Comments on: Starting a New Blog? Start With a Mind Map

By: Liam Hughes

Liam Hughes — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:04:21 +0000

Great article with good advice.

Here is a mindmap that gives advice on journal-keeping, so similar idea to blog writing: http://www.biggerplate.com/view/?id=487

Anyone interested in mindmaps may want to take a look at http://www.biggerplate.com which has a great library of user-generated maps available to download for free.

By: JasmineWay

JasmineWay — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:28:36 +0000

Finally something I can use mindmap for. I installed MindMap on my PC quite a while ago but could never quite find a project to use it for, and could never bring myself to uninstall it either.

Definitely a great way to organise my thoughts and ideas for blog projects.

By: Website design company

Website design company — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:36:23 +0000

Does anyone have a free book for building blogs.

By: Edie

Edie — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:23:37 +0000

I will try mind map – we are rebuilding our portal.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:34:42 +0000

Thank you Darren, but I do not see a link for source file, only image. What software did you use to create it? Is it FreeMind or MindManager by any chance? Could it be converted to FreeMind or MindManager format?

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:02:12 +0000

sure Alex

By: alex

alex — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:01:02 +0000

Can I download this mind map and publish it on MindMap Library?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:20:06 +0000

This may prove useful (with some modification) in group writing where you would split topics within one blog among several authers

By: Complete Geek

Complete Geek — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:13:37 +0000

My wife was considering starting a new blog the very day I saw this article. I read it to her and she instantly got to work. She is very excited and believes that she has at least half a years worth of posts mapped out already. She spent half a day just mapping her new blog out and she is taking it one step further and is already writing some of her posts.

By: Elaine Vigneault

Elaine Vigneault — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:37:15 +0000

This is a good idea. Thanks.

By: Suzie Cheel

Suzie Cheel — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:37:15 +0000

Thanks Darren,
I am starting a new blog and I think the mind mapping is a great way to make sure everything gets included.

The example you have is excellent

By: Jummy

Jummy — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:43:14 +0000

This is going to be such a helpful exercise for me as I’ve recently come up with a topic/niche and just need to get working on it before someone else discovers it too!

By: vhxn.com

vhxn.com — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:31:43 +0000

thanks darren for this tips , you are giving lots of useful tips
http://www.vhxn.com

By: Jeff Chavez

Jeff Chavez — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:15:08 +0000

I really appreciated this post. I wanted my readers to see this also so I’ve provided a link to it from one of my recent posts:

http://northstarthinktank.typepad.com/northstar_thinktank/2007/06/start-a-blog.html

Keep up the good work!
Jeff

By: KOGY

KOGY — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:42:28 +0000

Thank you for this article, it made me realise that I may have been rushing things a bit which has been affecting the layout and sequence of my posts.

I will do this and I hope to have a more improved blod.

thanx

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:23:44 +0000

This has helped me so much. Thanks Darren! I’ve just uncovered about 150 new post ideas that I’ve never seen before.

By: Vero Pepperrell

Vero Pepperrell — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:14:38 +0000

Strikes me as something that applies to new AND existing blogs. When you run out of steam or are looking for ideas to start new series, creating a mindmap based on past successful posts that can be fleshed out into series or developing new ideas relating to the niche market can save a blog from going stale.

Might need to give my blogs a new breath of fresh air for the new year…

By: Andrew Boyd

Andrew Boyd — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:38:38 +0000

Hi Darren,

great idea :)

I use MindManager for mind-mapping in day-to-day consulting work – there are OSX and Windows versions (I have both). It exports to MS Word which makes it great for document/site outlines, and it is really handy for “what if we change this bit of site navigation?” explorations of site maps.

MindManager Pro (Windows only, sadly) would allow you to put your series topics above into clouds that showed the grouping, and add non-hierarchical relationships (a bunch of arrows that can go any which way).

The great strength of the general run of mindmapping tools – showing hierarchical categorisation of ideas – is also their weakness (i.e. the hierarchical mindset only goes so far towards communicating non-hierarchical ideas, such as n-dimensional navigation with mixed browse/search/”did you know?”/”customers also bought” facets). To be fair, even MindManager gets messy when there are a lot of non-hierarchical relationships.

The good thing is that the posting idea mindmap could be wonderful for showing relationships between ideas as those ideas progress through time (which can be hard to show in two dimensions without specifying time as a facet) by tagging the concepts with the date of recording/date of use.

I need to play with this and see what else drops out of it, thanks for the inspiration :)

Best regards, Andrew

By: Reverse Funnel System

Reverse Funnel System — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:06:18 +0000

It is very nice mindmap and concept. I think there are many true informations what u sharing and beneficial for everyone who is new in blogging or would like to improve own blog, its not easy this times cause there are so many competition..

By: Justin Dupre

Justin Dupre — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 21:09:12 +0000

How simple is this idea? All elementary children learn this in 1st grade. Brainstorming, or for smaller children, spider maps. Wonderful idea, no?. A bit of a lexicon as well.

While a bit of brainstorming is always necessary for any blog, I will definitely try some similar techniques with my next blog.