Podcast 10 Is Now Available

The tenth of our podcast series is now up and available. The audio portion can be found here as Podcast #10. The student maps, a syllabus, and other materials have been stored here as Supplemental Material .

The series assumes you have access to a computer that has Version 7 or Version 8 of Mind Manager installed, either the product or the trial version.

In this tenth episode we look at Presentation Mode.

Presentation Mode lets you use the map itself as your presentation vehicle. We also look at Exporting the map into a Microsoft Power Point deck.

I am interested in your opinions. I am also interested in what future topics would be of interest. We are nearing the end of the series, give or take an episode. Write a comment to this blog post or drop us a note at Podcast =(at)= piqueroinc.com .

Podcast 5 Has Been Published

The hits just keep on coming. The fifth of the series of podcasts is now up and available. The audio portion can be found here as Podcast 5. The student maps and syllabus and other materials have been stored here as Supplemental Material .

The series assumes you have access to a computer that has Version 7 or Version 8 installed, either the product or the trial version. The trial is only good for 30 days.

In this fifth episode I continue the example of Igor’s Balloon Factory. The business context is meeting minutes and distribution. The example is a weekly sales meeting. This will be the first of two parts, as the example is useful for more note taking discussions.

We work some more with topic formatting. But the main emphasis is on Export to other formats. This allows distribution to non-mapping users.

If you are a Version 8 user, make sure that your Adobe Reader is Version 8 or higher. Otherwise, Mindjet Player won’t work.

I’m interested in your opinions. Write a comment to this blog post or drop us a note at Podcast =(at)= piqueroinc.com .

Need to test things more often

Well, one lucky break and one not so lucky find. I was testing the Export to Mindjet Player function in Version 8. First time I’ve checked the podcast maps in Version 8. Oopps. The hyperlinks that had a file name like Pod#3 in the title didn’t work. Something about that "#" character.

I needed to update all the file name for student maps. What was in my favor is that I made a knowledge management map that was linked to all the files for each episode. So I knew which ones needed a name change.

Also in my favor, I haven’t really advertised the podcasts yet. I can change the Supplemental.zip files now and once people start downloading them the problem won’t be there.

I was waiting until I had 5 podcasts up so that a person could download a 30 day trial and learn something. Otherwise they would be listening to one or two podcasts and then waiting for me to post more. All the while watching the trial period run out.

Changes made. Files Replaced at the server. And, blog entries for Pod One through Four with an UPDATE Notice.

Mind Manager Basics Podcast #4 Is Up

The fourth of the series of podcasts is now up and available. The audio portion can be found here as Podcast #4. The student maps and syllabus and other materials have been stored here as Supplemental Material .

The series assumes you have access to a computer that has Version 7 or Version 8 installed, either the product or the trial version. The trial is only good for 30 days.

In this fourth episode I continue the example of Igor’s Balloon Factory. The example discusses using Mind Manager to help organize your thoughts for a Paper or Report. I use writing a business plan as the target paper.

A key point is that there are two maps involved. One is audience analysis and paper objectives. The second is the paper content and organization.

We work some more with topic formatting, using boundaries and color. We explore Growth of Subtopics, which drastically alters the look of the map. And we work a bit with Callout topics.

I’m interested in your opinions. Write a comment to this blog post or drop us a note at Podcast =(at)= piqueroinc.com .

UPDATE (Oct 2009) Looks like my file names like Pod#1 cause problems with some applications, and in particular hyperlinks in Ver 8. All files have been changed to reflect this change (Pod#3NAICS.xls ==> Pod3NAICS.xls etc.). So when you “hear” Pod #2 in the podcast think Pod2 .

Mind Manager Basics Podcast #3 Is Up

The third of the series of podcasts is now up and available. The audio portion can be found here as Podcast #3. The student maps and syllabus and other materials have been stored here as Supplemental Material .

The series assumes you have access to a computer that has Version 7 or Version 8 installed, either the product or the trial version. The trial is only good for 30 days. (So you may want to wait until additional podcasts are posted if you’re going the trial route.)

In this third episode I introduce Igor’s Balloon Factory. I need a business example to weave a story line through the other podcasts. The goal is to show how maps can be used in a business context, not just features of a software product.

This episode ran a little longer than I anticipated (about 31 minutes). I took a simple map built using the start-up defaults and then added more color and formatting. The episode also looks at hyperlinks and connecting to internet sites.

I’m interested in your opinions. Write a comment to this blog post or drop us a note at Podcast =(at)= piqueroinc.com .

UPDATE (Oct 2009) Looks like my file names like Pod#1 cause problems with some applications, and in particular hyperlinks in Ver 8. All files have been changed to reflect this change (Pod#3NAICS.xls ==> Pod3NAICS.xls etc.). So when you “hear” Pod #2 in the podcast think Pod2 .