A look at the MindX mind mapping tool

I had coffee with an entrepreneur last week. As an aside, it appears from the relationship I have with baristas in a variety of locations, that I spend half my life drinking coffee with people.

Anyway, he and I were discussing open source tools, and if you’ve read any of my articles before, you will know I am a big advocate. But one area where I hadn’t done much research was mind-mapping tools. Mostly because I didn’t feel the need for them up until I started the Churchill Club and had to deal with emergent topics on a day-to-day basis.

Traditionally, I had used a product called Freemind, which was java based so it pretty much ran on any operating system, plus it was open source, free of cost and it could be downloaded easily. Dan, however was using a product called XMind which he strongly recommends.

I liked Freemind and had previously written about it here, but was willing to give the new product a go (hey, it’s free so why not). So when I got back to the office, I downloaded a copy. To my surprise I was almost instantly converted.

Here’s why:

It’s open source – which means you can download and use it for free or even mess with the code if that’s your thing.

• It has a web based viewer – so you can plunk your mind maps up on your blog.
  
• You can embed mind maps with mind maps.
  
• You can also use it to draw Org Charts or other special purpose maps.
  
• It has an inbuilt a nice project management tool.
  
• You can import Freemind, Mind Manager and other common mind map formats.
  
• You can export your map as HTML (a web page), text, image or other MindMapping formats.

None of which (other than the import and export) Freemind can do.

And as a bonus to make me the consummate connected professional, it turns out that if I give $6.99 to Simplemind I can also get access to the mind maps I have whipped up on my iPhone using SimpleMindX while waiting for meetings.

To read more Brendan Lewis blogs, click here.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club, Flinders Pacific and L2i Technology Advisory. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia and Vietnam. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.