDraw.com and costs $197 (for a single-user license), with a 30-day trial available.

Integration with Microsoft Project

The Project Chart feature includes the editing, formatting and management tools that you might enjoy in other full-featured project management applications. You also have the option to import and export Microsoft Project files. Once you’ve imported a Microsoft Project file into SmartDraw 2010′s Project Chart, you can continue modifying the overall project including time frame, tasks, milestones and properties. You also have the option to view your project chart as a Gantt chart, mind map or time line.

My import tests seemed to hang while SmartDraw 2010 was formatting the charts. Not a good sign, but despite the time it took, I was able to get very clean imports from Project into SmartDraw 2010.

Mind Mapping

Once thought of primarily as a brainstorming tool, mind maps are now used for communicating project requirements, process flows and creating other visualization artifacts. SmartDraw 2010 supports mind maps, though you may find the level of support basic compared to full-featured mind mapping applications like MindJet MindManager 8. I do like how SmartDraw 2010 includes a Mind Map view in its Project Chart feature.

Integration with PowerPoint

PowerPoint presentations do power many business meetings, even though the application lacks robust drawing tools. With SmartDraw 2010, you can plan out your PowerPoint presentations with the PowerPoint Storyboard feature, then import your storyboard directly into PowerPoint to give you a jumpstart on creating your presentation. You also have the option to send many of the charts and diagrams you create in SmartDraw 2010 directly into PowerPoint using a menu option.

Collaboration with Visio

SmartDraw 2010 includes a Visio import filter, which should assist collaboration between Visio and SmartDraw 2010 users working on the same project.

While I tend to gravitate towards Visio for my Windows-based drawing needs, I found SmartDraw 2010 to be an impressive tool with a well-rounded feature set. It should appeal to users who aren’t graphic designers and who need a diagramming tool with a short learning curve.

Have you used SmartDraw 2010? Share your experience below.

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MindNode (touch) shares the simplicity and elegance of the desktop version, leading to an effortless but powerful user experience.

The app can stand alone from its desktop counterpart, matching it feature-for-feature and providing a productive mobile working environment. Maps can be created and edited fully on the device and imported and exported between various open formats. The iPhone’s standard search, cut & paste and landscape modes are all supported.

Gestures and Mindmaps

Prior to release, my conversations with Müller revealed the attention with which he’d considered translating the desktop edition’s drag-and-drop interface into intuitive gestures for a touchscreen device. Fortunately, he succeeded: new nodes are created by simply dragging them out of a “node well;” existing nodes can be dragged and dropped with one finger. iPhone’s regular “pinch-to-zoom” gestures are also supported, providing an extraordinarily large canvas upon which to work, though Müller recommends limiting the number of nodes to 150, given the restricted memory available to iPhone apps.

Synchronizing Mindnode Pro & MindNode touch

Previously created maps can be synchronized with the desktop edition of MindNode Pro, allowing users to adapt the app to their preferred device and workflow. Curiously, synchronization isn’t executed using iSync or iTunes, but a proprietary solution.

Good Enough to Capture Ideas On the Move?

For me the real test of a mobile mind-mapping app is the ability for me to take notes and capture ideas in map form and then edit or expand using a desktop client. In this regard, MindNode (touch) and MindNode Pro work together flawlessly and the mobile edition is certainly value-for-money.

MindNode touch is currently available at the iTunes App store for £4.99 (around $8). Purchasing it also unlocks a 20 percent discount on the desktop edition, bringing it down to $12.

Find out more at the MindNode web site, where you can also watch a brief screencast.

Do you use a mobile mind mapping tool? If so, which one?

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Imran: It’s almost a year since we covered MindManager, what can you tell us about the newly released Mindjet Catalyst — what’s new and what’s the migration path for existing users?

Raskin: Mindjet Catalyst is the most exciting announcement that we’ve made as a company, combining powerful applications for online document sharing, web conferencing and project management with our award-winning application for visual collaboration. Mindjet Catalyst takes the concept of a team brainstorming on a whiteboard and brings it into the digital realm, meshing the best of creative, in-person meetings with online collaboration capabilities, ultimately enhancing creativity, innovation and problem-solving.  All current Mindjet Connect customers will be upgraded to the Mindjet Catalyst platform at no extra cost.

Imran: Are there any mind mapping theories, methodologies or best-practices upon which Mindjet bases its products?

Raskin: We believe that in today’s business world, several factors are making it imperative that organizations of all sizes re-evaluate how they encourage and manage collaboration. Innovation and creative problem-solving are key to every enterprise, large or small, and we believe innovation depends on unleashing the collective creativity and ingenuity of employees, partners and business ecosystems. Gary Hamel noted that companies intent on generating sustained wealth must create a dynamic, open internal market for ideas within an organization.

Our products are based on a strong belief in the power of visually linking and layering information to build relationships between knowledge and insights from every member of a team (be they images, lists, notes, data, charts or documents) and by locating — virtually — every piece of pertinent information for any given project, all in one place.

Imran: What can you tell us about the broader marketplace, where it’s headed and why we’re seeing product after product entering this space?

