The inventor of “mind mapping”, Tony Buzan, was on the publicity road last week to promote iMindMap, a software package for organising your ideas graphically. There’s nothing new about spider, tree or “org” charts but Buzan says iMindMap is the first computer program to “reflect human thought”.
Overwhelmed by the urge to see my thoughts reflected accurately on-screen, I tried to use the program to construct this article. I began with a big, friendly icon labelled “Client Column” and proceeded to stare at it for half an hour. Eventually, I added a branch and labelled it “My Article”. I then daydreamed for another 45 minutes before finally trying the Help system. Unfortunately, this turned out to be another mind map, forcing me to admit defeat.
While I am impressed with the accuracy with which iMindMap reflected my blank mind, I felt disappointed that I hadn’t actually achieved anything. After all, getting myself organised is currently at the top of my list of “things to do”, or at least it would be if I could remember to write one. I have been without a PDA for over a year now, and I have noticed that using my iPod to look up an address or check my diary looks bad during meetings.
Inspiration came when a recent contract job obliged me to travel regularly on the so-called BlackBerry Line. This is the stretch of London Underground’s Jubilee Line that connects Waterloo rail station with Canary Wharf, via London Bridge. The BlackBerry Line is used almost exclusively by business people who spend their short journeys in a full-on jog-dialling frenzy.
Unwilling to buy a BlackBerry because of my conviction that push email is morally repellent, I opted for a generic yet state-of-the-art smartphone upgrade. It’s an amazing device, stuffed with PIM functions. The problem is that I can’t seem to reach any of them without drilling through multiple menus or tapping the screen at least eight times. I have to tap four buttons just to get the phone into the correct mode to make calls.
On the other hand, items I don’t need, such as games and a link to the phone operator’s naff WAP site, are right there on the main screen at all times. When I tap an icon to launch a program, two seconds pass by while the device loads up a sound file that goes “click”, supposedly in response to my tap, but of course two seconds too late.
Back in the 1990s, we had unstructured databases such as Six Degrees that automatically organised everything for you. You just entered information randomly, but it was always at your fingertips with an instant search.
I reckon it’s time for a revival.
