XMind

Brainstorming and Mindmapping!

This is an excellent post of elevating our performance by mind mapping software from Chuck Frey, a famous mind mapping blogger.

Mind mapping software is a powerful tool for savvy executives who want to improve their impact and effectiveness in their work. No software tool is better suited to help you think deeply about your work and to increase the value of your contributions to others in your organization.
Here are 16 powerful ways mind mapping software can help you to elevate your performance and make a bigger impact in your work (click on the image above for an expanded mind map showing all 16 benefits):

Productivity
1. Manage information overload and stay better organized
2. Reach clarity faster on complex business issues
3. Make better informed decisions
4. Plan projects and manage tasks easier

Analysis/ critical thinking
1. Analyze problems more thoroughly
2. See patterns and holes in information more readily
3. Play with ideas, possibilities and scenarios easily

 Creativity
1. Great tool for exploration and discovery
2. Be more of a “whole-brained” thinker – left and right sides – analytical AND creative
3. Capture ideas lurking at the periphery of your thinking
4. Mind mapping provides a visual guide to the connections between ideas
5. It bypasses the “inner critic” – you can easily do a brain dump and organize your thoughts later

Collaboration
1. Reach shared understandings of business issues in meetings
2. Get people more engaged in brainstorming sessions
3. It enhances the group’s ability to do systems-level thinking
4. It captures a “group memory” or history of what has been discussed in the meeting

I agree with Chuck Frey’s points for his complete and specific analysis. As a visualize thinker, I’ve seen the benefit that mind map has brought to the users. As professional mind mapping software, XMind has offered more opportunities for elevating our performance.
I often use XMind for managing fragmented information and making strategic thinking. Then, How do you use XMind for elevating your performance?

XMind offers many keyboard shortcuts. Working with shortcuts can really save the time and free your mind to find where is the mouse. So knowing them well will bring you great convenience. Here are some important and helpful shortcuts for your references.

• F2 to edit selected topic
• F3 to add label
• Ctrl+N to new a blank workbook
• Ctrl+T to new a blank sheet within workbook
• Ctrl+F6 to switch Workbook
• Tab to insert subtopic
• F7 to begin mapshot

Below map introduces all working shortcuts in XMind. Please read and enjoy your XMind.

Aftre releasing XMind 2012, XMind website gets 441,808 visitors around the world (about 10,000 visitors everyday). And top 10 teritorries are, Unisted States, German, China Mailand, TaiWan, France, Japan, Brazil, Mecixo, Russia, and United Kingdom.
XMind Software, including XMind for Windows, XMind for Mac, XMind for Linux and XMind Portable, has 267,375 downloads from official website (about 6000 times everyday).
XMind new Support System recieves more than 900 cases. People shared many many good suggestions with us. And more than 2000 public maps are uploaded to XMind Share.

We really really want to say thanks to all people. Your support has always been our motivation. And now, XMind team is preparing a mirror update for XMind 2012, to let it more stable.

Below are a few XMind usage tips,

• Move topics free
• Benefit from XMind Portable package
• Create the dependency fast in Gantt chart view
• Insert priority marker quickly
• How to know what XMind version I use?

We will add more articles about using XMind in the support system.

From XMind 2012, all xmind online service are free, including private sharing the online map with others.

Normal Share

1. Luanch xmind, open a map
2. Click Share button on the toolbar
3. In the coming upload dialog, add description for this map, select Public or Unlisted in the privacy page, and upload this map
4. In the coming finish notification dialog, click See It Now
5. Then, you’ll see this map online, and share its URL to others via email, IM tool, twitter and etc.

Private Share

The first two steps are same with normal share.

1. In the coming upload dialog, add description for this map, select Private in the privacy page, and upload this map
2. Go to this map page, click share to button on map’s description area
3. Input the xmind ids or emails of friends, colleagues and others,  then click ok.
4. XMind.net system will send every one an invitation email.

Then, your friends or colleagues can review this map online or download to their computers to do modifications.

BTW, to let people read full map online, it will be better to expand all branches before uploading it.

Besides updating XMind open source and XMind Pro Subscription package, XMind 2012 also instrduces two new life-time plans, XMind Plus 2012 and XMind Pro 2012.

These two plans have different arrangment on features. XMind Pro 2012 has all features, and XMind Plus not.

Only $79, XMind Plus 2012 offers users many wide-used features, like Export to Word/PPT, Export to PDF, Image Gallery, Extract Theme, Map Shot, Map Merge, and etc. We believe these great features will be very helpful on your work, thinking, and communication. More important, while placing order, you can even choose to enjoy 2-year upgrade with just $29!

XMind Pro 2012 offers all features, like Brainstorming mode, Presentation, Gantt chart view, Powerful search, Encrypt with password, TaskInfo view and etc. It offers the best support to your business work, project management, personal plan. Of course, it has a reasonal price, $99 for life time!

Want to know more about them? Lear now.

Hello, everyone. Long time to wait. Today we’ve made XMind new version and the brand-new website available.

new XMind 2012

re-designed Gantt Chart
People like this feature very much although the old one is hard to use. So we improved it. In fact, we really spent much time on this. And we belive the time is worthy.