Raskin: Well, it’s interesting when you mention the “broader marketplace.” If you can say anything about collaboration right now, it’s certainly a “broad” sector. People are lumping everything into “collaboration” these days — whether it’s web conferencing, virtual workspaces, wikis, enterprise social networking, microblogging, you name it. If it facilitates communication among groups, people are calling it collaboration. This is where we differ with most people. My argument is that these tools are not collaboration tools — they’re really just communication tools on steroids. I can meet with people in a web conference, or post items to a wiki, but we’re really just continuing to push information back and forth and not engaging in activities that lead to true innovation.

People are overloaded with information and companies must innovate. That’s why companies are rushing in to try to meet this need. But unless people have a platform that enables them to dialogue and brainstorm with others in a visual manner, create strategic and actionable plans and then execute on them, they’re not going to address the innovation problem. We think we offer significant value that no one else who makes a “collaboration” product today offers.

Imran: Is mind mapping as critical as a word processor or spreadsheet? Should iWork, Google Apps, OpenOffice or Microsoft Office integrate mind mapping?

Raskin: Absolutely. A customer of ours who is a former VP at WebEx says that he tells all of his teams that Mindjet is the “only tool that is never optional.” Will the word processor or spreadsheet ever go away? Certainly not — they fulfill specific needs for specific purposes. But imagine having a central, visually-oriented dashboard that enables you and all of the teams you work with to collaborate in real time, manage multiple documents and spreadsheets related to any project, and track your progress from start to finish to success. If you’re in sales, imagine a tool that creates instant trust with your potential customers by mapping out for them in real-time that you understand their critical needs and can visualize for them a path to meeting those needs. Some have called what we do the “indispensable fifth productivity app” after documents, spreadsheets, presentations and email. Adding mapping to your current suite of tools makes those tools work exponentially more productively for you.

Imran: What’s next for the company after the move to Catalyst?

Scott: We have a lot coming out in the next few months and even over the next year that we’re very excited about:

• Our currently available Mindjet for iPhone app, and also the upcoming release of MindManager 8 for Mac on October 20th.
• For Mindjet Catalyst, we’re on schedule to go out with a new release every 45 days.
• Our readiness for several of the exciting new capabilities that will be coming for MindManager in Windows 7, including touchscreen compatibility.
• We’ll have more news about purpose-built solutions that integrate with existing infrastructures.
• We’re working on enhancements for working with maps in social media outlets.

MindJet has kindly offered WebWorkerDaily readers a year’s free subscription (worth around $1,500) to the first 25 people who contact the company at gigaom@mindjet.com.

How do you see mind mapping tools evolving in the future?

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Moving to Pen and Pad

One weekend when all the kids were sick, I sat on my comfy bed with my laptop. Growing tired of my Internet fiddling, I closed the laptop and pulled out the notepad that I keep in a bedside drawer, where I had jotted down a blog post idea before going to sleep the previous night. I also grabbed a ballpoint pen. I added bullet points to expand those thoughts. Since I was already at it, I figured I might as well keep on thinking of blog ideas and captured about four pages of notes.

Getting the Ballpoint Pen Rolling

This put me in the mood for more writing — with paper and pen. Something prompted me to keep exploring more ideas for my blog. During this process, I discovered my big mistake with past mind map attempts: using software. No matter how fast I could whip up a shape, cut, paste, type — the process felt tedious. Pen. Paper. Brain. For me, these work best for mapping out ideas. In 15 or 20 minutes, I had created seven maps. They could lead to at least 25 solid posts!

Creating More Maps

My first map took a high-level approach with “Writer” being the center of the map with four subcategories: “writing,” “marketing,” “business” and “editing.” Expanding all of them filled the page, so I began a new map on subsequent pages making central themes out of the following:

• business
• marketing
• blogs
• supplies
• social media
• the act of writing

All these appeared in one of the earlier maps. When I identified many ideas for a single category, I gave it its own map so that I had lots of room. The maps and branches grew from there. This process helped dig up ideas faster than I ever could sitting in front of a computer. It also sparked more ideas than I could just sitting and contemplating writing topics; there’s something about seeing them written down on paper.

Those circles and branches held magic. They compelled me to add more. I probably could’ve filled 10 more pages, but I had to rip off my writer uniform to reveal the mommy one and fulfill my duties in saving the world, or, at least, comforting my kids and getting them to bed.

So, I’m a geek who loves her apps but prefers mind mapping by hand. It works. If you don’t use mind maps because you find mind mapping software cumbersome, maybe it’s time to try the good old-fashioned pen and paper route.

How do you come up with ideas for blog entries and articles? What process do you use?

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I’ve found mind-mapping apps such as MindManager and MindView to be a little clunky and over-engineered. Sometimes, you literally want to sketch some thoughts quickly, with little concern for presentation or correctness.

As luck would have it, I recently came across Markus Müller’s Mindnode, a deliciously simple mind-mapping tool that’s designed specifically for Macs. The free edition of the product does nothing more complex than allow maps to be constructed fluidly and quickly. There are no special notations or symbols, just click and drag to add and place nodes, and watch as MindNode colors them automatically, creating a simple, easy-to-comprehend diagram.

