In the past few weeks I’ve been reading about creative and critical thinking and the creative process. One of the things that many people recommend to help with the creative process if the act of mind-mapping and brainstorming.

I have experienced the technique of brainstorming and have used it quite often within my teams and projects but have never used a formal mind-mapping software product to capture the brainstorming session…until tonight.

I downloaded a copy of MindManager from MindJet to try out over the weekend and finally got around to trying it out this evening. I captured more information in this software product during 15 minutes of brainstorming this evening than I have captured in the last 15 days. Normally when I sit down to do a brainstorming session, I have a notepad or dry-erase board and write down a lot of ‘stuff’ but never have I been able to capture information in such a manner as to immediately see the connections that exists between the ideas.

After using the MindManager trial product for less than an hour, I purchased a full copy and have been capturing ideas all evening. I have captured ideas for new blog posts, articles and even a few book ideas.

For anyone out there who needs (or wants) a better way to capture data and turn it into information that can be used, give MindManager from MindJet a try at http://www.mindjet.com. Another alternative would be the MindMapper product from MindMapper.com.

For more information about other mind mapping software, visit mind-mapping.org (http://www.mind-mapping.org/).

[tags] Mindmapping, brainstorming, MindManager, MindJet [/tags]