Mind mapping your business and ideas

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman is an independent consultant with her company, Fort Smith-based Msaada Group. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

This column has covered strategic plans, marketing plans, customer research, business research, value chains and more. These are all valuable tools to help the business understand where it stands in the moment, where it would like to go and outlines avenues on how to progress forward.

All the tools utilize the concept of obtaining and interpreting data to conceptually mold into ideas, action plans or business blue prints. What happens to the business owner who struggles to envision conceptual ideas?

Mind Maps are another tool now used in business (or anywhere ideas need to be communicated) that help provide a visual representation to an idea, process or plan.

According to Wikipedia, “a mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea.”

Mind maps can be used to visually structure and classify ideas, problem solve, show connections or structure and organize writing.

This is an extremely helpful tool for entrepreneurs working on their first business start-up as well as other business owners trying to introduce a new product to market. In fact, if you’ve ever scribbled ideas down on a scrap paper and showed interrelations to the ideas, you’ve created a basic mind map before.

There are no set rules for creating mind maps and no particular way to draw a mind map. However, the mind map needs to connect the relationship between tasks or thoughts. Some will suggest getting creative with the mind map by using colors to classify thoughts and hand drawing the map. Others like to use specific mind mapping software to approach the task in a more organized fashion. Either way, labeling the thoughts and interpreting the end results are important to clarify what’s in the mind and being able to return to the map for guidance.

For instance, the mind map shown at the end of this depicts the mind map of an entrepreneur working a new business start up. This factitious company is developing business software.

While the example mind map can and probably should go into much greater detail on how a business can go from concept to reality in a manner that provides a visual guide. Creating mind maps is easy through the use of mind mapping software, using Microsoft Word or the traditional cocktail napkin.

Again, Wikipedia notes: “By presenting ideas in a radial, graphical, non-linear manner, mind maps encourage a brainstorming approach to planning and organizational tasks. Though the branches of a mindmap represent hierarchical tree structures, their radial arrangement disrupts the prioritizing of concepts typically associated with hierarchies presented with more linear visual cues. This orientation towards brainstorming encourages users to enumerate and connect concepts without a tendency to begin within a particular conceptual framework.”

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