Mind-Mapping with Tinderbox

Some discussion came up last week on Twitter about mind-mapping software. I responded by sharing a few pics of how I use Tinderbox for this and received a few tweets and emails of interest back. Just to document this a little better I want to blog this.

[Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Eastgate who make Tinderbox. I'm just a very happy user. It's been on my dock almost five years, I think.]

Mind-mapping for Mac

If you work on a Mac and need a tool to create mindmaps, Tinderbox is excellent. Tinderbox isn’t solely a mind-mapping tool but it’s one of the ways you can use it to take notes and organise your ideas.

At the recent Disruptive Media conference I attended here in Stockholm I collected all my notes as people spoke with in Tinderbox’s Map View.

As each new point came up I created a new note, and typed my thoughts. To organize this better Tinderbox lets you create Adornments – backgrounds around which you label and drag your notes around.

I created an adornment for each speaker and added new notes as when required.

I’m using coloured notes here to distinguish between speakers. Red notes are things that I want to follow up – important ideas that occur to me as I listen. The arrows are “links” between the notes helping me organise my thinking and note-taking in a more effective spacial way.

Mindmaps for Clear Ideas

I also use mindmaps to work out ideas and think through research.
The article I’m just writing for Stockholm University on Social Media resources has also been researched in Tinderbox with a mind-map to help me track URLs to important sites, points of connections between the sites as well as quotes and ideas. One great feature of Tinderbox is that you can drag a URL directly into a mind-map and use that note as a bookmark for opening the site.

Sometimes great communication comes from organizing your ideas before you speak or write. Tinderbox helps me do that.

If you have any links to Tinderbox mind-maps shared on the Net, please post them in the comments.

Update: Mark Bernstein shares some complex Tinderbox maps.

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3. Build a Business Blog Culture Around You
4. Social Media is a “Find me” Search Engine
5. Twitter’s Hot – But Nurture Your Website

Tagged as: disruptive media, notes, tinderbox