Mindjet Premieres Cloud-Based Collaborative Work Management

Acquires social collaboration innovator Cohuman for optimized team accountability and launches Mindjet Connect, a free online service to improve how people work together

San Francisco – September 12, 2011 — Mindjet®, the company that improves how people work together, today announced new Mindjet Connect® collaborative work management software to help groups working toward common goals get more done. Mindjet Connect is a cloud-based service that helps groups visualize their best ideas and plans, securely manage and share files, get teams on the same page and access information anywhere, at any time.

Forrester®’s Rob Koplowitz indicated in his 2011 report that 43% of information workers work from multiple locations over the course of a month, and that 42% work outside of the corporate firewall. Work is decentralized, moving faster and likely to keep changing at a rapid pace to keep up with the similarly frenetic pace of change in communications, business and technology. Mindjet Connect addresses the needs of this changing workforce.

"Work today is different. Individuals and teams are overloaded, increasingly virtual and knee deep in unstructured information, resulting in a lack of clarity, accountability and action,” said Scott Raskin, Mindjet CEO. “Mindjet Connect goes beyond document management and file sharing, and includes a powerful way to visualize information that provides faster insight and better results."

Mindjet also announced the acquisition of Cohuman® (www.cohuman.com), a social task-based web service that keeps teams in sync by making information more people-centric, organized and transparent. With social aspects similar to Facebook® and Twitter®, Cohuman gives people the ability to better coordinate with colleagues on projects and tasks.

"Where Mindjet Connect helps teams get on the same page, Cohuman helps teams stay on the same page,” said Raskin. “The combination of Cohuman and Mindjet Connect will further Mindjet’s vision to help people work better, together."

With these announcements, Mindjet is well-positioned to be the leading provider of collaborative work management software.

Mindjet Connect will be available free of charge on September 22, 2011 athttp://www.mindjet.com/connect. To find out more about Mindjet Connect visithttp://blog.mindjet.com. To learn more about Cohuman visithttp://blog.cohuman.com.

About Mindjet:

Two million individuals, small businesses and Fortune 1000® companies using Mindjet understand that working visually and collaboratively brings results. We set the standard in mind mapping and now our focus is to provide collaborative work management solutions that dramatically improve how people can work better together, accomplish goals more successfully and be more productive.

Forty-six of BusinessWeek®’s "World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies" rely on Mindjet to see the big picture – let us show you too.

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Mindjet, Mindjet Connect and Cohuman are trademarks of Mindjet, registered in the US and other jurisdictions. Forrester, Facebook, Twitter, Fortune 1000 and BusinessWeek are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc., Facebook, Inc., Twitter, Inc., Time Inc. and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., respectively, registered in the US and other jurisdictions.

MindManager 8 Released Today

It has been hard to contain myself over the last month, since I had a chance to beta test the latest version of MindManager 8 which will be released today. Built on the strong foundation of MindManager 7, version 8 breaks new ground with some really exciting features. MindManager 8 breaks new ground with the introduction of the Mindjet Player which now allows you to share and publish your maps with just about anyone. It is now easy with MindManager 8 to transforms your maps into fully interactive Adobe PDFs or Flash .SWF files. They can be shared with anyone, published to blogs and embedded in web pages. When you see this feature you too will be amazed how you can interact with your maps with nothing else but the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. This is really going to change the way we publish and share our maps without the worry if the person on the other end has a copy of MindManager 8 installed on their computer. I can go on for days talking about this feature and look for a screencast about this in the coming days. In the same vein, Mindjet will be releasing a new version of MindManager Web which will allow you to access and collaborate on the web with your mind maps in a secure web workspace. Similar to Google Docs, you will now be able within any browser to open and co-edit your maps with other as you collaborate with clients on your projects. Using the same conventions to insert topics and format your maps you will be up and running using MindManager Web in no time and if you would like you can also access your maps with the desktop version of MindManager 8. Having both Mindjet Player and MindManager Web ensure that you and your clients can have access to your maps wherever you are.

