Welcome fellow MindMeisters (and non-meisters)! This is our inaugural post in a coming series of tips and tricks that highlight some of the ‘little known’ functions you can do with MindMeister. We’ll start with something simple, stay tuned for future MeisterTips.
Whether you’re conducting a SWOT analysis of your competition and want to link out to their website, a student or professor using internal links to further explain a topic, or an individual user using links to point viewers to additional mind maps you may have created; using links is a great way to enrich your dataset. There are two unique ways to add links to your mind map: either manually, or using our WunderLink feature to seek out the most relevant topic link.
Manually entering links
The option to add links can be found under the Extras panel in the sidebar. The default linking option is set to URL. You can either manually type the web address into this field or paste the address from a separate browser window. Clicking anywhere else on your mind map will associate this link to your node. Chances are, you’ve already found the best link possible for your idea, but why not let the power of the Internet double check for you? By clicking on Advanced, you’ll be presented with a dialogue box that will automatically search for the most relevant links to your topic. If you find a link that better suits your topic, simply click on it, and then OK. This will then automatically insert the link to your selected node.
Internal linking
Similar to adding URL links, you can also link to topics within your current mind map, or any other of your MindMeister mind maps. From the links dropdown list, select ‘Topic’. Clicking in the text input area will then launch a dialogue box. By default, you’re presented with the option to link to different ideas within your mind map. This can be particularly beneficial in a mind map with a wide variety of nodes.
If you’d like to link to a completely different map altogether, you can select it from the dropdown menu at the top of this dialogue box. Selecting a new map will also give you the option to link to specific nodes (even sub nodes) within this new map, or the root node itself.
Email Links
Last but not least, you can also add email links to any selected node. Again, from the dropdown list, select Email. In the text input field, enter the email address you’d like to associate with this link. As with URLs, clicking anywhere else within your mind map will insert this link. You can even add multiple email addresses by separating them with commas.
Advanced Linking Options
Using WunderLink
The second method of adding links to your nodes is by letting the power of the Internet do the heavy lifting for you. Our WunderLink feature can be accessed by clicking on the gear logo located directly below the link dropdown menu. Technically speaking, WunderLink uses an API from Yahoo! to present you with the top search results based on your node text. 99.44 percent of the time, the link that WunderNote suggests will be the most relevant to your topic. If it’s not, or you do not want to use the link WunderLink has suggested, there are two options to change it.
The first method involves clicking the gear logo again. WunderLink will then insert the second search result from Yahoo! Clicking again will give you the third result, and so on.
The second method involves manually selecting the link(s) suggested by Yahoo! If you’d rather select the result yourself from Yahoo!’s results, you can access this via the ‘Advanced’ panel. Below ‘Show most popular results for ‘x’’ you can select any one of these search results to be used as your link.
By adding links to your mind map nodes you can exponentially add value and content, and thereby comprehension to your end user or collaborative team. Whether you choose to enter them manually, or by using our WunderLink feature, adding links can breathe new levels of understanding and interactivity into your mind map.
Since it’s inception in 1984, the TED events have been all about “Ideas Worth Spreading”. Realizing that they couldn’t be everywhere all the time, the TED group established the TEDx program, which allows private individuals to organize, design, and host events that are meant to provide attendees with a TED-like experience.
Tomorrow, another TEDx event will be taking place in the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam. Similar to other TED events that take place around the world, the TEDxAmsterdam event has a full schedule in place with speakers ranging from the Minister of European Affairs to the President of Programming and Development at MTV. In all, 450 option and business leaders from all walks of life will be attending the event hosted at the Royal Tropical Institute.
Since many a good idea have come out of previous TED events around the world, the TEDxAmsterdam organizers are going above and beyond to ensure that even those that could not attend the event in person will be able to share in the experience.
