Once, long ago, one of our ancestors had an amazing idea. He said to himself, "I should write that down." And so, writing was born, and with it an ever-growing effort to capture our mental space in the tangible world. Writing has become easier and more widespread, and now much of humanity is recording their cognitive stream at a feverish pace (think blogging and wikis) But once we do have our thoughts down on paper (or in a folder on our computer), we realize that there was a lot more in our brains than we had imagined and managing all our scribblings, scrawlings, and notes becomes the issue. Unfortunate reams of post-it notes, stacks of notebooks, and closets full of rolled up flipcharts and poster-sized branstormings are all destined for the recycling bin before their brilliant contents has a chance to shine.

Out of the world of productivity software comes our hero: the mindmapping application, FreeMind. Think of it as a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for your brain. With a simple click and quick typing, you can lay out your mindscape in beautiful XML simplicity.

Freemind [web | download] allows you to capture your thoughts in a spartan but powerful branching diag

ram. Thoughts can be color-coded or marked with icons for differentiation, linked together, or hyperlinked to documents on the Internet. The best part of this tool is that complic

ated bra

nching ideas can be collapsed out of view when not in use, and then expanded level by level or all together when needed. This allows information that would take up many pages in outline form to be managed in a single viewable area on your computer screen. FreeMind also has powerful saving and exporting functions that can convert your mindmap to a web page, graphics file, PDF document (for printing on a large format printer), or text outline for conversion into a writing project or report. Ideal for storing or sharing any conceptual project, this technology enhances working in teams, planning anything complicated, taming a giant writing project, and a dozen other applicatipns, all at a great price: absolutely free.

I use FreeMind to track group work in my organizational consulting work. While work groups discuss a project or problem, I'll create branches and record ideas, while projecting the mindmap. This leaves the team free for creativity while capturing all that rich data in a format that is digital and 100% usable as soon as we leave the meeting (no need to transcribe, easy to email, etc.).

In terms of process, team placement is easy with a visual representation of the group's work. Even after weeks of meetings, ideas are easily "tracked back" and presented in original context (you can even check the time stamp of each idea to see what was said at which meeting). I've found the process of mapping makes me more aware as a facilitator of the structure of team's work so that I can present strategic issues and process suggestions to help avoid stuckness, group think, miscommunication, and a variety of other pit-falls while increasing productivity -- which in turn synthesizes a positive tone which motivates the group. (When clients see their progress and ideas laid out in an organized way, most very are proud of their work without feeling intimidated by the complexity of their project.)

Let me give two real-world examples of how this tool is used. I was invited by a CUNY (City University of New York) office to work on a math think-tank of high school and college educators and administrators working on the achievement gap problem of students in NYC. CUNY is chartered to educate the young masses of the city, but many students fail math portions of the initial placement exams, even after passing exit assessments as juniors and seniors in high school. For some, this is the end of their college aspirations. For many, this means they will be placed in remedial math, eating up precious financial aid dollars in non-credit courses and making it nearly impossible to fund a degree to completion.

But the problem of low math performance is an especially complex one [see TIMSS report], so the think-tank needed an organized way to track their conversations and sort through the mounds of information to find doable and effective solutions. By mindmapping, the group tracked many months of meetings that would have totaled almost 40 pages in outline form. When it came time to write the grant for the first resulting project, the data of the mindmap was "wiki-ized" for the grant writer who was not a part of most of the previous team work, preserving the energy and insight of everyone involved and making the writer's job easier.

The consultants at Richard Borris Management, who were leading the process in the CUNY project, liked using the mindmap so much, they brought me in to their organizational work with faith and community-based organizations in NJ. Several of their clients had been funded to provide recovery mentorship to people leaving substance abuse by DAS (the Department of Addiction Services) under NJAI (New Jersey Access Initiative). These mentors (see PDF article) provide regular relational support for people in recovery to close the gaps in treatment that often lead to personally disastrous and socially expensive relapse.

When federal and state grants for recovery mentors ended, many people had come to believe they were essential to the community.  The formed the New Jersey Coalition to Support Recovery Mentorship to organize grassroots support for this important service.  We mindmapped all the Coalition's work when it was only a few member organizations in a loose confederation and eventually planned a conference to expand the collaboration and get the word out.  The group work from the conference itself was also mindmapped to form the outline of a strategic plan for the organization of the coalition and the advocacy of recovery mentorship in NJ and beyond.

These are just two real world examples of how FreeMind added real value to process of two great groups working for great causes.  The applications of this technology are really as broad as your imagination.  People use FreeMind to organize their personal library, keep their medical history, write books, plan weddings, start businesses, and much, much more.  How will you use FreeMind?

Here's Some Hints:

• Learn to use the [Insert] key.  This opens a new branch on the map and moves the cursor there so you are ready to type.

• If you add a sub-branch to a thought and want to edit the original branch, you need to press [F2] to open it up for editing.
• Use the FAQ page if you have a problem.
• Converting a mindmap into a text outline requires a few steps.  (1) Goto "File > Export > As Open Office Writer Document".  This will save the file with the ".sxw" extension.  (2) To open this file, you will need the free Open Office Suite, so download this if you do not have it installed on your computer.  (3) Start Open Office Word Processor and click "File > Open".  In the file type menu, pick "OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document" and choose the ".sxw" file you exported from FreeMind. (4) When the file opens, you will likely get an error message you should ignore.  Once opened, you can edit or use the file in Open Office or save it as a MS Word document (.doc) or other format to open in your word processor of choice.

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