Tag: MindMap

KUMU: A toolset designed to dismantle complexity.

Kumu – Hawaiian for “teacher”, or “source of wisdom” – is a web-based relationship modeling environment for developing network and systems thinking diagrams.

In the video you can see the ability to import data from Excel. The graphics look good, but the sample projects I’ve seen focus on customer relationship management. The manifesto offers a lot of philosophy about how to save (or at least change) the world,

We are Kumu — a small startup and an ambitious community changing the world one connection at a time.

so I doubt if it will be useful for my personal Shih-project.
However, as usual when I learn about a new information management system, I already signed up. 🙂

The Art of CRIMPing

What is CRIMP ?
A definition by Stephen Zeoli:

CRIMP stands for a make-believe malady called compulsive-reactive information management purchasing.
Symptoms include:
– never being satisfied with your current system of information management
– continuously being on the look-out for something newer and better
– purchasing every new PIM program you learn about
– and secretly hoping you won’t find the perfect PIM, because then you’d have to stop looking for a better one

The first two symptoms really apply to me, the third only partially – I actually test every PIM (= Personal Information Manager) I learn about, but I am lucky that my financial means are limited, so I can’t buy all the candy in the store.
And, concerning the last symptom: since I am an information freak, I definitely hope to find the perfect PIM, to store and access all information I gather, for life.
My goal: becoming nothing less than a Master of Shih. (Shih = the aesthetics and beauty of knowledge).
MindMapping sounds like a good idea, but it is only there to represent a limited amount of knowledge, e.g. a book or article. It is great for brainstorming or memorizing a speech you are going to give, because you can always find your way in the information you want to deliver to your audience, without being bound by your own preparation. But it is too limited for getting the overall picture of the System of the World.
I’ve tried the TiddlyWiki system, which is an interesting effort to develop a non-linear, portable notebook with tagging and hyperlinking. It works on a thumb drive, but as your Tiddly grows, it slows down because it is actually a single html page.
Another system is ConnectedText, that also combines the advantages of a TiddlyWiki with portability, but looks more like a personal Wiki-system.
Until now The Brain is my favorite PIM, because it has the idea of MindMapping, but with more flexibility in adding and connecting branches of information, combined with tagging and hyperlinking. The Brain is also there in a portable version, but it also possible to store your Brains in the cloud, so you can access them everywhere on your tablet. You can even edit your brain on your tablet, but since my brains are quite large, this is a bit of a challenge.
The OmniOutliner-app works fine for outlining a book, exporting as OPML and importing it in The Brain so you can combine linear note-taking with non-linear linking with other information. But, for me, it doesn’t work to read a book or e-book with my iPad next to me. Old fashioned as I am, I like to take notes in my note-books. A few years ago I switched from Moleskines to LiveScribe. The LiveScribe notebooks have the look of Moleskine, but writing with the LiveScribe never felt good, although it was a welcome feature that I could export a completed notebook to pdf.
Now my LiveScribe pen doesn’t work anymore. I am thinking about buying a new one, but probably I should see it as an opportunity to go back to the good old handwriting with a 4-color pen, like I used before.
Especially since I came across the interesting W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive via a post on the TiddlyWiki mailinglist. His archive of 25 NoteBooks and his two card index systems made me feel sorry about destroying my own card system that I maintained for indexing choral music many years ago. (IRL I’m a choral conductor). My system not only used two alphabetical systems (one on composers, one on song titles), but also worked with colors (in the first system for mixed, male or female choir, and with or without accompaniment; in the second system colors for special use like Christmas, Eastern, love-songs, etc), that made it easy to consult and find the repertoire I needed for scheduling the concert. I expected computers and the internet to not only replace my card cabinets (and thus creating some space in my house, already cluttered up with books and magazines, but also to make it easier to index and retrieve the choral music I was looking for.

What a huge mistake.

W. Ross Ashby’s archive – a mère a boire – inspired me to value the card index again. But going back to paper file cards is no longer an option. Two programs for a digital file card (“Zettelkasten”) system are there: the iPad app “Index Card” (especially popular with writers, because it integrates with the Mac-version of the Scrivener software. The other one is Zettelkasten. Free and portable, unfortunately not available for your tablet, yet. And, biggest annoyance, the two programs don’t talk to each other. Both are good, but you cannot export your Index Card-cards to a format Zettelkasten can read.

A good introduction on using the Zettelkasten-system is written by Christian Tietze: Create a Zettelkasten for your Notes to Improve Thinking and Writing. At this page you can find some other programs, but unfortunately most of them are written for the Mac.

So, for now: back to basics: manually note-taking with 4-color pen and Moleskine, transferring it into Zettelkasten, The Brain and ConnectText.