The app also offers some useful integration with the underlying operating system. It uses OS X’s Spotlight search to enable the contents of a mindmap to be indexed, and you can also use Quick Look for visual previews.

Mindnode allows maps to be saved in a whole bunch of graphics formats (TIF, PNG, etc) as well as in its own native format and, more interestingly, as OPML and HTML documents. This implies that the resulting maps can be imported into other packages for further — perhaps automated — manipulation and even CSS styling.

Mindnode isn’t feature-rich; it has just enough features to fulfill its purpose elegantly. Even the Pro edition (just $15!), adds only a handful of useful additional features.

There’s a place for the higher-end applications and services that we’ve covered previously, but it’s reassuring to know that simpler options exist. My only bugbear with Mindnode is the lack of a Windows or web edition. Come to think of it, it’d make a great iPhone app!

Be sure to check out Aliza’s post, Mapping Your Work Madness, which contains some great mind-mapping tips.

What mind mapping tools do you use?

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Mind mapping tools inhabit a curious boundary between tools that need to be as fluid and unstructured as doodling with a pencil and those that can harness the structural and processing power of computers to enhance the creative and mental processses.

Mind mapping tools range from the GTD-like methodologies of the Compendium Institute, to the opensource FreeMind and lightweight knowledge management such as DeepMehta; incidentally mind-mapping guru Peter Russell has created a useful roundup of tools.

MindJet’s MindManager 8
One of the more prominent companies in the space is MindJet, who today released the latest edition of their flagship tool, MindManager 8. With the new release, the company is seeking to integrate mind mapping into user’s existing workflows and help create mechanisms for collaboration.

Though MindManager has been oriented around a desktop experience, the new edition blurs the line between MindManager Web (an entirely web-based edition of the application – pictured) and its desktop counterparts by including integrated web searches, and online database queries from within the desktop app.

For web workers, the web edition’s most useful feature appears to be the ability to invite other users to view and/or collaborate on a mind-map or project workspace.

Free Trial

MindJet has kindly provided Web Worker Daily with a couple hundred 1-year subscriptions to MindManager Web (not Mind Manager 8!), worth around $120 each. Hop over to this page to sign up and take advantage of this offer.

The link will take you to the new trial page for MindManager Web. Users who click on the link will be taken to a signup page for a free trial.  The first 200 registrations will be converted from free 30-day trials to free 1-year subscriptions; subsequent users will still be able to sign up for free trials, but limited to 30-days.

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Before I proceeded testing out an application, I wanted to have a better understanding of what mind mapping was all about so I went to Wikipedia for a definition:

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It is used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

The more I read, the more I was excited to try mind mapping in some form because I certainly could use some help with organization, problem solving and decision making in my Web working business.

What I immediately liked about bubbl.us is that the moment I arrived at the site, all I had to do was click a big button that said “Start Brainstorming,” and I was presented with my first bubble ready for me to fill it in.

By hovering my cursor over the bubble, I was given pop up descriptions of each feature such as: click and drag to move the bubble, create a sibling bubble under same parent, create a new child bubble, select bubble color, even connect two bubbles with a directional line. For someone who gets hives from reading the manual, these bite-sized instructions available to me at any time as I built my map was like ambrosia.

The first map I made was for my company, Moonbow Productions, Inc. I wanted to get a sense of what services I offer to clients. This map took less than 10 minutes to produce.

The next map I made was to get a grip on the many “irons in the fire” or projects I have in progress. This map took me 20 minutes to produce.

The last map I made was a list of services I offer with the corresponding clients who are utilizing the various services. This map took me 10 minutes to produce.

In less than 40 minutes, I had three different ways of visualizing the work I do on a daily basis and a much clearer perspective of where I spend my time.

As usual, I’m only scratching the surface of the features of yet another Web app, but with this tiny scratch, I’ve really taken care of a big mind itch.

How Mind Mapping Can Help Web Work

Here are some of the ways might think of using mind mapping:

1. Visualize how your work is distributed. Where are the profit centers, and are you focusing most of your time and energy on those?

2. Identify loss leaders. Where are you spending time during your work day that isn’t having a direct impact on your bottom line?

3. Organize tasks. How can you group tasks together to be more efficient with the work you do each day?

4. Plan for expansion. If you are looking to grow your business, what areas should you augment? What areas could you pare down because they aren’t really paying the bills to make room for new things?

5. Diversify. Are you concentrating too much on a single area of Web work? What if that work dries up? What other areas can you branch into in order to have other options

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of mind mapping, you might want to take a look at “The Mind Mapping Manifesto” by Chuck Frey or go to his blog The Mind Mapping Software Blog. Although his material seems very “salesy” at first, you can find some gems tucked in between the hard sales pitches.

“You’re a victim of ‘information overload,’” says Frey. “To survive, you need to sift through a mountain of information, ideas and knowledge, synthesize meaning from it and communicate it in reports, plans and other business reports.”

Don’t we all!

Are you mind mapping and if so, how are you doing it and what has it done for you?

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