Mind Mapping

[marydell]

I am being encouraged to try out some mind mapping software at work.

*stamps foot* don' wanna!  I do not need to "sort out my mess of a mind" or do non-linear brainstorming! I like linear thinking and linear outlines and...linear stuff!

*grumble*

And it seems like it really just creates a big, round treelike outline, yes? I mean, so far it doesn't look like these apps can track many-to-many relationships, or intersectional groups, or that sort of thing.  

*grumble grumble*

Comments

[sanguinity]

:: And it seems like it really just creates a big, round treelike outline, yes? ::

Hahahaha!

For all the ones I've looked at: precisely. Give it a good shake, and you've got a nice, linear, multi-level outline. Linear thinking for those who don't believe they think linearly. (Or for those like me, who are unproductively distracted by the question of ordering, when I haven't yet figured out what the items are to be ordered.)

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

They're kind of like flowcharts, but arrows are not always necessary. They are helpful if you don't like using prepositions to describe the relationships between things.

Clearly I am not a fan. I would like them much better if they were three-dimensional.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I think I know what you're talking about.

I first encountered the technique in a book on creative writing, as a way to figure out what you're thinking when you do not have a clear notion of where to start, already. In the book (Writing the Natural Way) they were called Word Webs.

But the whole point of the excercise, as I learned in that book, was to draw out your cluster out by hand, on blank, unlined paper, so you're not influenced by any sort of predetermined structure. That way, you can draw as many arrows, and squiggles, and whatever, you want, in order to track as many many-to-many relationships as become clear to you as your doodle unfolds.

Whoever decided that it would be "easier" to take that whole process and and turn it into a computer program missed the point, entirely, and sucked out all that's fun about it.

If you already know what the I is, in your ordered outline, and where a), b), and c) go, you don't need to doodle a map for yourself.

I actually like Word-webbing [by hand] when I starting an original story or poem -- several times, I've uncovered central themes and recurring motifs, and metaphors. But I wouldn't touch a software version of the process with a 39 and 1/2 foot pole.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Instead of writing my next software one line of code after the other, I should have my brain mapped.