ConceptDraw MINDMAP Listing Accounting Resources

Accountants and individuals involved in accounting often use mind maps in their work.  I have made available for download a ConceptDraw mind map file that contains a myriad of resources for accountants and financial people.  The file can be downloaded from here.

You can find out more about CS Odessa and our ConceptDraw products from here.

ConceptDraw: A Boon to IT Students and Professionals

Dean Livingston is working on his Masters in Information Technology at the University of Phoenix online. Recently, Dean discovered and purchased ConceptDraw Office at the academic discount to help assist him with his course work. ConceptDraw Office consists of ConceptDraw PRO (business graphics and diagramming), ConceptDraw PROJECT (project management), and ConceptDraw MINDMAP (brainstorming, producing documents and presentations). 

Dean was a long time PC user who switched to a MacBook about 12 months ago. After switching to Macintosh, he then searched for products that could potentially do what Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio did for him when he was a Windows user. With ConceptDraw Office, he found a suite of products that would address his academic and work needs in one bundle at a greatly discounted price.

Dean discovered ConceptDraw while doing a web search for “Visio Alternatives for Mac”. Right away he decided to download and trial the ConceptDraw suite of products. First use for Dean was ConceptDraw PRO for his “Reliable Backup” class to develop a timeline for how backup should occur as part of a class project. He sees that ConceptDraw MINDMAP will be of great assistance in helping him study for his classes and plan papers while he is working on his Master’s degree.

Dean says, “ConceptDraw Office suite is the best software package, it is amazing how powerful the products are. In the near future, I plan on viewing the instructional videos located on ConceptDraw.com to find out more about each product’s capabilities.”

CS Odessa Announces Software Engineering Solutions in ConceptDraw Solution Park

ConceptDraw Solution Park contains lots of new content that we release for our ConceptDraw products. Today's addition to ConceptDraw PRO and the ConceptDraw Solution Park extends the current vector libraries with a complete software engineering solution. CS Odessa has introduced a new set of libraries that provides a complete solution for software engineering diagrams. The Software Development Area in the ConceptDraw Solution Park includes the Entity-Relationship Diagram Solution, Data Flow Diagrams Solution, IDEF0 Diagrams Solution, and the new-and-improved Rapid UML Solution. These new additions to the ConceptDraw Solution Park are free for current users of ConceptDraw PRO v9.

This solution can be found in the Software Development Area of the ConceptDraw Solution Park which includes collections of templates, samples, and libraries of vector stencils and icons that support software engineering diagrams of any level of complexity. ConceptDraw PRO is compatible with Apple OS X and Microsoft Windows.For more information on all of the ConceptDraw Products and Solutions visit us at http://www.conceptdraw.com.

Dear Abe, I Have Just Been Appointed the Project Manager of My Group, Help!

Dear Abe,

My boss has designated me to be the Project Manager of my group. I have a basic understanding of what is required, but I am going to need some advice from you.

At any time my department has 10-12 projects on the go. I have a team of about 20 people that I have at my disposal.  I need to figure out how to balance these twenty individuals over the projects that are active, manage the individual project budgets, and keep everyone up to date on what is going on. I need some big help do you have any suggestions.

Concerned,

Matthew Lewis

…

Hi Matt,

I have some good news for you.  The answer is ConceptDraw Office. ConceptDraw Office is a product suite developed and sold by CS Odessa.  There are three products in this comprehensive product suite. All the products run in native mode on Apple OS X and Windows.

The three products in the ConceptDraw Office suite are ConceptDraw MINDMAP (brainstorming, constructing documents, building presentations, building a process, project management, and a myriad of other uses that will save you valuable time), ConceptDraw PROJECT (the project management muscle of this troika), and ConceptDraw PRO (the business graphics and diagramming portion of the suite).  Each is a useful standalone product that can be purchased separately, but together with their integrations they become one powerful solution.

I will give you a brief example. The ConceptDraw MINDMAP product helps you brainstorm and assemble the projects content.  Working with your team makes it much easier to attain consensus and to build the project structure.  Project phases, tasks, resources can be quickly organized by dragging-and-dropping the information. Launching a project has never been easier.

