Lately I've been using a type of software called mind mapping software. It is somewhat like a graphical flowcharting application, but can be used in may different situations. The way it works is that you start with a concept and then you add nodes and subnodes to that concept. It can be used for keep track of projects or any work you're doing, general brainstorming where you want to write down all your ideas and then connect them, generating sitemaps, etc.

In a way it's almost an extension of the Activity Explorer in Workplace or Hannover, although the big advantage of the Activity explorer is that you create threads from your current notes, chats, bookmarks, etc whereas with mind mapping tools you have to recreate all those in a map. The screenshot below shows one I created to map the OpenNTF site (its not complete!). As you can see, we can use images, colors, etc to make it look nicer, but the good thing about the tool I used is that there are really just two keys you need - Insert to add a new subnode, Enter to add a node at the same level. To add images you just highlight the node and click on the image palette. It's that simple!

There are a lot of mind mapping applications available, but I use one called Freemind which seems to cover almost everything one would need. Once you generate a map you can export it as a PDF, JPG, PNG, HTML with text, HTML as an image map, etc.

openntfmap.png

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