Live mind mapping courtesy of MindMeister
Even though we’ll not be physically at the event, MindMeister has been selected to take part in the TED experience. Throughout the day, selected speakers will have their talks mind mapped in real time using our software service. The live mind mapping team includes Alexis van Dam from hypershifters.com, Ronald Vijfhuizen of WorldofMinds.com and Jerre Lubberts from aHaCoaching.nl.
Our Dutch partners will be constructing mind maps of these talks live, and they’ll not only be projected around the event for all participants to view, but also live streamed at http://www.mindmeister.com/TEDxAmsterdam2009 for the entire world to share in.
The schedule of expected speakers can be found here, and events range from 9 am to 9 pm Central European Time. Should you not be able to tune in to any of the live mind mapping events, we’ll be archiving the content on the above URL for future reference and viewing.
Many thanks go out to the live mind mapping team in Amsterdam, and a sincere ‘enjoy!’ to all speakers and attendees of tomorrows event.
We’ll be launching some new features and also conduct a major upgrade to our servers this weekend, starting Saturday November 7 at 10pm (UTC) until Sunday morning at about 6am (UTC). MindMeister.com will be unavailable during this period. To figure out when we are offline in your time zone please consult timeanddate.com.
Please avoid taking your maps offline with Google Gears before the downtime as we’re also upgrading MindMeister’s offline capabilities.
You may have noticed that the front page of MindMeister is wearing it’s very own Halloween costume today (you need to be logged out to see it). While technically Halloween doesn’t get fully underway until tomorrow evening, we’re betting that there’s some trick or treating already going on in your office, classroom, or anywhere else you use MindMeister.
And as is customary with events surrounding All Hallows Eve, we’ve got a bit of Trick-or-Treating going on at the MeisterLabs as well. There were a number of ideas bantered around the office (inverting all maps color schemes, replacing all icons with Jack-O-Lanterns, etc.), we decided that it might be best to keep all the tricks in-house, and send the treats out to the MindMeister community.
In lieu of sending out packets of sugary goodies to each and every one of you (dentists rejoice!), we thought we’d do the next best thing – save you a bit of dough.
Until the stroke of Midnight on October 31st, we’re offering a 20 percent discount on all Premium account upgrades and purchases.
As a reminder, Premium account benefits include:
An unlimited amount of mindmaps vs. a limit of 3 with Basic accounts
Export MindMeister maps to FreeMind and MindManager™ formats
Hi folks! No new announcements regarding the MindMeister service and/or our iPhone app. Rather, I’d like to take this space to introduce myself. My name is Dan Taylor, I’m an American living in Vienna, Austria, and I’ve recently started working with the team at MindMeister.
I must admit, prior to sitting down with Michael and talking through what MindMeister is, and what you can accomplish with it, I hadn’t really used a service like this before. Fast forward just a few days, and I’ve started mapping out a few projects that I’m working on, adding timelines, due dates, priority, connections, links…in other words, I’ve tasted the MindMeister kool-aid, and I’m hooked.
A little bit about me. I’ve been involved with the online space for over 10 years now, starting out during the first dot com boom selling online ad space for an entertainment portal (remember banner ads? Yeah…I sold them). Post bubble burst, I had an outstanding opportunity to move to the United Kingdom and work with a fundraising agency that worked with some amazing charities around the world. Just over a year later, it was time to pack the bags again, as I was asked to move back to the states, and together with a partner, founded and built the American branch of said organization. Here, I filled the shoes of National Recruitment Manager. A few years, and a whole lotta advertising and brand marketing later, I took the position of Director of Marketing at a prominent online video sharing site. With one thing leading to the other, I moved to Austria with my wife just over two years ago. Since this time, I started working as a marketing consultant, and have been involved in a number of campaigns and projects, everything from SEO to Social Media engagement, original content creation, video and graphics works, and the list goes on.
