Hand drawn mind maps have a rich history and are widely used today, thanks to the pioneering work of people like Tony Buzan, who has written many books and speaks widely on the subject. They are a powerful, colorful and memorable way to represent ideas and information. But they only scratch the surface of whats possible with todays mind mapping software an electronic form of visual mapping that utilizes many of the rules and conventions of mind mapping as a foundation, but adds some powerful new capabilities, including these ten 1. Mind mapping software enables you to arrange information in expandable and collapsible topic trees. This makes it possible to store much more information in a software produced visual map, without overwhelming you. Because of this, you can use it to create sophisticated knowledge models that wouldnt be possible on paper. Mind Vector is the best mind mapping software, which is used for concept map making, brainstorming, business planning managing ideas. This tool is available for. The average person has thousands of thoughts each day. Our brainstorms are rarely strategic. A Mind Map helps you capture a mess of thoughts and bring them in order. Software. Find out how millions of users worldwide have revolutionised the way they think, plan, create, present, organise and more. MindMap is the leading software. Mind mapping software enables you to embed documents, links, notes and other data within the structure of your map, transforming it into the equivalent of a powerful visual database. What this means is that you can create a project map that contains shortcuts to a wealth of supporting information. Whether thats stored in Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, web pages or even individual e mails, its all just a click away. Thats a big time saver In addition, to avoid visual clutter, many programs enable you to sub divide large maps into linked sub maps. That enables you to capture all of the details of large projects in a manageable format. Mind mapping software enables you to re arrange the topics in your map at will, until it perfectly represents your ideas. Download Tony Buzan Mind Mapping Free Software' title='Download Tony Buzan Mind Mapping Free Software' />In contrast, unless you have a really big eraser, its hard to move topics in a hand drawn mind map. Your topics are more or less anchored to the paper. Every time you move a topic within a software produced mind map, you re factor it. In other words, the parent idea to which you attach a topic changes its meaning and context. That enables your brain to generate new ideas, and to see connections between existing ideas. A software produced visual map isnt just something you create once and forget about. Because you can update its contents as needed, it can become a powerful tool for managing your projects and tracking their progress on an ongoing basis. At the completion of a project, you can also create a branch or sub map that captures the lessons your team learned which will help you to streamline future projects. Download Tony Buzan Mind Mapping Free Software' title='Download Tony Buzan Mind Mapping Free Software' />Seen in this context, mind mapping software can be an immensely powerful management tool Mind mapping software enables you to export your ideas to other types of software, such as word processors, presentation and project management software. This enables you to use your visual map as a creative front end to almost any type of project a place to give form and structure to your ideas. For example, if youre a writer, you can create a detailed visual outline of your article or book, and keep track of everything from character profiles and plot points to potential publishers and a marketing plan for your prose. Mind mapping software also opens up new opportunities for collaboration that dont exist with hand drawn maps. You can e mail a map youve created to others on your team or upload it to a shared workspace, where they can annotate or add to it. Several mind mapping applications also enable multiple people to work on a map at the same time. Another powerful advantage of mind mapping software is that you can utilize it to present your ideas, which makes it a powerful alternative to Power. Point. Whats more, you can even update your presentation with comments from your audience, which helps to increase their buy in to your ideas. Thats something you couldnt even dream of doing with Power. Point 8.   Another unique capability of mind mapping software is that it can be used with an LCD projector and screen to record and display ideas during a group brainstorming session. Theres something very powerful about seeing your ideas recorded in real time, and placed in context with all of the other ideas the group has brainstormed, that just isnt possible with flip charts and colored markers. Another unique capability of mind mapping software is that you can utilize it to create your own information dashboard a map that consolidates a wealth of data that you need to manage into a single, visually oriented screen. Finally, what makes mind mapping software unique is its flexibility. The number of different things you can do with it from a business, education or personal standpoint is amazing. You can use it to plan a meeting, develop a business plan, manage a project, write a book, track your personal goals, create a database of ideas, create lists of tasks and track your progress on them, and much more. You can do many of the same things with hand drawn maps, of course, but not to the level of detail and the collection of related, linked resources and files thats possible utilizing mind mapping software. In closing, please dont take this list to mean that I am criticizing hand drawn mind maps. There are still many occasions when nothing else will do such as when you want to create a unique, colorful and very personal visualization of your ideas. With mind mapping software, users have a tendency to use the default settings for topics, lines and fonts, resulting in a black and white map that isnt very memorable or visually stimulating. Its also more difficult to add pictures to your map that convey your unique ideas. In most cases, youre limited to photographs, clip art or the artwork that came pre installed with your software. For many users, thats just too difficult, so they dont bother with it and the uniqueness of the resulting mind map suffers as a result. Also, its not always possible to have a computer or laptop handy to produce a mind map. A piece of paper and pen or pencil preferably a set of colored ones are the only highly portable tools you need to capture your ideas in visual form. Finally, mind mapping software, like most other types of computer programs, places constraints on what youre able to do. For example, many programs limit you to only one central idea. Also, you may have some ideas in mind that just cant be adequately conveyed using mind mapping software. In contrast, what you manually draw in a mind map is limited only by your imaginationEssential Mind Mapping and Brainstorming Tools. Mind mapping is the process of using visual diagrams to show the relationships between ideas or information. Its popular uses include project planning, collecting and organizing thoughts, brainstorming and presentations all in order to help solve problems, map out resources and uncover new ideas. It can be more useful than trying to keep track of our ideas by scribbling them on paper, and can aid in manipulating and generating concepts. See also 2. 