Mindmaps: My Favourite Professional BlackBerry PlayBook App

The PlayBook for me is first and foremost a professional tool.  Sure I play the games, and often find sticky fingers on my PlayBook from the kids using it to play DoodleBlast or PopCorn Rush.  But what I love about my PlayBook is that I can show-up to meetings (which I have way too many of) and my hands are completely free.  I got my BlackBerry on my side and my PlayBook in my pant pocket or my Jacket Pocket.

When I pull out my PlayBook, I get a few glances but when I start to zip around on it in a meeting, that's when I notice people around me starting to look over my shoulder. 

A typical meeting, will have someone running through a deck that they e-mailed.  I am an impatient person so I tend to download the deck myself and flip through the slides as I see fit without waiting for the presenter to get to their point.  I do this while my responding and composing e-mails, doing my BBM and I've even had the audacity to browse the web for facts that will either dispute what the presenter is saying or support them.  AND I DO THIS ALL AT THE SAME TIME!  Why doesn't RIM do a better job demonstrating/marketing why "true" multi-tasking is so important?  

But back to the main point of post.  The other app which I use religiously is Mindmaps by Vandewalle Bram.  If you are familiar with mind mapping you will find this to be a great intuitive tool.  It's custom built for the PlayBook and it's beauty is it's simplicity.  I've tried all the other mindmapping apps out there for PlayBook but by far, I always come back to Mindmaps.    If you are not familiar with mindmapping, I think you will find with a little practice that you will be able to understand complex ideas, process large amounts of information, and even solve challenging problems with the use of mind maps which provide a synaptic understanding of concepts. 

If you are new to mindmapping, there are several sources to learn about it. Mind Mapping is a great compliment to the tablet, because, let's face it...  VIRTUAL KEYBOARDS SUCK compared to real keyboards but mind-mapping doesn't require you to do a ton of typing, you just need to jot down the key trigger word.

This application allows me to quickly relate concepts, and provides me the base tools to organize those concepts by shapes, icons and colours.  A simple "+" to add and "-" to erase quickly allows me to build branches and tap on my virtual keyboard.  I can pinch to zoom, pan across the map, and quickly find centre.  Once I am done, I can export this to FreeMind which I love on my PC and do further editing if required, or render it as a .JPG to quickly share with my colleagues. 

Something I am looking forward to trying is actually facilitating a session with a live mind-map hooked up to a big-screen monitor/projector all on my playbook.  It's great way to brainstorm with a bunch of people working on a single map.  Of course when I do that, I won't be be able to do all that other cool multi-tasking stuff...

So what are your favourite PlayBook Apps?