ConceptDraw PROJECT lets you manage any number of projects and balances your resource s over the tasks in your projects. This will work well with your requirement of having 10-12 projects and one pool of resources. There are a plethora of reports that keep track of how things are going, giving you the ability to track progress and report to stakeholders.  The reports are generated in Excel format so you are free to do additional number crunching and charting. Also ConceptDraw PROJECT can pass your project data to ConceptDraw PRO where dashboards are generated in the blink of an eye. Your project data changes, no problem.  Generate a new dashboard quickly. Everyone has a clear understanding of what is going on.

Also you will find that any of the ConceptDraw products is an economical solution for you and your team members. Detailed information on all of the ConceptDraw products can be found at http://www.conceptdraw.com. There is even a large video library on the web site that will get you up to speed in literally minutes. Matt great question, I am glad I had a solution for you. Now everything should be tickety-boo for you.

Best regards,

Abe

Popularize Mind Mapping One Student or Classroom at a Time

I talked with one of the academic/career advisors at Boise State University today. It turns out that they have someone on staff who's in charge of putting together academic skills training programs for students. These programs help improve study habits, note taking, research organization, and writing.

I haven't been able to talk to this other staff person, but I know two things that I want to talk to them about:

1. Do you teach mind mapping to students? If so, what do you teach them to do?
2. If you don't, can I come in and teach a class or two?

How About You?
I'm sure BSU isn't unique in offering these classes to student. What would it take for you to contact the nearest community college, vocational/technical college, or university and ask them if you could teach a class?

I run into some many parents whose children have learning problems. Few of these parents have heard of mind mapping or how it can help kids with dyslexia, who struggle with reading comprehension, or who have a hard time organizing writing assignments. I've gone into local schools and taught classes to 5th graders, and have gotten a good reception from students and teachers alike.

You may not think you're a mind mapping expert. But I bet you have all the skills you need to show students of all ages how to become more productive and less frustrated.

Lawyers: Help Startups Make Good Decisions

Last week I spoke with Russell Case, an attorney here in Boise. He just started using ConceptDraw MINDMAP in his legal practice and is pretty thrilled with the results.

Case's work falls into three main categories: corporate expansion, international law, and business startups. While each category is unique, they all have one thing in common: Success depends on his clients fully understanding the choices before them and the implications of the choices they make.

“By using MINDMAP or PRO," Case says, "I can create a visual document that shows them where they are now, where they’re trying to get to, and the decisions they’ll most likely have to make on the way. What’s so great about these programs is that they make it easy for me to show them the most likely implications of each decision. That makes for a much more informed client—one who is able to make better decisions.”

Case says he works with startup clients to, for example, brainstorm around the things they’ve looked at to confirm their market analysis—the size of the market, their opportunity, who their ideal customer is, how their product of service is different from competitors. He talks to them about their intellectual property, what they’re trying to create, when they will need money, and how much they’ll need.

“I can capture all this information from them in real time, drill down into each one as much as we need to, organize it all into a logical structure, and then use it to build the story they’ll present to investors. It’s an incredibly efficient, thorough process.”

Why companies should care about sustainability.

Last week I blogged about why investors care about sustainability. The other side of the coin is to consider why companies should care about it.

The most obvious reason is that companies (public companies, anyway) should care for the very reason that investors care. And the corollary to that is that companies should care not only because investors do, but because investors care enough that this secondary market in sustainability info is springing up.

Firms that provide investors with financial information think they can make money by supplying investors with this information (and just so we're clear, these are large institutional investors, not mom and pops).

So companies also need to care because they need to have information on their sustainability program easily accessible to these information suppliers. If they don't, they will sooner or later stick out like a sore thumb among companies who do.

But there are other reasons, self-interested reasons, why companies should care:

So... what is your company doing about this latest litmus test for corporate health?

Do Investors Care About Corporate Sustainability?

I ran across a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report on whether investors care about a company's efforts to be more sustainable--and not just in the environmental sense of the word. The conclusion: Boy do they.

The report, Do investors care about sustainability? Seven trends provide clues, provides evidence of an interesting loop: Investor interest in sustainable practices has become so popular that financial reporting companies are now starting to provide easy access to information on these practices. As companies realize how easy it is for investors (and potential investors) to get a hold of this information, they upgrade their own sustainability reporting practices.

Investors are becoming interested in sustainability because recent studies indicate a direct correlation between sustainable practices and profits.

