MindGenius Business Offers Impressive Features & Functionality

MIND GENIUS MIND MAPPING BRAINSTORMING SOFTWARE TOOL FOR BUSINESS
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MindGenius Business Offers Impressive Features & Functionality for Mind Mapping

If you're looking for a mind mapping program that is easy to use yet provides an unparalleled depth of features and functionality, then you really ought to take a look at MindGenius Mind Mapping Software from Gael Ltd. Its developers have done a great job in creating a mind mapping "power tool" that can help you to capture and manage your ideas and knowledge in some powerful and flexible ways. This is one of the most polished and fully-featured mind mapping tools available today.

Building a mind map with MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

MindGenius is designed to help you record your ideas quickly, without getting in the way of your creative "flow." Once you have given your map a title, simply type your first idea and hit the enter key; then type your second idea, hit enter, and so on. MindGenius Mind Mapping Software automatically puts each word or phrase on a separate branch, radiating out from your central idea. No muss, no fuss -- just a very streamlined process for building a map, without having to think about how to use the program.

The "add a branch" dialog box contains a text form field, where you type the contents of your new branch. But it also contains a "details" button; when you click on it, it expands to display 4 tabbed sections, which enable you to specify font, shape, connector and margin properties for the branch. Click on the details button again and the dialog box contracts to the simple view. This hide/show functionality accommodates both new and experienced users, a real plus. Double-clicking on an existing branch is another way to access the branch properties dialog box.

Second-level branches appear within rounded rectangles; only at the third level do they appear as text-based branches. I think this actually results in a neater looking map than the way other mind mapping programs handle this. You can easily modify global map settings using a Map Styles dialog box. So if you want your map to have a more traditional (Tony Buzan) look, with all text placed on branch lines and no symbols, you can quickly do so.

MindGenius makes extensive use of right-click commands in Windows, which is a real productivity booster. Right-clicking over an existing branch displays no less than 15 different context-sensitive commands that enable you to quickly modify the properties of an individual branch.

Focus on a branch with MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

Sometimes, when I'm working on a large, complex mind map, I get overwhelmed by the amount of detail it contains. MindGenius solves this problem with a "Make Focus" command, which displays the currently-selected branch as if it was the central theme of the map, while hiding everything else. This allows you to concentrate on fully developing one idea, without unnecessary distractions.

You can also right-click on any branch and select the "Make Focus" command to accomplish the same thing. However, there didn't seem to be a corresponding "focus out" command, but you can still get back to a view of the entire map using the Explorer View navigation method I've already described.

The MindGenius toolbar contains a number of buttons for sizing your map in the program's main window: actual size, best fit and auto-fit. I especially like the auto-fit command, which automatically adjusts the magnification of your map as you resize the program window, so that it always fills the workspace. At one point, I was trying to position MindGenius and Microsoft Word windows side-by-side, and the auto-fit command came in quite handy, eliminating the need to manually zoom in or out on my map until I found the right magnification.

The Map Explorer in MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

One of the things that makes MindGenius unique is the way that it displays two views of your information, side-by-side. A visual map editor takes up the majority of the screen, and is where you build your mind maps. While you are doing so, MindGenius simultaneously creates an outline view of it in a smaller vertical window called the Map Explorer. The Explorer view automatically updates itself as you add branches to your map, and displays them a linear indented manner -- in other words, like a hierarchical text outline.

If you click on an item in the Map Explorer view, MindGenius redraws your map "focused in" on the selected branch, which is displayed at the center of the screen. If you click on your map's key topic at the top of the explorer window, your entire map re-appears in the diagram window. I found this feature to be somewhat confusing. The program's help file says that if you double-click on an item in the Map Explorer, the map view is redrawn with the selected branch as the center of a "focused in" view. But it actually does the same thing if you single- or double-click, which limits its usefulness as a map navigation tool. It would be nice if you could click an item once in the Map Explorer view, and have the corresponding branch highlighted and centered in the map view (with your entire map still visible around it) – so you could add more child topics to that branch, for example.

