Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Four open source mind mapping applications

Ostatic.com features four applications that can be used in the Mind Mapping process. Mind Mapping is the visual exercise of combining like ideas, thoughts, and processes together in an organized "mapped" diagram. Typical usage of Mind Mapping is for use on new projects, sharing thoughts for new ideas, and brainstorming exercises.

The Industrial Engineer can find a lot of uses with these mind mapping tools. Uses can range from thoughts on cost reductions, new ideas for process flow, and helping identify supply chain alternatives. The mind map tool can be used in virtually any industry and organization.

The tools featured in the article include:

Ostatic author Lisa Hoover does a great job explaining the merits of each application. I suggest giving these applications a try the next time new ideas need to "mined" in your organization.

4 comments:

Natalija said...

Great post. Mind mapping has great impact on the everyday activities and huge effect on saving time, energy and money for organizing and planning things.

There are so many tools on the market which facilitates mind mapping and makes it very fun and dynamic.
If I may recommend you http://dropmind.com mind mapping tools for visual thinking, which are very simple and easy to use and very exciting at the same time. You can choose whether you want to use desktop app, http://desktop.dropmind.com, or the unique web app, http://web.dropmind.com. At the time being, both apps are free of charge.

I believe you will like it and I would love to hear your feedback.

Have a great day,
Natalija

Anonymous said...

Nice looking site Natalija.

Not sure this will fly well in these woods as the few who normally post here try to focus on multiplatform OpenSource OR.

Also looks like this site only works for Windows as in the FAQ says

Why does Seavus DropMind™ ask me to install Microsoft® Silverlight™?

Because it uses the Silverlight browser plug-in to run, similar to Adobe Flash. Seavus DropMind™ works only with Silverlight 2.0.

I think Silverlight only runs on Windows.

Natalija said...

Yes, the web application http://web.dropmind.com requires MS Silverlight 2.0. You can find the minimum system requirements and supported browsers by the web DropMind here: http://web.dropmind.com/FAQ.aspx?id=q3#q3_ (Mac included)

On the other hand the desktop app http://desktop.dropmind.com runs on:
-Windows: Windows XP, Windows Vista
-Mac: Mac 10.4.11 and 10.5.5
-Linux: Linux Ubuntu.

Anonymous said...

Not sure I would consider Gantt Project as a mindmapping tool.

More open source project management. For something more open source than open source for Gantt Charts