Roots of visual mapping

Resources

Index to all companies and products

Articles

Mindmapping and creativity

Mindmapping and you

Mindmapping before writing

Mindmapping for business and planning

Mindmapping for project management

Mindmapping supports learning, study, memory

Outlining

Information Management

Seminal papers in information mapping

Digging back in the history of visual representation of ideas

Write a comment about this article

The first is the Tree of Porphyry - a form of presentation of a taxonomy that embodies a hierarchy, much as a mind map does. Porphyry of Tyre was a Greek philosopher who lived from c.233 to c.309, C.E. . This particular example is from a Philosophy course at the University of Washington.

Then there is a facinating business map from the great Walt Disney. I use the term business map with care. Although it looks very much like a concept map, I wouldn't classify it as one, because instead of showing how concepts are linked and describing the relationships, it shows how business units of The Walt Disney Company contribute to each other's activities. I wouldn't myself call it a mind map either.

Aside from its sparkling clarity of business vision, it is interesting because of its date, 1957: Before Cornell University and Novak did work on concept maps, before Buzan had turned his Mind to Mapping and even before Idea Sunbursting.

I came across this on Peter Duke's site, dukeMedia. He saw it presented by a senior Disney executive.

(Click the image for a full-sized version)

Next, my thanks to M.H.F. who commented against my "Who invented mind mapping" article that a novel published in 1931 in England included this conversation:
"Mightn't it be a good idea if everyone had to draw a map of his own mind - say, once every five years? With the chief towns marked, and the arterial roads he was constructing from one idea to another, and all the lovely and abandoned by-lanes that he never went down, because the farms they led to were all empty?"
"And arrows showing the directions he wanted to go?" Quentin asked idly.
"They'd be all over the place," Antony sighed...

Google tells me the book was Charles Williams' "The Place of the Lion". Interesting hints and use of the words, but an early example that's suggestive of visual mapping rather than being an actual example. Getting from that description to an actual practical mapping style is quite a step.

Vic

Comments

Write a comment

We have all heard, I'm sure, how Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill and others used something like mind maps. I'd love to have examples to put up here. Anyone having further early examples, is welcome to send them for addition here (with acknowledgement and link back) to vic [at] the above domain.

Vic

Articles

Vegetable or royalty – take your pick with mindmapping

Whether you have vegetable or royal aspirations, I can confirm that you'll find mindmapping a great way of calming yourself down when you have many calls on your time, ideas buzzing round your head and objectives to meet. But it must fit your own personal style of thinking, and you must set aside the time to do it! That's how I bust stress, not by mapping out my stressful times. But we're all different, and maybe this will work for you. [Vic]

Mindmapping to plan your life

To each individual reader, mindmap topics don't come much bigger than this -- on the personal level, anyway. [Vic]

The mindmapping route to project-team building

This piece sets out what seems to me to be a novel use for mindmapping: Staffing a project, functional unit or department. It is a good illustration of the flexibility of the mindmapping approach. I often use mindmapping in drawing up job specifications and candidate profiles, but not quite in the way described here. I think I'll give it a try. [Vic]

Research and mindmapping to kickstart your writing

Here is another slant on getting your writing going -- research and a dash of mindmapping. [Vic]

Writing, come what may

There's only a brief mention of mindmapping here, but it's obviously important to the author. Anyway, to me it's a great article on getting moving with writing. I hope you find it so, too. [Vic]