MindMeister on Google Drive

MindMeister has been integrated with Google-Drive. This service, FKA Google Docs, means you can also share your favourite MindMaps.

Also, they promise there are even more ways to create your MindMaps, but I wasn’t able to try it because I’ll have to wait until Drive is availabe to me – that is how it always works when Google offers a new sevice. :-(.

Drive is:

  • A cloud storage and collaboration service from Google,
  • that allows you to access your stored files online from anywhere with any device, and
  • supports all web browsers  – they say, but the app only works with Google Chrome! – and both Android or iOS devices
  • gives 5Gb of free storage with an option to purchase additional
  • Integrates with top applications! – like MindMeister.

Google Drive also allows people to create, edit and share files with one another.

Because of the news, I had some reason to get back to MindMeister and I have to admit: it is good. It definitely looks nicer than FreeMind of FreePlane, but MindMap apps like X-Mind or Mind 42 also do a reasonably good job. And of course there is my own favourite program: The Brain, which has it all: a desktop version, a portable version and a webversion, that allows you to share your brain.
Finally, let me share this nice infographic on MindMapping by LunchBread, from visual.ly:

Filk Music

I’m currently e-reading Larry Niven’s (ed al) “Fallen Angels“. I like the story, but the book is about fandom, which is a new world to me.  So, I did some googling, which gave me 33,700,000 results, of course a lot from Wikipedia, all – at least the first three 🙂 – very interesting. Eventually I also learned about Filk, also new to me:

a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom and a type of fan labor.

As I see it, these are lyrics, counterfeited to popular or at least well known songs, inspired by scifi or fantasy.

Interesting websites are

Some samples:

Somewhere Over the Barstool

Words: Gail Pittaway
Music: “Somewhere over the Rainbow”

Somewhere inside this starship
Must be booze.
No one could chance to run out,
Not on a five-year cruise.

Somewhere outside this rec room
We’ll explore.
Maybe inside Kirk’s stateroom
We’ll find a little more.

Or:

The Day that SF Died
© 1988, Arlan Andrews, Sr.
(roughly based on melody of “American Pie” by Don Mclean, ca.1971)

So, farewell, Mr. Robert Heinlein
Thank you for your stories and your soul and your mind
We wish you well while traveling the galaxy’s girth
Far away from the green hills of Earth
Far from the green hills of Earth.

It is a mer a boire; unfortunately the performances I heard – sung by Filk-Singers – are not that great.

Web surfing can be very dangerous: while exploring the topic at hand, you always end up finding something entirely different. And so the SWIL Filkbooks collection also gave me a link to Physics Songs.

Songs about physics can help students to remember critical concepts and formulas, but perhaps more importantly they communicate the lesson that physics can be fun. They certainly help to establish an informal classroom atmosphere, in which even shy students are willing to ask questions.
The songs may also activate a different part of the students’ brains. In 1983, Howard Gardner advanced the theory that each person has many different kinds of intelligence (Frames of Mind : The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Basic Books). His original list had seven categories: verbal/linguistic, mathematical/logical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Songs about physics link into the musical aspect of intelligence, helping many students to build a richer “knowledge tree” relating to the concept being taught, and thus promoting better retention.

True – although personally I have some doubts with Gardners Multiple Intelligence-theory. But it is a fact that music can help you remembering things, for example the famous “Do Re, Mi” song from “The Sound of Music”, which helps you remembering the names of the notes, but, since the notes are also on the correct pitch in the musical scale, you can learn how to find them in the tonal space. The concept is, in fact, stolen from a medieval song, “Ut quéant laxis” that, by the way, coined the solfege syllables.

The songs by Tom Lehrer (Nomen est Omen – “Lehrer” is of course German for “teacher”) are also well known (he wrote more than just “The Elements”).
Other interesting projects, mentioned on this weblog before, are the Pi-Songs and the Symphony of Science Project “A Glorious Dawn“.
The Particle Physics Song, lyrics by Danuta Orlowska, performed by the CERN Choir in the CERN Control Center based on the tune: “The Bold Hippopotamus” by Flanders and Swann is here as an example (and, given the fact that the singers are not professionals, quite well sung) of the still expanding database (complete with search engine) of physics songs.