One of the key design decisions that was made at Mindjet is clear once you start using MindManager 8; that is that you can work within MindManager 8 without having to leave the environment to view URL’s or for that matter viewing or editing Microsoft Office documents. That’s right now when you click on a URL it opens a Browser window right within MindManager 8- pretty cool. I’m sure you will agree-but it gets even better in that now when you click on a Microsoft Office document (Word, Excel, Project, PowerPoint) it opens in a window within MindManager 8 and can be viewed and edited. No need to have Word or Excel open- just edit and view within MindManager 8. For those of you have been using MindManager for awhile- I had always enjoyed using the Google search API which allowed me to do live searches within MindManager. Somehow along the way of new versions the API no longer worked- but now you can do live Google and Yahoo! searches can be directly inside a map, with mapped and editable search results that can be refreshed with one click, or automatically updated each time you open your map. MindManager 8 can also search Amazon, Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft Live Search, eBay, and StrikeIron. I’m confident that with this new ability that other 3^rd party developers will build new search parts that we can use with MindManager 8. MindManager has become an extremely important tool for project planning and in the latest version Mindjet has answered our call and really beefed up its task management capabilities. MindManager 8 now includes automated task management that provides instant summations of task start date, end dates, level of completion, and exception management. It is now easier than ever to set dependencies and watch how MindManager 8 is able to instantly calculate the dates when tasks are due- if a task falls behind schedule MindManager 8 will color code the task to visually show you where you need to focus. And last but not least, MindManager 8 can now incorporate real time information from spreadsheets and databases with the new Database Linker feature. MindManager 8 can now access data from MS Excel, Oracle, IBM DB2, MS SQL Server, MS Access, and MySQL. I’m sure you will agree that this is a very substantial upgrade and one that I’m really very excited about. To find out more information about MindManager 8 please click on the link.

Using the MindManager Web Launcher

Having access to Mindjet Connect is really wonderful for some of the business projects I am working on. It is a wonderful collaboration tool and gives me access to all of my MindManager maps. For those of you who may not be familiar with Mindjet Connect it is a collaborative workspace that lets me in real time share my MindManager maps and associated files. Being able to work with one of my colleagues on some of my maps in real time is a very powerful feature. Additionally, I can also store supporting Word documents, PDF files, etc in my workspace for easy access. If you have a Mindjet Connect account and are running MindManager 7 on a Windows computer, Mindjet Connect is seamlessly integrated. This is not the case if you are a Macintosh user but here is a little trick that you should be aware of. Mindjet recently released a MindManager Web client that lets you launch your MindManager maps right from the browser. Using Firefox I am able on my MacBook to access all of my MindManager maps and associated files. Having access to the MindManager Web client lets me have access to all of my files as long as I'm connected to the web. What a great feature! I created a screencast using Jing to show you how the MindManager Web client works.

New Mindjet Connect Customer Vignette Up

For those of you that are considering using Mindjet Connect, take a look at my vignette to give you some insight as to how I have been using it for the last couple of months. I have found Mindjet Connect indispensable for planning the Fall Visual Mapping Conference. I have been able to share my MindManager 7 visual maps, as well as PDF and Word documents in the workspace. When I have needed to I have been able to in real time to co-edit my MindManager 7 maps with my co-presenters which has been really fantastic. So if you have the chance view the vignette to find out how I have been using Mindjet Connect.

Mindjet Connect and More

I have had the opportunity to beta test Mindjet Connect before its initial release last week and have really enjoyed the ability to collaborate in real time on my visual maps. Once you use Mindjet Connect, there is no going back. Mindjet Connect is a wonderful and easy to use collaborative technology that lets you not only store your maps but other files types as well. I have been using Mindjet Connect to plan the Intelligent Visual Mapping Conference in the Fall and it is great having one single access point that all of my presenters can go to for all of the conference information. I am now storing Word and PDF files in my workspace along with JPEG files which makes it easy for me to access wherever I am. To see Mindjet Connect in action you can click on this link.

