How to brainstorm your way to thought leadership

In today’s business world, the ability to develop profitable new ideas is a critically important skill, says Mark Levy in his new report, List-Making as a Tool of Thought Leadership. To do this, he recommends brainstorming a series of lists to develop a storehouse of fresh ideas that you can use to grow your influence in your work – to become a thought leader in your area of expertise.

The list-making process that Levy recommends has much in common with mind mapping, which often involves the deconstructing of a problem, challenge or project into its component parts. This deep analysis often leads to new insights and ideas.

Levy recommends asking yourself questions that help you to generate ideas around your key challenges and opportunities, which are outlined in the mind map above (click on the image to view a larger version). You record your answers in a series of written lists. These ideas and insights can then be evaluated and developed further using the second list of recommended evaluation questions.

Why even consider a set of thought exercises like this? Because your career and future success may depend upon it. Levy explains:

“You’re hired for your ideas. In a sense, your ideas are your inventory. They’re your currency. Bluntly stated: Your ideas equal money. Your ideas get you noticed in the marketplace, help you to command enviable fees (or salary), and enable you to do good work on projects of significance.”

Levy’s approach is an excellent one, but I believe it could be improved by recording your ideas in mind maps, rather than linear lists. Mind mapping software provides not only a way to not only record your ideas, but also gives you a powerful, flexible platform to expand upon, organize, evaluate and take action on them. For example:

As the number of lists and ideas grow, you can easily break one large mind map into a number of smaller linked ones, keeping them manageable and helping to prevent information overload.Supporting information can be captured in notes, links and attached documents.You can use icons to indicate areas where you need to do additional research, or where you have unanswered questionsYou can record the contact information of subject matter experts, whom you need to interview for more information – and attach the results of your discussions with themYou can convert your best ideas into tasks, define deadlines for next action steps and track their progress. Mind mapping software isn’t just a brainstorming tool, but also a light-weight project management tool.

I highly recommend you download List-Making as a Tool of Thought Leadership, and then apply its techniques to generate your own list of valuable ideas to help build your influence and success in your work. It’s a free report, and you don’t even have to give up your e-mail address or other personal information to download it. It’s only 27 pages long and is written in a clear, easily digestible style. In other words, it’s easy to take his techniques and put them to use immediately. Why not do so today? You’ll be a better person for it!

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July 2011 mind mapping coaching call is now online

Thanks to everyone who sent me questions during the month of July. My replies have just been published in the latest mind mapping coaching call, which covers these topics:

Mobile apps that have an outline viewProcess for capturing ideas from the web for possible inclusion in a mind mapAre IT departments using mind mapping software?Is mind mapping software used for enterprise architecture analysisCan mind mapping software do “layers” – like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator?

Mind Mapping Insider members can access this audio file using the link below:

If you cannot see the link, you need to become a member of the Mind Mapping Insider membership group. It’s inexpensive

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Using mind mapping software to consider the future and its many opportunities

Earlier this week, I watched an excerpt of a conference in which a number of well-known speakers were talking about the accelerating rate of change today, fueled by compounding developments in technology and science. At one point, the keynote speaker talked metaphorically about a fork in the road between “What If?” and “If Only” – the difference between embracing change and our opportunity to develop big ideas, versus putting our heads in the sand like ostriches, and then regretting we didn’t jump at these opportunities when they were first emerging. This really stuck with me, and I quickly mapped it on a Post-it note as a simple, right-facing visual map, with the two paths converging.

As I thought about these two paths over the next several days, it occurred to me that “What If?” is the path of bold exploration, of considering a wealth of futures and possibilities. It is the path of creativity, of dreaming up the Big Ideas that will help bring about a better future for ourselves and others.

The other path, “If Only,” is one of regrets, of possibilities never explored out of fear or simple inertia. It’s the path of opportunities overlooked and chances not taken. It is the way of the risk averse, of the person who has tremendous gifts and ideas, but habitually fails to utilize them – or lacks the drive and discipline needed to bring them to fruition.

Finally, I got to thinking this morning about the role of mind mapping software in this process. Among other things, it is a powerful tool for thinking about the future – for exploring what ifs and possibilities. You can use it to lay out potential future scenarios and map out their likely implications, such as:

What if we had access to 100 times as much information as we do today?What if energy was so abundant, it was essentially free? What would that mean to our business?What if our supply chain could instantly react to changes in component availability, shipping delays and other factors beyond our control?

What is YOUR tool for thinking about the future of your career and your organization? Do you have one? I know what mine is!

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Mastering MindManager for Projects: An excellent training program for project management

Mastering MindManager for Projects is an online course that does an excellent job of teaching the average business person how to create a customized and practical visual dashboard to manage your projects more effectively.