What interests me most about MindMeister is the untapped potential of every single one of our users. Sure, MindMeister is a great way to map out thoughts and ideas, but what gets me going are some of the truly incredible ways some individuals and companies are using our product. Toss the GeistesBlitz arm of MindMeister’s services in there, and you’ve got some truly staggering power at your fingertips.
So thanks again to Michael and the entire MindMeister team for their more than welcoming gestures. And thank you to all of you who’ve made MindMeister a success thus far.
As I’m now privy to see what’s going on behind the scenes at the MindMeister camp, I’m not willing to tell you what we’ve got in store over the next few months, but I will say this….watch this space, as some new and exciting things will start appearing soon!
Post-It notes are great for jotting down ideas, one liners, and reminders to grab some milk on the way home, but they do have limitations. How many times have you dashed down a though or idea on a post it, cocktail napkin, or scrap sheet of paper, only to go searching for it hours or days later? I’m fairly certain we can all relate to this situation. Enter, Geistesblitz.
Much more than just a note taking tool, our new free iPhone application, Geistesblitz brings a whole new level to your ‘flashes of genius’ with on the spot submissions and online organization and storage. Users can create a free MindMeister account from within the application, and begin organizing thoughts-on-the-go instantly.
GEISTESBLITZ, (noun, m.) ['gæstes blîts]: literally translated as mind flash, is a sudden insight or idea, often brilliant and unexpected. Consisting of the German words Geist (as in Zeitgeist) and Blitz (as in Blitzen, that lightning-fast reindeer of Santa Claus), it is probably best translated into English as brain wave or flash of genius.
Once signed in, all entries to the Geistesblitz app are instantly updated within the users’ default mindmap. As with all MindMeister maps, these ideas, reminders, thoughts can then be manipulated in a variety of ways. Connections can be made, links applied to ideas, and notes can even be added to your notes.
Posting a Geistesblitz to your default map
Perhaps you’ve struck upon an idea that’s taking on a life of it’s own with sub categories and notes. Why not break it out into it’s own mind map? Within your online account, a simple right click presents you with the option to take this one point and create a new map from it.
In addition to upping your GTD score, having Geistesblitz at your side ensures that no idea should ever be scribbled down on a scrap piece of paper, and consequently lost, ever again.
As many of you may have already noticed, there were a few hiccups with the release of our iPhone application update last week. Thankfully, we managed to locate the source of the problem and promptly shut off the application in the app store.
While we ran a number of tests here on our end, it seems as though no one in the office thought to check the most basic of features: empty your local account and start with a new map. D’oh! To that we say – our bad.
Those of you already using our iPhone application have spoken volumes about what you like, what you don’t like, and everything in between. One of the most common requested features was the ability to open and close branches within mind maps. In the new update, users now have the ability to toggle branches, thereby making it much easier to read large maps on a smaller screen. Likewise, many MindMeister iPhone app users requested the ability to add notes via a double click feature. A tap-tap gesture anywhere on the canvas now brings up the notes feature, allowing you to clarify, illustrate, or emphasize any points within your mind map. More features – above all editing of colors, nodes and styles on the device – are coming soon.
As a special thank you to those of you that were chomping at the bit to get your hands on our shiny new update, only to have it abruptly taken away, for a limited time only, we’re offering a special price reduction. Originally priced at €5.49 / $6.99, the MindMeister application for iPhone is now available in the app store for €3.99 / $4.99 until October 10th.
As a post script, we’d also like to send out a hearty thanks to the Apple iPhone application review team, for their understanding and speedy turn around in getting our update out to the world.
As you might have read on Twitter we had to temporarily pull the latest update of the MindMeister iPhone app from the App Store because of a nasty bug that somehow made it through our QA. The new version 2.0.1 that we submitted about two weeks ago added some often requested features such as open/close branches and create new nodes by double-tapping, but unfortunately crashes on creation of new local maps. That’s a showstopper of course so we decided to remove the app from sale until we can get a fixed version approved by Apple.
