This week, we were asked in class to do a "mind map" on the concept of emerging media. Mind mapping is the new phenomenon that involves creating a diagram to represent ones words, ideas or tasks, that is centered around key words or ideas. Basically, it's a new-fangled study/thought process aid that supposedly puts a new perspective on problem solving by visualizing the process of one's ideas.
OK, sounds straightforward enough. I've always been a pen-to-paper, line by line note taking guy, and honestly, a lot of my creative work has been formed by putting my ideas right into the media I am working on as I go (create now, edit later), so I was skeptical from the beginning about this mind mapping thing.
The venue we were given in class was MindMeister, a web based mind mapping tool that has a simple point-and-click interface. Easy, right? Not so much. The site's interface was clunky, and the new points I tried to add kept jumping to the extreme ends of the canvas, several scroll-bars away. In fact, over half an hour of my time with MindMeister was spent just getting my layout back, every time I added things.
As far as the mind mapping itself, I suppose I can see why it would be a benefit to some, especially the more big-picture thinkers out there. Myself, I found it more as a hinderance. Mapping my thoughts on emerging media gave me a lot more generic of a thought process than if I wrote about it here, or maybe made a video on the subject. This was further complicated by my constant distraction by the tool's problems.
Bottom line, I fail to see any help that would come out of my using this tool, and probably won't use it ag
You can see my attempt at a mind map here.
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