Tablet Software - Mind Manager 

Having talked about why I settled on the TC1000 to give some insight (the new TC1100 with the Pentium M looks really sharp as does the Acer with the 14” screen) into the reasons why it was chosen as a new laptop over traditional laptops, one must wonder where the value comes in?

For those of you that have not heard or seen any “mind mapping” tools, Mind Manager from MindJet software is one that’s been around for some time in various incarnations. Although I’ve tried these tools out on PC’s before this is one of the first applications that truly takes advantage of the tablets capabilities and in doing so puts the PC versions to shame.

Mind mapping is a fairly straightforward concept – you have a topic in the centre of your page that serves as your focal point. From there, you draw connections outward for various topics, points of interest, concerns, etc. and from each of these you add more. What you get in the end is a diagram of your thoughts as well as how they interrelate. Check out an example HTML version of one here.

Now that you’ve seen a mind map and hopefully I’ve given at least a minimal idea of what they’re all about it will be fairly straightforward to illustrate the value that the Tablet affords this approach. Using the PC version with the mouse and keyboard, whilst workable, has never been very fluid and I’m seriously into things that work smoothly – I hate friction. The tablet version of Mind Manager works identically to the PC version bar one fundamental addition – true support for the tablet approach.

How does this take shape? In many instances where you’d have had to right-click and choose the option you can use your stylus to perform the same action directly simply by gesturing – e.g. to add a new box to write in simple drag a line from the box you’d like it connected to either right or left of it and a new box appears, ready to go. Even better, the boxes accept handwriting and fully support the Ink data type from Microsoft so that you may leave your mind maps in your own personal handwriting or alternatively convert them to text that anyone can read.

So what’s the value? I tried Mind Manager tablet edition initially as it was one of the first “true” tablet oriented applications (not just something with basic functionality slapped in and labelled a tablet app) and found myself quickly enamoured of it. Going in to meetings and using Mind Manager to “visualise” the strategies being discussed, highlight conflicting elements, underscore opportunities and more was an incredibly simple process and the learning curve was near zero. Even more valuable is the ability to send your maps around to team members (the viewer is free) as well as convert them to various formats such as HTML (like the link shown earlier), XML – even a Word outline format. The upshot of this is that before a meeting has even finished adjourning my notes can be summed up and sent out to everyone ensuring we’re all on the same page rapidly and effectively.

That Mind Manager truly uses the capabilities of the tablet so that I can use mine in slate mode (which is as disruptive as taking notes on a pad of paper) versus the laptop type and disrupt approach is even better.

If you have a tablet and are on the go in numerous meetings and/or consultancy style situations then this is a must have application to make your life simpler.