Why Kathy wants a Tablet PC

 Kathy Sierra from the Creating Passionate Users blog talks about her recent introduction to MindMaps created on a Tablet PC:

 

Then... I met a guy from Microsoft Search, Brady Forrest, who I'll never forgive for what happened next. He came up with his tablet PC and showed me the notes he took during my tutorial:

He'd created a mind map... complete with drawings! I fell in love right there in the hallway. Just to make sure I wouldn't recover, he then handed me the tablet PC and the pen and said, "Here... draw something..." Then he even had me enter my contact info into a mind map.

The software he used was Mind Manager from MindJet, and it seemed to do a fantastic job of capturing everything I intended, and in a natural way (and that also lets you collapse the thing in various ways and even print an outline and a set of HTML pages!) Here's a close-up of one section of his map:

I’ve got a mindmap which contains my entire business plan for The Podcast Network and I find it simultaneously invigorating and, I confess, a little intimidating. It can be quite daunting to “get into”. I’ve started to colour code various sections of it and colour code my shows (green for “live”, orange for “in discussion”, red for “what the hell happened to this person??”, etc. ) and it’s helping a little. I’d really love it if MindJet (hint hint Hobie) would start to run some sort of online “How To Be An Expert MindManager User” courses.

Comments

[Nicole Simon]

Oh I would love such courses for several software, just made a mail to Buzz about this for active words last week when I downloaded AW.

Success stories, clever tips and tricks, everything in an entertaining little way, short snippets - why not? Make that different levels, too. Combine it with real value like you in your post here - color code parts of it - and every show has its nice tip of the day. Instead of saying 'how do you justify your exsitense" ask "what makes you a superior user of X.

If you are a passionate user, this is what you probably like next.

[TDavid]

Wow, did you take a look at the mindjet website? Talk about a lot of clickthrus just to get to a price/cart (like 4). You keep clicking 'buy' and it takes you to another sales page. And another. And another. Somebody at Mindjet needs to work on that website. "Buy" should go to a shopping cart and actually allow someone to "buy" something, not go to another page with choices upon choices upon choices.

And finally, which version? The pro version for $399 or the other version for $229?

Their conversion rate must be absolutely dreadful, even if the product is as good as some folks are saying it is.