New Gantt chart supports to modify state/end date, create dependency between tasks and change timeline scale. It also works with the Drilldown feature. When drilling down in the map, gantt chart will focus on this branch only. And more important, XMind will keep enhancing this view to serve you better.

Revision
This is a very helpful feature for students, teachers, project managers, and any person who cares about how he thought things before. Revision offers the opportunity to review how map was days before and even revert back to it. Yes, back to every revision in this map from very beginning.

BTW, this feature is available in XMind free package too. At present, you can just review revisions. In the future, you could be able to do comparison between revisions.

Spellcheck view
After receiving many many requirements, XMind does have a spellcheck view now. This is a free feature. You can open it from menu, “View — Other — General — Spelling“.
It offers the option to scan current sheet or all opened workbooks, and lists the results with entire path in the map. Double-clicking one result will dirently bring you to that topic or note with error. Very simple.

New XMind packages, New business mode
This is a big and important change. Besides XMind Pro Subscription version, there are XMind Plus 2012 and XMind Pro 2012, two life-time versions. Yes, XMind offers the perpetual license now!

Below mind map shows more details of this update. Please review it online or download to read on your computer.

Brand-new XMind.net

In the meantime, XMind.net has a big change. The overall style is re-designed.

• Clean home page with more useful information
• Content-rich but easy-understand feature page
• Download and pricing pages with better usability
• Mind map page bringing the great new experience on map navigation
• The New support center

Can’t wait? Download now!

This month, we receive many emails focusing on some same questions. I believe many other users have these questions too. So it’s necessary to write a post to share them publicly.

Q. I work in a business organization. Can I use XMind free version in the office?
A. No problem. There are no any limitations on where to use XMind free version. BTW, it is an open source software dual licensed under two licenses, LGPL and EPL. If you’re a developer, and want to do something, please bear the licenses.

Q. I have bought XMind Pro subscription code via paypal, where is my code?
A. XMind Pro Subscription code has 25 letters and numbers. If you buy with paypal, because of paypal’s rule, XMind system will send the subscription code to the primary email of your paypal account soon after your payment. If you can not find this email at inbox, please also check about the spam folder.

Q. I’m a XMind Pro user, and have a PC and Mac. Should I ordered two subscription codes if using XMind Pro on both of them?
A. No need. Current XMind Pro uses Subscription mode. So once your XMind account has been renewed by subscription code, you can launch XMind, sign in with this renewed XMind Account and enjoy XMind Pro anywhere.

Q. I have not seen any update of XMind for a few months. Are you still working on it?
A. Yes, and we’re working on XMind new version. It should not take long time to wait.

Here we introduce a short but great video. This video will help us to know XMind and Mind mapping better.

(This is a very good post about why we need visual thinking by Chuck Frey, a famous blogger in mind mapping and visual thinking area.)

Dan Roam, author of the visual mapping books The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures and Blah, Blah, Blah: What To Do When Words Don’t Work, compares the process of visual thinking to carving a faceted diamond out of a rough piece of the crystalline substance. This is a very powerful analogy.

In their natural state, diamonds do not look like the beautiful, multi-faceted gemstones that are one of the world’s most valuable substances. Instead, they look like a lump of crystal. In much the same way, raw information must be carved and shaped to create something of meaning and value. Most people don’t know how to do this.

It takes an experienced diamond cutter to carve the stone and reveal the beautiful facets of the diamond. In much the same way, a visual thinker dissects a large pile of information, classifies it, organizes it and converts it into a cohesive visual presentation out of it that is thrilling to behold. Visual thinkers need to be skilled at systems-level thinking, able to recognize patterns and connections within the bits of information they have gathered, and a keen eye for separating valuable elements from the useless bits.

In both diamond cutting and visual thinking the primary process is one of simplification, cutting away that which is not of value and maximizing the presentation of the parts that remain Like a diamond, information has multiple facets; in a mind map, these are reflected as primary topics, each containing a depth of subtopics, much like the reflections and refractions within a fine diamond.

The final point of comparison between diamonds and visual mapping can be found in the worth of the raw material versus the finished product. Coal has little value. It’s basically carbon formed into a shale-like substance. But compressed under the proper heat and pressure conditions for millions of years and then chiseled and shaped by an experienced diamond cutter, it is transformed into something of incomparable value. In the same way, a visual mapper takes a pile of information and knowledge and transforms it into something of much greater value – a business decision, a plan or a multi-million dollar idea.

That’s the power and value of visual thinking.

After few years, XMind Share has been proved be a very good service. Without much advertise, now, there are 43,621 maps. And we pick out 3,094 featured maps, and 1,067 DailyMap. People share their mind maps, learn from others’ and understand how to benefit from mind map, and etc. We hear these kind stories every day.

During this period, we are glad to see that more and more people spend attention on mind map and mind mapping software, like Biggerplate, the website focusing on sharing mind map. On Biggerplate, there are more than 245,000 maps made by four mind mapping software. It also offers us an opportunity to learn from other tools.

Recently, Biggerplate releases an important feature, GROUP, which is very useful. The members can round up maps those relate to our area of interest as a GROUP, then introduce it to others. Of course, we have a XMind official Group on it too. It will offer a different experience from XMind Share. Worth to try!