Comments on: MindManager 6 Mac, or, Mind Mapping in General

By: Craig Cmehil

Craig Cmehil — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:29:07 +0000

This one over on Tom’s site really caught me eye - mainly because I’ve spent a lot of time over on Cote’s blog and he uses mind maps for everything!

By: cote

cote — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:44:37 +0000

Ted: indeed. While I can appreciate the old Crossing the Chasem strategy of targeting niches rather than “everyone,” the niche of Mac types without $300+ to spend should be on MindJet’s radar. They could provide a stripped down version similar to MyMind.app.

MyMind is very eloquent in it’s stripped downness. But, I still like MindManager’s UI and usability much more.

Point being, MindJet could package up a version of MindManager that appealed to the poor, but cool Apple-heads.

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 07:50:31 +0000

The price is too high for a personal user. After reading Hobie’s statement, it seems as if it is aimed squarely at the executive level, ignoring the casual user’s needs. This is unfortunate because I believe there is a huge market among entrepeneurs and other self starters in the Mac community.

By: Cote'

Cote' — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 01:49:10 +0000

Ho, ho. We’ve got something crazy. Are you suggesting there should be a mind map mode in emacs that “draws” in ASCII. If not, then you should be ;>

By: Bill de hOra

Bill de hOra — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:35:34 +0000

I love ‘em. How about n dollars pa?

1 2
\ /
o
/ \
3 4

o
+- 1
+- 2
+- 3
+- 4

opml:
outline:@text=1
outline @text=2
outline @text=3
outline:@text=4

Anyway, mind maps can be dumped as XOXO/OPML, so… where’s the AJAX graphing libraries at?

By: Cote'

Cote' — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 14:32:59 +0000

Lunt: I’m glad I managed to keep from crossing the streams ;) I’ll have to fix the comment link problem.
Ric: for as lazy as I said I was about trying new software when what I have works, pulling in Lunt’s point, I should try out Freemind. Thanks for the email chunks, no problem on sending them to me.
On price: I think Ron sums it up best. Thanks for that, Ron.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:12:48 +0000

Cote,

I actually kind of laughed at the comment “Obviously, I think $150 is too much, but it’s just barely too much”. This is exactly the thought process I was going through. My upper limit on the price of a software package seems to hover around $150, however even that is really painful and I go through a lot of mental gymnastics before I pay it.

I agree. $50-$89 is right in the range where I don’t even think about the money I’m spending on a software product. Any higher than that, and you have me doing cost benefit analyses for months trying to figure out the payback. Once I get to that point, you might as well write me off as a customer. Thats too much work!

By: james governor

james governor — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:59:51 +0000

Hobie - you may need some freemium in your model. sure your software is valuable, but its about sticker shock.

By: Hobie Swan

Hobie Swan — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 04:53:50 +0000

Cote,
Thanks for some great comments on MindManager. The price issue is one we are quite familiar with. We happen to believe that our software pays for itself the first time its used to run a meeting with one or two execs in it–just in terms of the time saved–not to mention the improved clarity of thinking. How much is it worth to be able to quickly and clearly map out a business strategy, a new campaign, a more thoughtful project? If you are a single user with a limited budget, then maybe you should go for a cheaper alternative (but we don’t think so. Between our innovation and our ecosystem of developers and partners, we are a much more solid “business partner” for any user.)
We spent more than a year creating what we think is a rock-solid, very Mac-like product. We think we met that goal. Now we are listening to the Mac community/MM 6 Mac users to see what kinds of features THEY would like to see in the next version. We have already started work on that

I really appreciate you making the effort to provide such a comprehensive review particularly because, as you say, we are very interested in popularizing the concept of mapping. We just happen to feel that once people start using more visual means of communicating, they never go back to the dull, linear, black text on white way of working: their craniums won’t allow it. Yes, we do get a coattail effect as other mapping companies get some reflected glow. But we are serious about waking the world up to mapping and about continuing to lead the market in terms of technology.
Thanks again!
Hobie Swan
Mindjet

By: Ric

Ric — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:39:10 +0000

PS - it will import mindmanager (v5) maps. It is (I think) XML-based, because you can apply your own XSL transforms to a map (which is how most of their outputs are managed - the /accessories directory is full of ‘xslt’)