A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

FreeMind is a free mind mapper and an easy-to-operate hierarchical editor with strong emphasis on folding. It is used for both used for knowledge and content management. This is a great small business application to effectively create & organize product plans, marketing plans & other innovative ideas.

In Mind Mapping software ideas are represented in a radial, graphical, non-linear manner. With this free brainstorming software organizations can document, represent & plan for activities in a more structured manner.

British popular psychology author Tony Buzan claims to have invented modern mind mapping. Mind maps have been used in learning, brainstorming, memory, visual thinking, and problem solving by educators, engineers, psychologists & more recently by business organizations.

Ideas can be organized into various nodes. Nodes are like a “high level idea” with multiple sub-ideas or sub topics. Each sub-idea can be organized to “fold” under the main high level idea. This feature of being able to “fold” ideas into broad high level ones is one of the key features of the FreeMind software.

You can download the Free Mindmapping software FreeMind for personal & commercial use.

Another key feature of the free Mind Mapping application is the creation of links to external or internal information. FreeMind offers users a variety of options for linking other content to your maps. In this free open-source mind mapping program, you can create links to web pages, local folders, executables (to launch programs), and any file on your local computer or company network.

The software is written in Java & hence can be run on any computer systems that run Java run time environment. It can run on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac OS X.

FreeMind can be very effectively used in small business applications. It is well-suited to people with fairly basic visual diagramming needs, or if you simply cannot afford one of the commercially available programs. However, it cannot be integrated with common office applications like Microsoft Office or other business apps.

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