Sustainable practices include such things as:

1. Better management of natural resources that go into a companies products. (A beverage company must protect long-term sources of potable water.)
2. More attention to waste products that flow out of factories.
3. More concern for worker health and safety.
4. More attention to how the company's operations affect the community in which it's located.
5. More attention to making sure energy grids are maintained and that energy generation is sustainable.
6. More attention to climate change and its implications on supply and risk.

Here's the map. I'll post it on Biggerplate too:

10 Tips to Running a Great Meeting, by Jean Kelley

In the February 2013 issue of Supervision magazine, Jean Kelley, author, entrepreneur, and managing director of Jean Kelley Leadership Alliance, offers ten tips for running a great meeting.

I made up this quick map. But to get the details, read the article or visit Kelley's website.

I think the one tip that I liked the most was to delegate meeting responsibility. The senior person calls and runs the meeting in most companies.

But giving someone else a chance to get up there and have a shot at it is, in my opinion, a great way to both chance meeting dynamics and do some on-the-job professional development (something far too many companies do far too little of.)

The Life Span of a Mind Map

I've mentioned this in the past. But I continue to be fascinated by people's different interpretations of the "life span" of a mind map. (And by life span, I mean: The amount of time you actively use a given map.)

Annuals versus Perennials
Thinking about maps this way reminds me of plants. There are some plants, like... I don't know... marigolds, that people plant just to add some color to the yard, then yank them up and chuck them in the trash once their bloom is gone. Other plants, like... shrubs... represent more of an investment and usually stay where they are for years.

For some people, a mind map is as ephemeral as a marigold. They create it just to get some ideas clear in their minds, and then file it away somewhere, probably to be never used again.

For others, a map might be something they work on over a period of time, maybe to plan and even manage some kind of project or campaign.

But when the project ends, the map is once again consigned to oblivion. (Savvy map practitioners will keep these maps in a special file to help them plan another similar campaign in the future.)

And then there are maps, like the Master Map I talked about yesterday, that become a part of daily life, constantly updated to reflect the activities of the moment.

Have a Better Idea?
I personally need to find a better way to manage all of my maps. I have a tendency to create a map, put a bunch of information in it, then forget where I put it or what I called it.

Then, when I need that info I put in the map, I have no idea where to find it. (That's happening right now on one of my projects and it's really aggravating. But it is, after all, user error.)

If you have a better solution, let me know... please! :o)

Marketing Planning & MINDMAP

I had the pleasure of interviewing Amanda Larrinaga, a really good marketer from Boise who, sadly, has moved to Montana. Not only is she good at what she does (especially in terms of helping companies do social media using advanced visual aesthetics), but she devotes a lot of time and energy to staying current with and embracing new technology.

Before I get into Amanda's comments on how she uses MINDMAP, here's her map (made for a photographer here in Boise):

If You Don't Think Like Other People, Rejoice...But Find a Common Language
Amanda talks about the struggle some creative people have of taking what's in their heads and making it understandable to others.

“When I’m planning a project—whether it’s for my own business or for a client—there are always lots of moving pieces and parts, I need to communicate a lot of detail. But I have to do it in a way that won’t overwhelm people.”

Part of the reason it doesn't overwhelm people, she says, is that you can control what the staff member or client sees:

“It’s so easy for people to get overwhelmed with information. MINDMAP allows you to show it to them one piece at a time—moving on only when you’re sure they understand the piece before them.”

Clients Got Attention Deficit Disorder?
And I liked her description of how MINDMAP can help you manage clients--many of whom seem to have ADD when it comes to following along with a presentation:

“Sometimes we’ll be talking about one aspect of a marketing plan when the client suddenly starts to fixate on something else. The map structure lets me jump instantly to that part of the plan they want to discuss. Sometimes they just want to make sure we’ve dealt with something that has just popped into their heads."

"I could assure them with words that we’re going to talk about, say, pamphlets. But it’s much more assuring if I can open up the part of the map that talks about brochures and let them see for themselves.”

And she says that when she does jump to another part, it’s very easy for her to change content on the fly to reflect changes in she and/or the client’s thinking.

Tired of Pulling Teeth?

...now that I use mind maps, I never have to push for questions. I get them right away.

