International Ideas Month; what do YOU think into?
International Ideas Month is all about recognising and celebrating the value of great ideas. It’s also about understanding how to increase your chances of having novel thoughts in the first place.
With that in mind, it’s our duty as digital connoisseurs to share with you what we think software can do to help.
We all recognise the value of a great idea but, all too often, we wait for ideas to come to us, rather than actively creating the right environment for inspiration to flourish.
The typical digital worker has a standard and fairly blunt set of tools at their disposal, when it comes to nurturing ideas…
- You have email or maybe something like Slack for communication
- A spreadsheet tool, such as Excel or Sheets for handling numbers
- A word processing tool, like Word or Google Docs for writing
- A video calling tool for web meetings – Zoom, Teams or Meet perhaps
- A presentation tool – maybe Powerpoint or Keynote for honing your slide decks
- A digital or physical notepad for ‘standard’ note taking
- If you’re lucky, you have something like Wrike, Podio, Asana or Monday for collaboration
But what piece of software do you have for thinking into?
We are avid users of mind mapping software for this. It’s a hugely powerful (but under-appreciated) tool for both gathering and stimulating new ideas. It works in concert with your brain to break away from linear communication and prose, instead fostering seemingly perpetual branches of ideas. All of which can be easily re-organised with drag-and-drop simplicity.
As a business that recognises the power of good software, we would urge you to fill this important gap in your software toolkit!
Our recommendations
Best overall
Mindmeister: Simple but powerful browser-based mind mapping (with companion mobile apps)
https://www.mindmeister.com/
Best for traditional mind mapping (Tony-Buzan style)
Ayoa: Create bright, colourful and authentic maps in your browser, or via the desktop apps
https://www.ayoa.com/mind-mapping/software/
Most feature-rich
Mind Manager (for Windows): Great for project management and turning mind maps into structured documents
https://www.mindmanager.com/en/
Making it happen
So now we’ve divulged what we think are some of the best ways to garner your thoughts, you may be left wondering ‘but how do I make it happen?’. If it’s something we can help with, get in touch, we are all ears! Whether your idea is small and specific, or completely game changing, we LOVE helping people bring their brilliance to fruition – there is never any harm in finding a sounding board and, you never know, your back-of-a-napkin idea could fly!