If you don't want to use the Map Explorer, you can easily toggle it on and off in the program's settings.

Formatting your map

MindGenius Mind Mapping Software allows you to create five different types of radial mindmaps (with branches radiating outward from your central concept in all directions), plus:

·	Affinity diagrams

·	Input and output trees

·	Organizational charts (which the program calls "organograms"), and

·	Funnel diagrams.

MindGenius gives you unprecedented control over formatting the arrangement of the branches of your maps. The program's toolbar includes icons that allow you to easily increase or decrease the vertical spacing between branches, and between the branches and their parent topic -- a neat feature that is unique to MindGenius.

If two ideas in your map should be associated with each other, you can create a "mental connection" between them, displayed as a colored, dotted line -- very useful when using MindGenius for brainstorming.

Customizing your workspace with MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

You can select individual toolbar icons that you want to display or hide, just like with any Microsoft Office program. Individual toolbars can be dragged around the workspace, and can either float within the workspace, or can be docked to any window border. For example, I moved the map layout toolbar to the border between the Explorer pane and the map workspace -- very convenient and flexible. In addition, the Explorer and Notes windows can be hidden, if you prefer to maximize space to work on your map. These options make it fairly easy to customize MindGenius to fit your preferences.

Business-focused map templates in MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

MindGenius Business ships with six business-focused templates, which are very valuable. They include:

·	Who/what/when/where/why how - fully understand a situation or task, and "tease" out as much relevant information as possible

·	SWOT analysis (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats)

·	Self-evaluation (of your own job performance)

·	Performance evaluation (useful for assessing and summarizing past performance, and to develop future work, performance goals and expectations)

·	Managing a meeting (tips for meeting success)

·	Company profile (Covers the information required to write an effective company profile - helps you to answer the question, "What do you do?")

I opened up a new map based on the "who/what/when/where/why" template, and was pleasantly surprised not only to find major branches already populated with the "5 W's and H," but each of them also contained four to 11 questions, arranged as sub-branches of these main categories. This looks like it could be an excellent problem-solving tool!

Sharing your maps in MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

MindGenius Business enables you to export a map directly to an e-mail form, sort of like the "mail to" command in the Microsoft Office programs. MindGenius Viewer can be embedded with your map into an executable file, which contains both your mind map and the viewer. The MindGenius Viewer can also be downloaded for free from the MindGenius Web site. Both options are very useful if you want to send your map to someone who doesn't have MindGenius installed on their computer.

Rich import/export options

MindGenius' developers view a mind map not as an end in itself, but rather a starting point, a tool to organize your thinking – which you can then export to another business productivity program like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint for further refinement. Accordingly, the program offers the most extensive set of file export capabilities of any mind mapping program I've seen, including:

Text

RTF

MS Word

·	MS Project

·	PowerPoint

·	HTML Web page

·	XML documents

·	Export actions to MS Outlook

·	Save mind map as a graphic file

·	Pocket Mindmap file

·	MindGenius BrainBloom file (a version of MindGenius designed for the Tablet PC)

·	MindMapper

·	Mind Manager

VisiMap

MindGenius is even configured to support MS Intellimouse functions (the mouse with the scroll wheel). You can use the scroll wheel to scroll the map vertically, as well as to zoom in on a map and to expand/contract an outline – nice!

Conclusion - MindGenius Mind Mapping Software

I was pleasantly surprised by MindGenius Business. It's a very polished, easy-to-use mind mapping program that gives competitors like MindManager and VisiMap a real run for their money. Gael Ltd. has clearly focused on the typical needs and common tasks of business users, and it shows, with features like the excellent templates, the Map Explorer view, the program's Microsoft Office-like toolbars and the number of options for sharing and exporting your files.

Another big plus is that Gael Ltd. has done a savvy job of designing this program. This is one of those software applications that enables first-time users to become productive quickly, with a minimal learning curve. Yet it has some very useful "power tools" for advanced users, which can easily be accessed in a number of ways, including right-click commands and customizable toolbars.

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