DropMind’s integration with one of the “hottest” project and task management web application is a step further for the product’s development. Our idea was to expand the core mind mapping functionality to project and task management and fill in the gaps that users experience while using the application.

Connecting this two core functionalities, mind mapping and project management in a logical sequential loop allows developing a process where everything starts as a general idea. Using Dropmind™ at the beginning phase of a project is perfect for setting goals or for developing idea into a well structured concept. The advanced set of collaborative features provides a complete solution for envisioning and initiating projects, tasks and managing resources. The users can further develop their project in Basecamp, exchanging data and task information.

Users can import To-Do lists or individual To-Does in DropMind™ maps from Basecamp. The imported project or part of a project will retain its integrity and it will be reflected on the map along with all its data like project name, description, deadlines (end dates), resources and milestones. At the end, the entire project can be presented to the stakeholders in a visual and well organized way which will give them a complete overview of the project’s key points.

The key benefit is that this integration allows you to easily manage your data and resources, organize projects quickly and communicate in a visually distinctive way.

Integrating Seavus DropMind™ and Basecamp was a big challenge for us. They act as a powerful combined tool for iterative project or idea development. Now our users can mix the core functionalities of the two apps interchangeably and the benefit of the imported project is the greater project visibility and presentation.

As a conclusion, Seavus DropMind™ - Web continues to take advantage of “being in the cloud” and looks forward to develop itself in the light of the current trends.

Originally published on: http://www.smashingapps.com

Do you want to get better results, be more productive, accomplish your goals and be more organized? It’s all about timing… Time management is planning activities effectively.

Mind maps are an excellent tool for managing time and help you use them efficiently in each step of every process. Mind mapping is a powerful method for generating and picturing ideas and activities, brainstorming and organizing thoughts. Using this type of software can help you save time, increase you skills while you are solving a problem, intensify creativity and facilitate your thinking processes.

Seavus DropMind™ is a mind mapping tool for personal development which will help you be more productive at the workplace and in your life. It arranges your thoughts graphically and makes a clear picture of your activities with a variety of colors and relationships, highlighters, images and icons that will – - help you get clarity of thoughts. Seeing your ideas in colors can increase your problem solving skills, leading to more innovative solutions.

Represented by the desktop platform-friendly mind mapping solution and unique online application created with the next generation, most powerful runtime on the web, MS® Silverlight™, Seavus DropMind™ provides its users with full advantage of the logical way of thinking.

Both applications are integrated and synchronized together by merging the best from the desktop and web solution. This allows you to get the latest changes and be updated anytime and anyplace, without losing any information.

Seavus DropMind™ offers a selection of great features and benefits that enhance brainstorming and strategic thinking, accelerate project and process planning and boost productivity.

Organize yourself

Benjamin Franklin said “For Every Minute Spent Organizing, An Hour Is Earned”

With Seavus DropMind™ you have endless possibilities. You will be able to reduce wastage of time and accomplish more. You can organize your project, add and update task information directly within the mind map by using the advanced task management functionality.

Moreover, Seavus DropMind™ offers powerful presentation mode, which gives possibility to create, export and view mind maps presentations directly within the application. This is useful for seminars and meetings where you can take notes of others thoughts, or simply visually exchange your ideas with others. Viewing different parts of the mind map without distraction offers presenting facts and important data in stylish and interactive way. With the smooth, “click-to” presentation mode you can export slides from the presentation created in the desktop application to MS® PowerPoint or export slides from the presentation created in web application as images in .zip file for further usage.

Mind Mapping in management

If you are a Project Manager you can use Seavus DropMind™ at the beginning phase of a project. It’s an excellent way for defining goals and objectives especially if you have a lot of responsibilities. With Seavus DropMind™ your team can better understand the project and contribute to the planning in a visual and well organized way. With the powerful integration options Seavus DropMind™ can save managers a valuable time by organizing the daily work load and turning ideas into decision making process.

The integration between the desktop application, MS® Project and MS® Outlook as well as the integration of the web application with Basecamp, Google Docs and Google Contacts provides a complete solution for managing projects, tasks and resources. Together with the seamless integration between the desktop and web solution, it provides complete overview for all project activities: from collaborative brainstorming, discussions, task delegation and importing entire projects, up to completing the project planning. Moreover, the whole map content can be exported to MS® Word in a very intuitive visual format, which gives complete overview of the inserted topics and all other visual elements created in Seavus DropMind™. The export to MS® Word makes the created document very useful handout for meetings, reports, contracts or summaries.

The MS® Project integration offers complete overview of the project in visually distinctive way. Importing .mpp files in Seavus DropMind™ – Desktop, allows information to be shown as task info in every topic.