One thing she mentioned really struck home for me because I've seen it so many times:

“Even if I’m really probing for questions and trying to really create a conversation, it can just be really frustrating. And as a business owner, it can be a little stressful when the client seems to have nothing to say—because I know they’re usually stewing about something. But now that I use mind maps, I never have to push for questions. I get them right away.”

I remember interviewing someone at Hewlett Packard who told me how, when she used mind mapping with people from another country who were not native English speakers, the rates of participation were always high.

Words of Wisdom from a Self-Confessed TechnoGeek
But probably the coolest thing Amanda said comes from the fact that one of the things she's passionate about is helping her clients find tools that are easy to learn and help them do what they do.

“A big part of my business is making recommendations around implementing different technologies or processes. I pay attention to user friendliness and how intuitive something is. I’ve found that while there is always a range of people’s skill sets, ConceptDraw MINDMAP is one tool that I always recommend, no matter someone’s background.”

Thanks, Amanda!

How much do you pay for team communication? Look at Skype and ConceptDraw MINDMAP as low-cost highly-effective tools

With growing demand for support of virtual teams, the presence of ubiquitools with omnifunctions on platforms for everything from a phone to a computer has exploded in the past decade. Consultancies, small businesses and virtual teams have their pick from a wide range of options to assist in the management of remote staffers.


One low-cost service that has seen increased use since its inception to improve communication is Skype®. With over “250 million active users each month [and] over 115 billion call-minutes logged in quarter 2 (of 2012), alone,” Mark Gillet, Skype’s Chief Development and Operations Officer Skype is a clear leader in cost-effective communications. Now, CS Odessa has capitalized on that popularity and released a new feature for ConceptDraw® MINDMAP that instantly shares and opens presentation documents for each attendee before the presentation begins. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to communication tool-sets, many developers miss the mark when it comes to cross platform applications. Often, the practical solution is a piecemeal of software, email, and phone services that can result in an adequate level of communication; adequate, but not ideal. If some users are not using the preferred platform, a meeting can get congested with dissemination of information, as users can’t all read the same documents.

Since both ConceptDraw MINDMAP and Skype are Windows and Mac compatible, all users have the freedom to access and edit documents mind map documents on their own system while a presentation is underway. Furthermore, even if a mind map was created using other ConceptDraw products, such as ConceptDraw Project, the users can still view the entire document using just ConceptDraw MINDMAP and Skype.

One of the best features of ConceptDraw MINDMAP its cost-effectiveness. For $199 per license, you get a powerful mind-mapping and presentation tool. Using MINDMAP with Skype Presentation, MINDMAP delivers empowering interoperability features that can support meetings, briefings, and brainstorming sessions from across the world with heretofore unseen accessibility, ease-of-use, and power. Combined with Skype’s low or no-cost, Skype Presentation Solution for ConceptDraw MINDMAP gives users a high-powered efficiency tool raises project success-rates dramatically.

Attention Marketing Professionals: Get Ready Now for 2013

I blog about all kinds of things. But lately, after working with a number of marketing companies, I'm going to try to put a little more focus on using MINDMAP for market campaign planning.

I've touched on this before. But mind mapping is such an exemplary way to plan that, with the New Year fast approaching, I hope to convince at least some of you that a modest investment in ConceptDraw MINDMAP will transform the way you plan your campaigns.

Mapping enables you to visually see your entire marketing or PR campaign on one screen. This is so helpful to strategic thinking. Try it once, and you will wonder how you ever did it before with spreadsheets, lists, or project management software. And with mind maps you see the big picture--and still have immediate access to all the nitty gritty details upon which success hangs.

So if you're in marketing, public relations, or communications, stay tuned to this blog for the next couple of weeks to learn about some interesting ways to work with your clients to get 2013 off on the right foot!

Make Holiday Gifts Decisions Wisely

More on living a retro life
My wife and I decided to buy our daughter a new camera this year. Originally, it was because she's going to take a photography class at school. I started looking at all kinds of digital SLRs, was overcome by the selection, and called the photography teacher to see what kind of camera she recommended.

"Well, it just needs to be a film camera," she said. I did a doubletake. A film camera? Why?! "Because I'm going to be teaching the class some darkroom techniques." In fact, she said, the entire first semester will be spent learing about cameras and darkrooms. The kids won't shoot any pictures at all.