Along with Mindjet Connect, Mindjet announced the availability of MindManager Web which lets you create visual maps using an application that is served up through your browser. As long as you have a Mindjet Connect account you can launch the MindManager Web client from your computer and create and access your visual maps from your workspace. While you will need to have a Windows computer with a Mindjet Connect Account you can successfully use MindManager Web on a Macintosh to edit and create new maps. Having access to my visual maps from any computer is a great feature and one that I am going to really enjoy. Mindmanager Web was very easy to use and is functionally the same as the desktop application. MindManager Web has a great look to it and is very responsive when using it. Once you start using it you will soon forget that you are using a program through the browser. The interface is very well done and it looks as if the client was written using Adobe Air and Flash. When creating topics and subtopics MindManager Web behaves just like the desktop version and so you can easily use the Enter and Control Enter keys to add topics and subtopics to your visual maps. All of the standard markers, symbols, flags, and smileys are available to you for use. You can also add boundaries and relationships as you would on the desktop version of MindManager. Adding your own images to your topics can be easily accomplished within the application. One of the really nice features is the ability to open your MindManager visual maps and import them into your Connect workspace. Similarly, you can also add attachments and hyperlinks on your visual maps that you create with MindManager Web. With access to all of the features you would expect from a visual mapping application having them available to you 24/7 is really terrific. Check out Mindjet Connect and see what all of the excitement is about.

Mindjet Connections Newsletter

If you have a chance go over to Mindjet where you see a total redesign of their website. With the release of Mindjet Connect and the recent acquisition of JCVGantt there is a lot happening at Mindjet these days. Each month I have the opportunity to share a Tip 'n'Trick via the Mindjet Connections Newsletter. This month I created a screencast giving you an overview of Mindjet Connect which is a great collaboration tool. For the past month and a half I have been using Mindjet Connect with my team of presenters as we prepare for the October 2-3, 2008 Visual Mapping Conference to be held in the Greater New York City Area. Mindjet Connect has been indispensable as we plan the conference. All of our maps, Word documents and PDF's are stored in the Connect Workspace for easy access. There are times when my co-presenters will work and edit the maps in real time- which is really a tremendous feature. With all of the maps and files for the conference n Mindjet Connect all of the presenters can keep on top of the schedule and gain access to the files if they need them. Having presenters all over North America and in Europe makes it easy for them to access them according to their schedule. So take a look at the screencast and then if you have the chance give Mindjet Connect a try!

Mindjet Connect- Collaboration Comes to MindManager 7

For the last three weeks I have been part of a Private beta of a new product from Mindjet called Mindjet Connect. I am now longer under a NDA and can talk about my experiences using this new and innovative collaboration tool for sharing MindManger Pro 7 maps. In order to use Mindjet Connect you need to download a new version of MindManager Pro 7 which includes the Mindjet Connect component. Once you have installed the new version of MindManger 7 Pro and have set up your account you can invite your friends and clients to share a workspace that you have set up for them. As the owner of the workspace you can give your colleagues different Access levels as far as being able to edit or read your mind maps. Mindjet refers to these as Author, Owner and Reader. You can in addition to placing mind maps also store Word, PDF, and any other files that you would like to within the workspace.

I had the opportunity to practice using Mindjet Connect with Steve Rothwell and Gaelen O'Connell and it was quite amazing being able to change things within a MindManager Pro 7 mind map in real time as if we were sitting next to each other. Steve and I connected via Skype for the audio and worked on a mind map together. When another user is modifying an idea there is a legend in the top right portion of the screen showing who is making the changes and there are visual cues on the mind map when someone makes a change. The changes on the mind map occurred very quickly and the system as a whole was very responsive. As long as you store your attached documents in the workspace clicking on an attachment on your mind map, works as you would expect. Links to websites work as you would expect by opening your browser and opening the URL.

One of the really nice features which is part of Mindjet Connect is the ability to launch into a web meeting right within the application. This lets you share your screen and desktop and is very similar to a WebEx or GotoMeeting session. There is also the ability to use a chat feature to communicate to the users online and that are involved in the session. If you are interested in trying out Mindjet Connect let me know and I will see that you get an invite. I can also invite you to my collaborative workspace and you can check out the mind map that is there. If you would like to give it a try shoot me an email and I will get an invite out to you.