Even if you’ve done some project management using your mind mapping software, you will find something of value in Warren Arbuckle’s 2.5-hour video e-course, which is based on the principles of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) and focuses on the project life cycle (initiation, planning, execution & close out) in detail.

I recently had an opportunity to review Mastering MindManager for Projects, and was very impressed with its well-organized and practical approach, as well as the wealth of advice and resources the author has included in it.

What does MindManager 4 Projects contain?

The course, which contains 22 video lessons, begins by walking you through the user interface of MindManager, with a special emphasis on those that are used in project management. It then walks you through a step-by-step process for building and managing a project dashboard map.

At the end of each lesson, the course provides exercises for you to do, based upon a case study. Each of the these exercises utilizes MindManager to build a project dashboard – which enables you to put into action what you have learned in the course. The project dashboard can then be used as a customizable template to set up and run your own projects. This connects what you learned during training directly to the workplace.

As I watched the videos, I was impressed with Arbuckle’s practical style and clear presentation of the course materials. He makes an excellent and engaging narrator. Each lesson is easy to follow and delivers “just enough” information to teach you what you need to know. There’s no fluff here, no getting lost in tangential information. Arbuckle manages to maintain a laser-sharp focus on the task at hand: To teach you how to create a project managment dashboard map, customized to meet your needs, through step-by-step “how-to” content and a well-designed case study.

Who can benefit from Mastering MindManager for Projects?

This excellent e-course appears to be aimed at people who haven’t previously managed projects. The PM Overview lesson, for example, walks you through basic concepts and definitions of terms. It also highlights some of the most common challenges that project managers face – which, not surprisingly, are “soft” issues, such as team communication and clear up-front project definition.

Experienced project managers can also benefit from Mastering MindManager for Projects, because will empower them to take what they know and integrate it into a project dashboard mind map. Arbuckle points out that you can find many project-related template maps online, but until now there hasn’t been anyone to teach you HOW to properly set up a project and manage it effectively within a visual map.

Mastering MindManager for Projects is especially recommended for virtual teams – where members of your team are geographically dispersed. Often, far-flung teams develop communication problems because they miss out on many of the nuances of face-to-face communication. The project dashboard map becomes a common visual reference point that everyone can use, regardless of their culture, to build consensus and shared understanding – which helps keep projects on track, on time and on budget.

Do you need to own MindManager to benefit from this e-course? It would help, but it’s not absolutely necessary. The principles and techniques that Arbuckle outlines in Mastering MindManager for Projects can adapted to most other high-end mind mapping software programs that have project management capabilities.

Why should you invest in this program?

Arbuckle’s credentials are impressive:

He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).His company, Focus Cubed Inc, is approved by the Project Management Institute to develop and deliver courses for product management professionals.He has been training people from various cultures and industries in project management, innovation and sales for over 25 years.In the 1990s, he was certified by Tony Buzan to teach mind mapping, and he has been using mind mapping software for over 8 years.

Mastering MindManager for Projects summarizes the best of what he has learned and experienced in training and managing global projects. In short, Arbuckle knows what he’s talking about – and, more importantly, he’s able to communicate it clearly and in a well-organized format to you (click here to read my interview with him).

This e-course is based upon techniques and processes developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBok), a global set of PM guidelines. In essence, it’s a common global “language” of best practices for managing projects. In other words, Mastering MindManager for Projects is based on a rock-solid pedigree. You’ll get excellent value for your investment in it.

Mastering MindManager for Projects is US$97 for the entire course (22 online videos plus 2 bonus videos); if you are a professional project manager and want 10 PDU points for certification, it will run you $147.

Videos can be viewed for up to 1 year using a Macintosh with OS X and QuickTime installed or a Windows PC running XP SP2 or later and Windows Media Player installed. I also noticed when I looked at the curriculum for this course that it is now available in an Apple iPad format – nice!

If your work involves managing projects of any kind, I urge you to invest in this worthwhile training program. You’ll be glad you did!

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A snapshot of business use of mind mapping software (infographic)

Category: Resources

I’m a big fan of infographics. So when the chance came to have one created to highlight the results of my recent Mind Mapping Software Trends survey, I jumped at the chance. Artist Jenn Gerlach from InfoGlyphs did a terrific job of highlighting the most important findings of this important survey, which provides a valuable snapshot of the use of mind mapping software in business.

Please help spread the word about the benefits of mind mapping software.

Feel free to share this infographic with all those who don’t understand why mind mapping software matters, and why it’s THE tool for helping knowledge workers to cope with the demands of today’s workplace.

How to save this infographic for your use

If you click on the image below, you can view a full-size version of this infographic (1,000 pixels wide instead of 600). If you want to save it to use in a report or web page, simply right-click and save this JPG image to a folder on your computer. Or you can link to the URL of this blog post. If you have any additional questions about this visual summary, please contact me.

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