A short rant about dank darkrooms
I think it's great to spend time learning about the camera itself. But it seemed/seems odd to me that people are still using darkrooms. I didn't even know companies made film anymore. I can appreciate that there is nothing like actual film for getting the best image (Ansel Adams et al). But these are young kids--middle schoolers. It seems to me like the appropriate thing to teach at this age is how to compose a picture, not how to develop film. And to make them wait an entire semester to shoot one frame?

But I'm not the teacher, am I? Okay. No problem. I think I have an old Nikon around she can use for the class. But I know my daughter. She loves to snap away. And there's no way we can afford to do that with actual film.

To the hunt
So once again, I started researching cameras, but this time for a camera our daughter could use until she mastered her darkroom techniques. I did some quick searching around and came up with three candidates (Click on image to enlarge it):

You can see that little paperclip icon at the upper right corner of each branch. That means there's a hyperlink attached. When I click on the link, it takes me right to the page that features that particular camera.

When I open up the next level of branches, I can see some of the detailed info I've collected on this camera: Its name an product cousins, how it's powered, its zoom, whether you can override auto and get manual control, how big the censor is, what kind of preset modes there are and, last but not least, a collection of product reviews.

Details, details...
As I keep drilling down, more information becomes available to me. I really like being able to see a photo of what I'm thinking about buying. Yes, it's good to make decisions based on what's under the cover. But come on, you want it to look nice too, right? And then there is a list (again, with hot links to the actual sites) of some product reviews.

Comparing apples to apples
The hardest thing for me when trying to make an intelligent buying decision is keeping track of the main variables I want to track: Which camera(s) needs special batteries? How long is each zoom? What is the size of the sensor? What does it cost? Are there any rebates?

MINDMAP is a great way to keep track of these variables. By capturing each individual feature on its own branch, I can easily drag and drop branches to quickly compare each of these features side by side.

Make your Christmas a little calmer this year
Once I have a good sense of what I want to buy, I print out the map and take it with me to a local store--in this case, a local photo store. Having this information with me makes it much easier to ask the right questions, and to make sure the salesperson isn't blowing smoke up my... wallet.

Think Global. Buy Local.
I like to do research the internet, then buy locally--giving the local vendor a chance to match or beat online prices. But if they can't, I usually go with them anyway unless the price is just crazy high. I paid $30 for a 3-year, no-questions-asked warranty on my daughter's camera. If it breaks, I drive right up the street, drop the camera off at this same store, and it goes to the front of the repair line.

Supporting local businesses means that you help them stay local so they'll be around if and when you have a question, need a repair, or are ready to upgrade. The difference between online prices and local retail prices can evaporate when you consider all of the benefits of having stores in your immediate area.

Alas, you can't buy ConceptDraw MINDMAP at a local store, so we're the exception to that rule. But we like to think that we treat each customer as if he or she were our neighbor. So drop on by our website and see what you think!

How to Create a Content-Rich Blueprint of a Website

What decade is this anyway?
For all the years I've been involved in mind mapping, I've never heard very much talk about using maps as part of the web design process. I've never understood that. Having designed more than a few websites myself (and I mean "design" in the sense of my role in the process, which is usually "information design"), I can tell you that mind mapping makes web design insanely easier.

By their very nature, mind maps immediately capture the sense of layers that is the backbone of every web site. You have a home page with its own content. And then the home page links out to layers and layers of other pages. This layering a very tough concept to convey with the kinds of business tools most clients use.

Creating a visual picture of something visual: What a concept!
I use MINDMAP to create guide to the site--a kind of blueprint. A while back, one mind mapping company developed a way to go directly from a mind map to a fully functional website. But it was a pretty crude process. So I stick to using the map as simply a guide--but a very good guide.

The nice thing about using MINDMAP to do this is that you can map out not only the links from one page to the next, but the actual content that will appear on each page.

Think of what this means to you as a web designer. Imagine if your client could send you ONE SINGLE DOCUMENT that clearly communicated:

1. How each page is linked to the next.
2. What text goes on every page (along with notes about how and where the text should appear, what color it should be, etc.)
3. Whether there should be links to documents, images, sound or video files.
4. All of those text, image, audio, video, etc. files, added as attachments or links to the map.

(And remember, this is all in one, easily reorganized, easily added to document-- produced with software that is very affordable and ridiculously easy to learn.)

