A mindmap is a freestyle diagram for loosely organized thoughts and ideas, frequently used in brainstorming, planning, and note-taking. Mindmapping can be a quick and easy way to unleash our creative potential, by untethering us from our usual habits of structured thinking.

It’s been five or six years since I last tried using mindmapping software; at the time, I was distinctly underwhelmed. I usually found myself spending more time battling the interface than actually accomplishing anything.¹ I eventually went back to the trusty old technology of pen-and-paper.

I recently decided to give mindmapping software another try, and couldn’t be happier with the results. I was pleased to find that the state of the art has significantly improved. These are the mindmapping tools I evaluated, any of which I’d feel good about recommending:

• Mindjet MindManager – $349 w/30 day free trial; available for Windows or Mac ($319 from Amazon). Easily the most powerful and easiest to use — see my comments below.
• XMind- Free, open-source; available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. XMind Pro with extra features is $49/yr. Not as slick as Mindjet, but fairly strong on features — and the price is right.
• MindMeister – Free, Web-based; no software download or install. Premium account with extra features available. Limited features and not the greatest interface, but it’s more than sufficient for quick-and-dirty tasks.

Mindjet MindManager was by far my favorite. It’s an absolute dream to use, with a slick and intuitive interface and lots of powerful options under the hood. I’m downright giddy with how much it’s helped me accomplish in just the last week. Unfortunately, it’s (relatively) expensive; I almost certainly wouldn’t have bothered evaluating it if a kind patron hadn’t offered me one of his company’s extra licenses.

There’s also FreeMind, a Java-based app, which is why I have a (perhaps unfair) bias against it. Java apps have tend to have a clunky, sluggish user interface, and a few minutes with FreeMind seemed to confirm this. Java’s write-once, run-anywhere client apps remain better in theory than in practice.

Finally, Personal Brain is a neat mindmap-like tool with a much larger ambition: to organize all of your digital information. The interface is slick, but not especially well-suited to basic brainstorming; it’s more of a long-term investment.

Have you tried any of these tools? Did I miss any? Let me know what you think!

1. The same was true of early editions of pre-Microsoft Visio, wherein even the most basic network diagrams could become an epic battle of wills between me and the software. (I usually lost.) [↩]

This week’s tasty tidbits from the business and technology front, as well as other recommended links:

• How the Kindle will change the world — I’m an ardent book-lover, but I recognize that my attachment to their paper form is largely sentimental — and increasingly anachronistic. Jacob Weisberg explains why.
• How Samberg and Social Media Saved SNL — How Saturday Night Live’s "Digital Short" features kept them relevant in the days of YouTube and social networking. Includes links to all the classics (Lazy Sunday, D&*k in a Box, etc.)
• Speedtest.net – The Global Broadband Speed Test — Easily the most accurate and easy-to-understand of the tools that measures your broadband connection speed.
• Seattle expected to rise from recession — While not exactly flourishing, the Puget Sound region is likely to less affected than other areas of the country, and will be one of the first to recover.
• Ideas for Embedding Google Spreadsheets in Your Blog or Website — Google Spreadsheets is both free and easy to integrate into your website. Here are some excellent creative ideas for doing so.
• So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur — The Wall Street Journal asks a series of excellent questions to determine if you have the disposition to be an entrepreneur.
• Le Whif Chocolate Inhaler — Have you ever been accused of inhaling chocolate? Now you can actually do it, and with no calories!

Documentation is a lot like flossing. Done with regularity and diligence, it can stave off a disaster, but it’s immensely tiresome, and the negative effects of neglect aren’t immediate. Unless it’s a deeply ingrained habit, we tend to avoid it.

The most crucial type of documentation is the kind that’s written before a new project even starts: the Project Specifications document, or Specs. A good Specs can save a company boatloads of time and money, and can even be fun to put together. It’s also an absolutely essential step before beginning to build any large-scale programming, design, or other engineering project.

Software developer and entrepreneur Joel Spolsky worked at Microsoft before founding his own company, and has been writing essays at Joel on Software for nearly a decade. He has written a superb series on Painless Functional Specifications that I strongly recommend. It’s in four parts:

1. Part 1: Why Bother? — Joel explains exactly why Specs are so crucial, even though engineers tend to regard them with wariness.

2. Part 2: What’s a Spec? — A look at the document itself, including a fun Sample Specs for a silly application.
3. Part 3: But… How? — By designating (or hiring) a Program Manager! Joel explains how this position works.
4. Part 4: Tips — The task is only as daunting as you let it be. The final entry contains tips to make it painless.

Specs are especially important for non-technical owners and managers whose company is about to embark on a technical project—like a Website redesign, or building a new sales database. Without a high-level Specs that you can both understand and sign off on, you’re just inviting your project team to spend their time—and your money!—inefficiently. Be sure to insist on a Spec from the project leader before any actual development work begins, and you’ll save yourself a guaranteed headache (or toothache) in the future.