UR and mind map software

[schferk]

Short update:

Nick Duffill, the man behind ResultsManager, GyroQ and the command list behind GyroQ, GyroActivator, is highly professional, really interested in what he's doing, and a kind guy on top of that (so there's a difference with kinook here, in style at least).

Unfortunately, with GyroQ you are not actually buying a "GyroActivator MM ready-made macro language" or such, since command sequences built with these commands tend to be unreliable: GyroQ is one, handy thing, but don't try to do too much with those macro commands that come with it, you'd lose your time as I did.

This being said, RM is top-notch and not programmed with those (and more) "GA" commands, but it uses the MM API, so here you are to expect reliable, trustworthy functionality - at 295 bucks plus vat it's just too expensive for individual use.

People trying to use MM/MJ for project / administration work... well, I'm not too sure that it's a really good idea here, since the core functionality of any current mm sw is just sub-standard, and so, the overhead of brilliant sw like Duffill's is considerable (as said, update sessions of many minutes 2 times a day, instead of real-time synching of any element in any open map in the network).

But there is that real advantage that mm, for planning and deciding, is unequalled. And then there is the prob that at some time, ideas become "actionables", and within your "actionables", you'll create further ideas, so the alternative of "doing the thinking within the mm sw, and then pouring it all to more PM-suitable sw like UR or such" is not a viable one, since you'd create chaos between your PM elements within the mm sw, and those within the PM sw. (Cf. current MM/MJ - MS Project integration which is strictly one-way!)

As for an intermediate measure, in order to avoid to have spread your "ToDo's" over dozens of maps, you could do a simple AHK (or other external) macro in the form of:

- assign an "action" symbol to the mm topic / element / item (e.g. a symbol for "Phone", for "Today", for "Look up", etc., idem for delegations)

- copy the item

- open your dashboard map (you also can do this with several dashboards, for several main projects; the important point here being, you'll have dozens of maps (each containing a more-or-less "self-contained" micro-subject of your overall project(s)): so don't get a dozen dashboards, on top of these!)

- select the central topic there (here a hint of mine: in MM, this would be the undocumented command control-home!)

- select the respective branch, for "Phone", "Look up", etc. - in MM, this is a real prob (you could do a search, but what a visual fuss that would be!): I solved the problem this way: downarrow (= starting from the selected central topic), then a given amount of "downarrow" repetitions (= the macro "knows", e.g., that the fourth such "downarrow" will reach out for the "Look up" branch (you'll shuffle these main branches around, so that your most frequent target will be only one "downarrow" away))

- do a control-v

- revert back to your original map (by alt-leftarrow, or, unnecessary, by using an AHK variable fed before)

So, this "solution" is far from elegant, and far from being "both-ways", but it solves the main problem of them all: To get all your "actionables" from your dozens of maps into 1, 2 or 3 dashboards to process them from.

From this, you can refine your macro, e.g. by putting the name of the original map into a variable, then by pouring the content of that variable, within the dashboard, into a label attached to that copy (= not clone, unfortunately, as we all know) within the dashboard. Or, much simpler, just add that info to the copy's text: original text: "Blahblahblah", from map "Thisandthat", would become, in the dashboard: "Blahblahblah (from Thisandthat)".

Also, you could refine your macro by changing the original symbol, i.e. the original item would have an icon "x", but that icon would mean, "is to be processed that way, but hasn't yet been processed that way", and the moment you copy it into the dashboard, its icon would be changed to icon "y", meaning the same kind of processing, e.g. "Look up", but also, "has been put into the corresponding dashboard"; this would be a good idea if a map remains within the planning stage for a while, with lots of changes being made, before you then only enter its "actionables" into the respective dashboard.

This is all one-way, meaning when the dashboard "ToDo" has been done, there is no indication of this within the original map, and it goes without saying that technically, a macro backwards would indeed be possible, by going to the respective map (which, remember, we'll have notified with "from Thisandthat" within the copied item in the dashboard), then searching for the corresponding item there (meaning for (unchanged!) text in that item, and then deleting the item, or just changing the symbol, the background color or whatever.

But what a fuss! There isn't any better proof for what I say: Inter-map clones are way overdue! (And I explained above how to realize them on the technical level.)

If it weren't for the superiority of idea finding by mm maps, I would never advocate such a hybrid system; in other words, it's really worth all these unwanted probs... whilst a cloning feature would indeed be tremendously welcome.

If I was allowed just one advice, it'd be:


Separate your thinking / planning / "decisional" (and together with your ToDo) stuff from your "material".


And this would be valid for 100 k of "material" items, or for just 5,000 of them. What you don't bring forward, will be safely buried, most of the time, and any amount of tagging will be of not much help.

Hope we'll get an "integrated hybrid system" instead of all these manual manipulations between incompatible sw's, some day.