Every mind map tells a story, don't it?
So what you would have before you is a complete, self-explanatory, self-contained guide to how the client wants the site to be organized, and the content for each and every page.

Call me crazy. But when I've seen how other people try to communicate information this complex, the results are usually... scary. We're talking pages of notes, Dropbox folders full of documents with instructions on what goes where--but in yet another document. At best, we're talking Visio diagrams that contain some--but not all--of the information you need to understand the information architecture. At worst, you're on a conference call taking notes, trying to understand what in the world the client is talking about.

Here's just one simple image of what a map like this might look like. I think your imagination can fill in all the blanks:

Christmas is coming (hint hint)
So here's an idea: Get your clients the gift that keeps on giving: Get them a copy of ConceptDraw MINDMAP. It will take the each of you about 5 minutes to figure out how to do all you need to do to create a map like this (create branches and sub-branches, insert notes, and attach hyperlinks). From that point on, it will be so much easier to communicate information back and forth that you'll feel as if you've jumped ahead a couple of decades.

And compared to the way most people plan websites, you have.

Behold, Ye Timid Mindmappers: Integrated Marketing!

I comped a license of ConceptDraw MINDMAP to a business acquaintance of mine, Jenn Neal of Kane & Associates, a marketing company here in Boise. It was good timing. It just so happened that she was in the middle of rethinking her marketing model.

Sometimes when someone tries mind mapping for the first time (and this was hers), the create some very simple maps. And that's great! I do that all the time. I'll just open up a map when I just want to think a couple of things through. Just getting them down on the page always help me think more clearly.

But Jenn isn't like that. She is, in fact, a maniac. Here's the very first map she showed me, having tried mind mapping for the very first time (click on map to enlarge):

How impressive is that?! I asked Jenn why there were so many relationship lines. Because, she said that that's how she looks at a marketing campaign. Everything Kane does for a client is integrated into everything else or... integrated marketing.

When Kane send out an email for a client, they make sure that the same content gets onto the client's Facebook page and goes out as a Tweet. They put the copy on the company's website--and post about it on their blog. It seems to me that doing it this way really adds a multiplier effect to the message they client is trying to get out.

As you peer closer at the map, you get more of a sense of what she's trying to convey with the map:

Maps like these revive the discussion of a map's intended audience. I think some people believe that a map--any map--should be immediately intelligible to anyone, simply by virtue of the fact that it's a mind map. But maps like this make it pretty clear that while some maps are, indeed, immediately understandable, some have meaning only for the person who made them.

If, for some strange reason, you haven't tried mind mapping yourself, go to www.conceptdraw.com and get a free trial. See if it makes sense to you.

Do Your Spouse/Family a Favor: Get Your Financial House in Order

We recently had a death in the family, and it brought one thing (among many) into a harsh spotlight: The necessity to leave behind a clear picture of your financial life.

People often say that they have this picture in their heads. They know where all the documents are. They know the passwords and locations of all their accounts. They know the names of their financial and tax advisors. And they know--to the penny--how much they have in each account, when the bills are due, and where all the income comes from.

Give your loved ones a fighting chance
That's great. If only people could see into your brain when you pass on or are incapacitated due to illness. And building off of Toni Krasnic's post yesterday, a ConceptDraw MINDMAP is a great way to capture all this information. This one isn't quite a fun as a vacation map, but it can still relieve your stress--and the stress of those around you:

(You can download this My Earthly Possessions Map for free at Biggerplate.com.)

Protect your most important information
Your life may be a lot more or a lot less complicated than what is represented in this map. But you get the general idea. It is, of course, critically important that you keep this map secure, both digitally and if you keep a paper copy. Just be sure that those who may need access to it know how and where to do so.

The mind map format enables you to put in all the information your survivors will need to put your affairs in order. Contact numbers, access codes, hot links to your account pages...

Include notes to help others navigate your accounts
In addition to this "macro" information, you can also add notes to provide more granular information on any element in the map:

Your legacy as a thoughtful, organized person will live on!
Creating a map like this really is one of the more considerate things you could do for your family. Yes, it will take maybe an hour or two. But then you can rest easy knowing that, in the unfortunate event that something happens to you, those you love will not have to rummage through file drawers, emails, and random piles of paper to piece together your financial life on earth.