With MS® Outlook integration it is possible to exchange and synchronize task information between MS® Outlook and Seavus DropMind™ – Desktop, without losing any important data or notification.

The Basecamp integration offers possibility of exchanging project data and task information between Seavus DropMind™ – Web and Basecamp – importing to-do lists or to-do items from Basecamp and exporting topics’ name as tasks’ name to Basecamp.

The Google integration offers a well-built solution for complete control over your documents at hand, by uploading and attaching your Google Docs to any topic within mind maps. Moreover, you can import Google Contacts in the mind map community and make advanced search through the content of their Google Docs. This integration allows you to always get the latest changes and manage attachments and contacts from both sources, Seavus DropMind™ on one side and Google Docs and Google Contacts, on the other side.

Powerful Collaboration

You can use Seavus DropMind™ – Web to better communicate with your team and give more valuable ideas during brainstorming sessions. Mind maps are visually oriented and that gives possibility of better viewing, gathering, managing and sharing information.

The web application offers unique collaboration and chatting in real time with friends and colleagues, working on the same map and making changes at the same time. Each action during the collaboration is recorded. It is possible to see how the map was built using the timeline slider of changes, which empowers the education process and facilitates the business uses of the application itself. Having the simultaneous collaboration available, the overall communication process is improved and a wide range of time is saved for further actions.

Seavus DropMind™ – Web offers vast interactivity while working on mind maps. Everyone can share their mind maps with others, by assigning friends and colleagues as collaborators or viewers, as well as to publish their maps and make them accessible to all Seavus DropMind™ users. By selecting a single topic, it gives possibility to search words or phrases written in the selected topic and find related information online, via Google, Delicious, Live Search and Wikipedia. With the Twitter integration you can receive map alerts as direct messages on your Twitter account or tweet the selected topic’s content, simply by allowing twittering from each map separately and following Seavus DropMind™ on Twitter.

The benefits of mind mapping are endless. Seavus DropMind™ merges the best from the mind mapping core functionalities and offers advanced features that help you identify and better understand the problem and opportunities. By identifying the issue, you can define alternatives and goals and start making decisions. You can analyze a complex problem by breaking it down, write down your ideas and come up with solutions. You can easily gather and share a huge number of ideas and information, because their visual quality provides an opportunity for much easier managing, understand better relations between them and save time.

Get better results by doing less work!

Be more productive, accomplish your goals and be more organized!

Original source: http://www.smashingapps.com/2010/04/26/mind-mapping-the-fun-side-of-time-management.html

If you have read our post “Seavus DropMind™ 2.0 available now”, than you know that Seavus DropMind™ with the improved set of functionalities came to the stage when can be used as effective visual mapping tool within the business environment.

As you know, in today’s turbulent workplace people are overloaded with complex subjects too often and many organizations fall short in business communications, thus affecting focus and potential achievements.
Therefore, Seavus DropMind™ as visual mapping software enables you to reclaim focus and to increase the productivity of your business and information processes.

And to ensure you know how to get the most of Seavus DropMind™ I have put together a list of the most common business usages, things you can do with your mind maps:

I encourage you to start or continue exploring our application and further develop your visual mapping and information management skills. I think you will find that developing this skill set should make a significant impact in your productivity and career.

Enjoy it!

The idea of developing mind mapping tool came nearly 1 year ago. The need of it looked pretty important and logical in the way of continuing the story that our firm is trying to present to its clients : project management ,decision making , representing ideas , representing solutions in a more “human” way.

The “development” road of the DropMind started on AJAX basis meaning JavaScript, XML and HTML. The proof of concept was made but the visualization seemed like a big problem using this techniques. We wanted our tool to have powerful visual impact on the users, in order to rich the core of the mind mapping theory and the real use the mind mapping techniques.

So at that time Flash was undisputed leader on the market for building these kind of RIA 2.0 Web oriented applications, though Microsoft was announcing his “horse” for RIA race – Silverlight . The decision was very hard to make because we didn’t know how serious Microsoft is with this technology, but on the other hand we wanted to try new things and to explore the power of Silverlight, though it was still in 1.1 alpha version. The research went well , proof of concept also, so we started developing our solution in Silverlight hoping that Microsoft and its Silverlight team will provide us, and the whole development community, with additional features as the time goes’ by, and make the Silverlight a real RIA development platform competitor.

After the decision about the platform was made, the development started and there was no turning back. “Luckily” , the Microsoft Silverlight team took their job very seriously, so as our DropMind application evolved, new releases from Microsoft were delivered – beta 1, beta 2, RC, and the official 2.0 release offering “stuff” that we needed and implemented in our app. So at the time being DropMind is in its beta stage , coming very soon to the commercial release as Microsoft announces their new Silverlight 3.0 beta ….