Response to Peter Abrahams' "four generations" article

Peter Abrahams of IT-Director.com recently posted an article, also commented upon by Chuck Frey, arguing that collaborative mind mapping software represents a fourth generation of evolution of mind mapping technology. I don't agree with this interpretation, and here's why.

The first generation, pen and paper (or whiteboard), is still the preferred medium for many occasions, so is not outdated or superseded by electronic versions.

The second generation is electronic implementation of mind maps with computer software. This is worthy of being regarded as a different generation, because it builds on the concepts of the first, but adds fundamental capabilities that did not exist in the first. Specifically, the ability to expand and collapse information allowed us to deal with ten, twenty or a hundred times more information than could be sensibly managed in a physical form. This meant that mind map visualisations could be used in previously inaccessible or impractical areas, and allowed mind maps to become serious knowledge management tools. All the other features of electronic mind mapping, such as attaching files and links, or real-time collaboration, do not change this basic premise. We could (and still do) collaborate in real time with first generation technology; you don't need the Internet for that. Agreed, you can now collaborate at a distance, but this is a convenience, not a fourth generation. I think that Peter's third and fourth generations of mind mapping software are enhancements to the second, and not new generations.

So what will the third generation look like? I hope it will be an "unbundling" of mind mapping technology, and an escape from the silos of information that dedicated "mind mapping" tools are creating. The feature sets of many mind mapping tools are overloaded with import and export capabilities, which itself tells a story. They expend just as much effort trying to integrate with "normal" technology as they do on exploiting the fundamental power of visualisation. You could say they have a stereotypical English persona: "Sorry, I'm a mind map. Sorry." I look forward to the day when electronic mind mapping stops apologising, ceases to be a parallel universe, and is just one of the choices we have to access and manage information in a variety of activities. Mind Mapping software clients are to mind mapping what e-mail clients are to everyday work; I don't want all my e-mails grouped together inside an e-mail application, I want them embedded in whatever project or piece of work they relate to, in whatever visual format that may take. I want to be able to have an e-mail conversation from within a mind map, without going through technological hoops trying to get two separate applications to liase with each other. I want to be able to click the "mind map view" tab in Google, Word or PowerPoint. While we have standalone mind mapping applications, this will not happen.

Mind mapping technology is the third generation, not more sophisticated mind mapping applications. I hope!

Comments

[Olly]

Nick
I have been looking around Resultsmanager recently, and I found a podcast on Eric Mack's blog setting up a challenge where you were going to guide him through some projects using MM and Resultsmanager. What a shame the series didn't run.
Also, I remember you did a webinar for Mindjet on MM and ResultsM. At the time I didn't appreciate what it could do, so it's a great shame MJ have removed it from their archive. I'd love to watch it again now I'm more appreciative of your expertise on the matter.
Olly

[Luis]

I'm smilling, while thinking that mindmapping is still trying to deliver what we need, and we don't need just or only a bunch of branches, we want more and more ... we want a merger of lots of mindmapping applications, we need to relate what was before unrelated, we need to focus on parts without loosing the whole picture, we need to be remembered, not only to remember, we need to act, to produce presentations, to perform complex calculations, to produce imaculate documents and reports, to comunicate, to plan and requesting other's inputs and actions. And we need a complete graphical visualization of the whole, of the parts and the relations between the parts, wich are not 2D, nor 3D, but nD ... that's why we need branch visualizing techniques ...

[NickDuffill]

Olly - yes it is a shame, but Eric has instead focused on developing his remarkable implementation of GTD for Lotus Notes. The Mindjet Webinar was hosted on the Webex server for a while but has gone, and we were unable to save a copy of it.