Not sure if this post is about Filk Music, Physics Songs or creativity for educational purposes, I will include in this post the link to ThinkGeek’s Haiku contest. Obviously geeks are creative!
Let’s quote something scifi:

Learn from the Jedi.
Discipline, control, respect.
Dangerous muppet.
— Patrick in Anaheim, California

MindMapping and Knowledge Management

MindMapping and Knowledge Management are the main topics of this website. Today I came across some other interesting applications and a great (and beautifully designed!) website.
The website is Eric Blue’s Blog, and I noticed that he covers almost the same subjects as I do (MindMappig, Knowledge Management and Getting Things Done), as well as some LifeLogging, although I’m not interested in Fitness and Health Tracking.
Some of his most interesting articles (with mentions of applications of which I wasn’t even aware they exist!) are:

It would be a good thing if there was one program for all knowledge representations – to build a real memex.

A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

Until now I use several applications for collecting all my data. Besides MindMapping tools and Digital Notebooks (Eric Blue calls them “Scrapbooks”) I also use a Timeline editor; “Timeline Maker Pro“.

Im not too satisfied with it, but a better solution like Beedocs Timeline is only available for the Mac. My favourite genealogy software is GenoPro, which I have been using for years now. Other great knowledge visualisation software is Treesheets and DeepahMeeta. The thing I might have been looking for is Grokker,

a research and information management tool that simultaneously searches many data sources, and presents results in a topically organized, visual map

but this software is no longer maintained.

I revisited Martin Dvorak´s Mindraider-project, just to see if something had changed. Unfortunately not, and it seems Dvorak is focussing his energy into a new project: MindForger.
So, back to “The Brain” – untill now the best MindMap software – IMHO – that also integrates (in the “pro-version”!) your files, data and hyperlinks and that – very important – also works portable.
Finally some lesser known MindMapping software on this unsorted list.

New MindMap software

Freeplane – “Boost your brain with Freeplane” – is a redesigned version of the well known FreeMind, the free software for building mind maps. It is created by one of FreeMind’s key developers.
IMHO there are already too much MindMapping tools on the Web, so I wonder why it was necessary to write a fork of a product that already served so many MindMappers in the world. However, since FreePlane is portable (like FreeMind and XMind), and the documents are exchangeble with FreeMind, I installed it on my portable HDD to give it a try.
A few years ago I mapped my WebPresence in FreeMind, it is not up-to-date, but you can visit it here to have an impression. As you can see the branches are rather basic and there are no pictures (except my avatar in the centre) or drawings, that are only possible when you MindMap the old-fashioned way: with pen and paper.
Perhaps better-looking is Tony Buzan’s own iMindMap. It looks more like it has been drawn by hand, and it offers integration with Microsoft’s Office ánd OpenOffice. iMindMap is available in 3 editions, prices range from € 62 to € 189.

I still think Martin Dvorak’s MindRaider is an interesting project, especially because it integrates with the semantic web. However, since I wrote about it, there hasn’t changed very much, so I think there will be no further developments in this project.
For now, I consider The Brain as the best solution. It also offers a portable version – very important to me – and it is recently updated to version 6. Now you can store your maps in the cloud, although (of course) there is also a price tag attached, at least if you want to keep your MindMaps (“Brains”) private.

I have all my projects mapped in The Brain; there is even a Brain of Kuehleborn’s Mind; that I open as soon as I start up my computer, to run in the background. Everytime I find a new idea, I add it to my Brain, so it is a Work In progress. Wanna have a Peek? It is here, but links to locally stored files are not working.

LiveScribe

Last week I bought my Livescribe Pulse 4G! Now I’ll never miss a Word while taking notes 🙂

I didn’t have much time yet to play around with it, but I made a MindMap of the article “Astronomy and particle physics race to replace Standard Model“, that I uploaded to my “myLifescribe”-account. Unfortunately I accidentallly deleted the audio, so you can only see a small piece of the process of how it works.

Try-out

The Livescribe smartpen is quite versatile: it can write and record while taking notes and upload it all to your computer or to a “cloud”; Livescribe offers a 500 MB space to their Livescribe community – isn’t that generous? (No, it isn’t!)
But it can do more: there are also applications to extend the functionality of my smartpen, a pencast player for your smartphone (i-Phone only 😦 ) and a paper piano:

Finally there is transcription software to convert my handwriting to printed text – “The Pleasure of Handwriting”. Unfortunately it doesn’t understand my unreadable scribbles! That, after all, is the main reason for using a smartpen: technology is there to adapt to our shortcomings, not vice versa!

The Secret Powers of Time

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being.

Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.

Here is a beautiful presentation of Zimbardo’s ideas with some very interesting observations.

Creately – collaborative flowchart software

Creately is an online diagramming and design application. It’s easy, collaborative and smart. You can draw and design almost anything from flowcharts, sitemaps, wireframes, UML to business process diagrams and computer networks, using Creately on your web browser.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4489433&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Via LifeHacker, TechCrunch.
Wikipedia article on Flowcharts.

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