On Thursday 16 September 2004 11:34, M.Blackmore wrote:
Mindmapping now available on OSS. Well, supposedly. 'Cos I've not played with it and don't have any particular reason to do so now that I've given up (forced into retirement for health reasons and family care) my academic pretensions.
But when I was doing thesis and journal articles etc. this sort of mindmapping s/w was HUGELY useful to a "scruffy and baroque" thinker such as myself: I used VYM all the way through my final year project in Uni, it's on the SUSE Pro disks and handled my basic mindmaps with ease.
Hello by the way, I've been reading this list for a while now, first post. My name is Karl and I am a recent Computer Networks grad. Living in South Wales and looking for work.
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/09/10/1946203
I think this is actually an important development for linux as desktop tool for punters, especially for open educational access where people are weak in traditional educational skills due to lack of schooling in formal ways (as a working class youth of my generation I count myself in this category - had to leave school early to bring in necessary family income, self-educated to university level - and still the first from my area to make uni level education - but never acquired many of the skills of "study" which always made things hard, particularly at postgrad level). The availability of mindmapping techniques for organising thoughts for the "ill-educated" is an important part of creating opportunities - e.g. subsistence peasants putting together a legal brief using the village linux box against a local landowners land grab, where organising the thoughts, information and dependencies of argument can be a horrifying task to even highly intelligent individuals unschooled in the mental techniques and disciplines that enable this sort of writ.
But even in ordinary circumstances I can't recommend this sort of thing enough to people doing complex writing, I first came across it as Tony Buzan's Tools for Thinking in the early/mid 70s, although the reams of spider-webbed foolscap sheets all over the study floor did get overwhelming in longer writings!
However, this sort of thing does seem to be a love it or hate it relationship. I love it.
If anyone has a need to use this in earnest, be nice to see a feedback.