0 Tools to Showcase Your Portfolio. Weve compiled a list of 2. The tools mentioned are either browser or desktop based, with a selection of mind mapping mobile apps at the end of the article for use on i. OS and Android devices. Is there a particular mind mapping tool you would recommendIf so, please share a link with our readers in the comments below. Mind. Meister was built to facilitate collaboration for mind mapping and brainstorming, with an intuitive, easy to use interface. You can collaborate in real time, discuss changes over live chat, exchange ideas and even view the change history of a mind map. Intel Core I3 2310M Ethernet Driver. You can access projects via mobile devices as well as online and offline, safe in the knowledge that your data is stored securely with data encryption and daily monitoring. Since Mind. Meister is cloud based, there is no need to install any software or worry about upgrades. Price Personal accounts start at 4. Mind. Map was developed by Tony Buzan, who popularized the term mind maps, and refined and formalized its diagramming process and guidelines. Mind. Map is designed to be visually stimulating, with curved branches, bright colors and sharp images to help unleash your creativity. You can take full control over your map with a customizable drawing experience, or let i. Mind. Map create the whole map for you. There are freehand, styling and text options so you can create a unique project. Its simple to brainstorm, refine, plan and craft an animated presentation. Price Home and student edition is 4. Ultimate package is 1. Spider. Scribe is an online mind mapping and brainstorming tool that lets you organize your ideas by connecting notes, files, and calendar events in freeform maps. You can create private or public maps and collaborate with others, as your maps are stored in the cloud and can be accessed anywhere. You can combine a variety of media to create a stencil, and each stencil can be customized by changing colors, fonts, size and formats. Another particularly interesting feature of Spider. Scribe is the ability to embed your mind maps on your website. Price Personal accounts are free, with Pro accounts at 5 per month and business accounts at 2. XMind is a useful open source mind mapping tool for clarifying thinking, managing complex information, organizing and brainstorming. You can gather ideas and craft them in a logical structure to help identify critical information, uncover patterns, relationships, priorities and trends. For seamless collaboration, your mind map can be exported into a variety of formats, including PDF, TXT, HTML, PNG, JPEG and more. Along with a mind map structure, XMind also offers tree, logic and fishbone charts, with a built in spell checker, search, encryption and even audio notes. Price Accounts range from free up to 7. With Coggle you can brainstorm and produce beautiful notes or mind maps to share and collaborate with others. You can drag and drop images onto your diagrams, view the change history to keep track of edits and customize the colors within each project. You can export your projects in PDF or PNG format, create private links, or share publicly on social media and add clickable links. Coggle supports Markdown and also works seamlessly on mobile devices. Price Free. Freemind is an open source mind mapping tool built in Java, and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It has a wide variety of features, including location based mind mapping, collaboration tools, restore session support and more. It can be used to keep track of projects as a knowledge base, and as a powerful mind mapping tool for complex diagrams with numerous branches, including embedded links and multimedia. You can export your map as HTML, PDF, Open. Document, SVG or PNG. Price Free. Text. Mind. Maps is a useful way of organizing your thoughts using a simple, online tool. Its easy to use just type some text into the text area, use the tab key to indent text lines and click the Draw Mind Map button to see it evolve. Each line of text is a separate node in the mind map, and there are options to style the map to suit your requirements. It features a number of keyboard shortcuts, and each map can be downloaded as a PDF or image, or even emailed to share with collaborators. Price Free. Popplet is a mind mapping tool that is perfect for visually curating your ideas and brainstorms. You can visually record your ideas, inspirations and thoughts, as well as upload text, videos, images and draw on your canvas. For those working in teams, Popplet allows multiple devices to connect to the same project. You can create Popplet presentations, use high resolution images, create embeds for websites and blogs, and include tags, keywords and categories on all your Popplet projects to make searching easier. There is an accompanying i. OS app which gives you mobile access to your projects however, there is currently no Android version available. Price Free. Bubbl. To start, just type your central topic to start a tree, and then create another idea at the same level or as a sub level. The Bubbl. us tree will automatically reposition itself to fit any new ideas you have, or you can move the bubbles around manually. You can customize a tree to suit your style by changing the color and size. The auto save feature is especially useful, and you can share your project as a read only file or allow others to edit it. To collaborate on the same tree, other team members must have their own Bubbl. Price Free. Browser based Mind. You can quickly create, manage and edit any kind of data structure required for mind maps to explore ideas in a visually meaningful way. All you need to do is create an account and click New MInd Map. Once you start a project, you can invite collaborators and create helpful groups such as Business or Private. You can even import existing mind maps from other applications, such as Mindmanager and Freemind. Price Free. Group. Map is specifically built to make team activities easy, providing a unique platform for anyone to respond on a map, with any parameters you set. You can select a map or create your own, and then invite your team to collaborate, comment, converse and vote to help decide the best ideas from a session. Each individual can add their ideas to the brainstorm, and the results aggregate into a group view for comments and voting, making for a more open, efficient process. Price Accounts range from free up to 4. Mindomo provides mind mapping and project collaboration tools for both businesses and education providers. It can be used to brainstorm mind maps, create tasks and share resources within a secure environment. Its fully collaborative with the conversations, discussions and topics enabled within each workspace. You can style individual mind maps using themes to better illustrate concepts and projects. You can choose to keep you map private or public, and also provide a direct link to your map to share with team members or clients. Price Accounts range from free up to 2.