Jones 1 Thomas Jones 7011-123456 Business Communication Assignment 3 July 15, 2011 The Power of Mind Mapping Mind

mapping, a form of visual outlining, may seem superficial, but once mastered it provides a powerful tool for managing information overload and the hyperbolic multitasking of the modern world. Recent advances in shareable mind maps take the power of this technique further, enabling groups to quickly capture and organize a massive amount of ideas. This week, I take a look at why mind maps are effective and how they can amplify your productivity. Most people who are living the examined life in technology have heard of mind maps. The central bubble contains a label of a general topic, like serviceoriented architecture. Lines radiate out from that center to bubbles representing related concepts (for SOA, governance, service level agreements, lifecycle management, operations, repository, development tools and standards). More bubbles may radiate from those bubbles (perhaps for monitoring, change management, and version management.) An excellent example is Luciano Passuelo's mind map of one of my favorite books entitled "One Small Step Can Change Your Life" (Passuelo 210). The website mappio.com has thousands of mind maps. Don't be put off by the visual sophistication of these examples. Even plain mind maps make all the difference. Over the past six years, our team at Evolved Technologist has created 19 books. We started out using wikis, and one of our first innovations was using a content design, a heavily annotated outline. These content designs can stretch to 50 or 60 pages. Whether we write them on a wiki or in a document, the problem is the

Jones 2 same. We brainstorm, interview someone, or review a transcript and want to add a note to another part of the outline. It doesn't take long for paging up and down to become frustrating and exhausting, like running up and down flights of stairs to do your work. The second problem is that traditional outlines are linear. We are always working on multiple projects at Evolved Technologist. The multitasking requires us to work on a project for a while, develop an understanding of what we know, capture it in notes or an outline and then move on. The problem happens when you return to the project. If the information is stored in an outline and notes, you have a feeling of dread because you know you are going to have to slog through pages of material to refresh the context and recapture your thoughts. The final problem is that when working with others on a wiki or even a shared document on Google Apps, it can be hard to collaborate. On wikis, only one person can change the page at a time, and you have to save it so that others can see your changes. This helps a bit, but you still are running up and down those stairs--only now you do it as a group. Mind maps solve all these problems. I can capture ideas from an interview or a design for a book in a mind map, and I don't feel frustrated or fatigued. Because this is quick and easy, I capture more ideas and restructure them faster, meaning my mind map better reflects my understanding.

Source: Woods, Dan. "The Power of Mind Mapping." Forbes, 6 June 2009: n. pag. Web. 25 Jun 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/09/mind-mapping-wikistechnology-cio-network-mind-mapping.html>.