So if you saw an update to the app in the App Store and tried to download it you might have received a “This item is no longer available” message. We’re very sorry for the inconveniences, please bear with us for a little while until we get Apple to review and release the fixed version.
P.S. Any ideas on how to expedite the App Store review process are very welcome…
It is done – the new MindMeister application for iPhone and iPod touch has finally arrived in the App Store! Those who’ve followed its progress know that it has been a rather slow birth, but nonetheless we’ve made it there in the end.
The new MindMeister iPhone application allows you to take your online mind maps with you wherever you go. Just sign in to your MindMeister account when you first start the app, browse and download your mind maps for local editing and let the application take care of synchronising them with the cloud.
Feature overview:
Create, view, and edit maps online and offline
Seamlessly sync maps with your online MindMeister account
Share maps directly from iPhone
Full drag & drop support
Zoom in and out
Add children and sibling nodes
Support for icons, colors, styles *
Favorites and pending maps
Geistesblitz (quickly insert ideas)
Use with or without MindMeister account
* view only – edit support coming soon!
MindMeister for iPhone + iPod touch is officially available in the App Store now for only $6.99 / €5.49. It works with any MindMeister account – even the free Basic one – and pretty much all iPhone / iPod touch versions (minimum OS 2.2.1).
Upgrading from MindMaker?
You might remember that the MindMeister iPhone app was developed from MindMaker, which we acquired from Ultravague a while ago (that’s also why the publisher in the App Store is not MindMeister but Ultravague). So if you’ve already been using MindMaker this upgrade is completely free for you!
When you start the new app the first time your existing mind maps will automatically be converted to the new format. Then, once you sign up for a MindMeister account (the Basic one will do – but feel free to go Premium straight away), all your local maps will be synched to the MindMeister server. This means online access and backup, import and export in many formats, easy sharing and collaboration, and much much more.
Robin Good, new media guru and avid publisher of some of the popular public maps on MindMeister, has just posted a new online guide about web-based mind mapping tools on his blog, www.masternewmedia.org. As all of Robin’s guides this is a very well-researched and thorough guide to all the mapping tools currently available on the web, detailing features as well as pro’s and con’s of each solution.
We’re glad to be part of the list and especially grateful that Robin and his team chose MindMeister for creating the accompanying mind map – here it is:
As mentioned above, Robin has done quite a few very popular online guides with MindMeister over the last couple of months – here’s a short list of his top 5 (ranked by popularity):
This is the weblog of www.mindmeister.com, the online mind mapping tool. In the true spirit of Web 2.0 we've decided to abandon our anti-social news page for a nice commentable blog. There are lots of greatmind mappingblogs out there so we'll restrict ourselves to discussing MindMeister related stuff only (that's a promise!). Find out more
The option to add links can be found under the Extras panel in the sidebar. The default linking option is set to URL. You can either manually type the web address into this field or paste the address from a separate browser window. Clicking anywhere else on your mind map will associate this link to your node. Chances are, you’ve already found the best link possible for your idea, but why not let the power of the Internet double check for you? By clicking on Advanced, you’ll be presented with a dialogue box that will automatically search for the most relevant links to your topic. If you find a link that better suits your topic, simply click on it, and then OK. This will then automatically insert the link to your selected node.
Similar to adding URL links, you can also link to topics within your current mind map, or any other of your MindMeister mind maps. From the links dropdown list, select ‘Topic’. Clicking in the text input area will then launch a dialogue box. By default, you’re presented with the option to link to different ideas within your mind map. This can be particularly beneficial in a mind map with a wide variety of nodes.
I must admit, prior to sitting down with Michael and talking through what MindMeister is, and what you can accomplish with it, I hadn’t really used a service like this before. Fast forward just a few days, and I’ve started mapping out a few projects that I’m working on, adding timelines, due dates, priority, connections, links…in other words, I’ve tasted the MindMeister kool-aid, and I’m hooked.
