About this Author
Gwen Smith Ishmael, Sr. Vice President of Insights and Innovation at Decision Analyst in Arlington, TX, has led marketing and new product development activities in the CPG and technology industries since 1986. She also conceived and developed ground-breaking Web-based promotional vehicles, two of which are patent pending. Gwen holds an MBA in Marketing and is a featured speaker on insights and innovation around the world. Her writings have been featured in international text books, most recently in Managing 4 Ps of Marketing FMCG Sector, and Product Innovation: A Strategic Tool for Growth, by ICFAI Publications, 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Founding Author
Renee Hopkins Callahan started IdeaFlow and serves as chief blog-wrangler. She is
Director of Innovation Services at Decision Analyst in Arlington, Texas, is a former journalist who worked as an editor and reporter for The Dallas Morning News and the Nashville Tennessean, and was managing editor of D, the Dallas city magazine. She has a master's degree in rhetoric and has also taught college-level English and informal logic.
1. Phil on January 6, 2007 3:10 PM writes...
I think a guide to choosing mind mapping software is a great idea - the market seems to be flooding with new software packages.
I personally use Spark-Space, which I have found very intuitive to use and seems to be the only one where it is simple to produce documents directly in the the software. Check it out at www.spark-space.com
Permalink to Comment2. Colin Brayton on February 3, 2007 8:38 AM writes...
I personally rely more on reviews by independent users who have not spent 20 years marketing the kinds of products they review.
I suppose a marketer might be good at reviewing these tools from the point of view of what marketers want to use them for. But I am not a marketer. I am one of those pathetic people who still do Journalism 1.0 because we "don't get the Internet."
For my money -- I have none -- the free Cmap mind-mapping tool does the trick nicely, and I am also following the progress of the Yed social-network analysis tool. Also free.
Permalink to Comment3. ARLAN DEAN on February 17, 2007 4:27 PM writes...
About time there was a good survey of visual productivity tools.
Bottom line, effective visualization software should be practically transparent (intuitive, to quote another comment)--as effortless to learn and use as visual thinking itself.
Any mind-mapping application that requires constant checking of the user manual or mountaineer gear to climb a steep learning curve is more a hindrance than a help.
...that's the way I "see" it, in any case
Permalink to Comment4. Mary on March 25, 2007 4:07 PM writes...
good article...visualization software often times requires too much effort to get going...this was very helpful
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