Cool Tool: Mindmeister online shared mindmaps
Mindmaps are great if you are trying to grasp a complex matter. Just start to write down terms and short sentences that come to your mind an connect them visually into a hierarchical, tree like structure. Normally you do that on a cocktail napkin in the lunch break with your colleagues. Maybe you are a geek and you use software based tools to draw nice maps. But how to share them with your team members and colleagues if they don't have the same tool ? How do you capture ideas in a team, like you do with a sketch on a simple piece of paper, if you are miles apart ?
Try Mindmeister. The fine folks at mindmeister.com created a stunning tool that is stuffed with features.
- You can create mindmaps (online and offline).
- Share mindmaps (with a closed group or public).
- Export them (GIF, PNG, PDF, common mm tool formats).
- Collaborate (real time brainstorming, as they call it).
- Embed your mindmaps (URL, IFrame) .
- Subscribe to change notifications (Email and even Twitter).
- Use the API to program your mindmaps (REST based).
This is how the online editor looks like, a fine piece of AJAX in perfection:
this is the link to my public .NET buzz mindmap (you can do better, I know.) .
this is the code to embed a (view only) mindmap in a html page:
<iframe width="600" height="400" frameborder="0" src="http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/public_map_shell/5294051?width=600&height=400&zoom=1"
scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden"></iframe>
check how it looks like here (move it around like a google map):
this is an exported GIF (click on it) :
So: If you like mindmaps and work in a distributed environment: give it a try!