[schferk]

A necessary correction of my above macro:

a)

I do all my maps in the all-directional style, but not clockwise (as MM does then automatically), but (by rearranging topics) left from top to down, then right from top to down. Now the arrow keys don't function in any "topic order" way (= creation order, or "re-numbered" order), but just as you see these topics, i.e. if another topic, in the map you see, is beneath your current topic, you'll get to it by pressing the down arrow, etc. The same goes for repeated arrow key pressing when there are (not only main, but) second-level topics: arrow key pressing will get there, instead of just travelling within the main topics.

Now for the dashboards. Here, such an all-directional ordering would create a situation where your macro wouldn't "know" how to get to a specific main topic (that will become the "parent" of your to-be-pasted actionable). So, branch style will be "to the right", and then, any new main topic will be placed under the previous one (with manual rearrangement by control-alt-up/down-arrow).

Now, for selecting your target, you select the central topic (0 level), then do ONE right-arrow, which gets you to the first main topic (1 level), and then, you do the necessary amount of DOWN arrows, in order to get to your target main topic (and then paste as "child").

b)

As said above, most other possible tries to get to your target main topic would cause much more visual and procedural fuss (e.g. opening of the search pane, etc.), but then, you CAN apply another method:

- select the central topic
- control-f
- entry #3
- return
= This will search for #3 within your dashboard map; note you'll get into trouble here if any of your imported copies will also be "coded" with that #3, and note you can't but search for such text codes, not for symbols. On the other hand, "symbol 3" in your "working maps" could be equivalent to "textcode #3" in your dashboard, so technically, it's perfectly possible to have, in your macro, such a transposition table, i.e. not a transposition table "how many down arrow key pressings", but a case structure for what #x to be searched for.
- escape ( to close the find dialog, not to be mixed-up with the search field, for more advanced searching)
- return (in order to revert focus from the text of the target topic back to the target topic itself!)
- control-v

c)

Quite handy in such a scheme is the fact that your copies will bear a symbol, whilst your target main topics will bear the same symbol. So, if any copy has been placed beneath the wrong target main topic, its symbol will clearly show the misplacement of the copied topic - the same as with color coding within a range of lever files and such.

d)

In many cases, you'll probably muse if you are to copy just ONE sub-topic to your dashboard, or if you better copy a whole sub-structure to your dashboard, where there are two or more such "actionables" within the perhaps 3, 4, 5, 6 subtopics there (and where the "parent" topic itself isn't an "actionable").

Do it whenever it makes sense: Do it when these "actionables" within this little structure are similar, i.e. all coded "3" or perhaps 2 "3" and 1 "4", the "4" being similar to the "3" category: The "wrong" symbol here will show that the one "4" subtopic there doesn't really "belong" to the "3" actionables in your dashboard, but it will be near the neighbouring "4" structure, so it seems that this will be absolutely acceptable.

Even with non-neighboring codes, this could be an alternative to not copying the whole sub-structure (= 5 or 6 such sub-topics held together by their common parent / great-parent) but only the 3 or 4 different actionables there, each separately: Especially if your dashboard doesn't get too convoluted: These dashboards are about practicability, not about 100 p.c. correct taxonomy. Of course, the different actionables here should be clearly distinguished by their respective symbols, in order for such a "slightly displaced" actionable not getting "lost" resp. "forgotten".

ad b)

As hinted at above, ONE macro processing a dozen or so different symbols, by checking a repetitive if / else if structure (in AHK, or a "conditions" structure in other scripting languages), would be MUCH more practical than 12 different and very similar macros, for 12 different "action" symbols, and this means your macro would be triggered by F7, e.g., and then you'd press any of your a...z keys once in order to tell the macro which symbol is to be placed within the current topic - and this will also determine the respective target topic in the dashboard.

The same will apply (cf. my post above) when you "distribute" pre-coded topics in your working maps, i.e. when they bear some provisional symbol (= "has to BE copied to ..."): This symbol will be replaced by the definite symbol (= "has BEEN copied to ..."), and further processing as usual. This means, if you work this way, with pre-coding instead of copying at once, early in the planning stage, your macro should contain a first command "delete any existing symbol first" - in MM that would be control-0.

As you see, such an external macro is easy and reliable (your dashboards should always be loaded, of course, but if they are not, AHK provides for the respective wait command in order for them to be loaded first, instead of getting macros running wild), even if it's external, as said, just put upon MM or another mm sw, instead of being "burnt" into it. Advantage here: You only need to know ONE scripting language, for ALL your needs, and you won't have to learn a new macro language for every application you try to domesticate to your needs.

EDIT:

As for the two-key macro triggering, it goes without saying that for copying to action topics you need again and again, you could assign just ONE-key macros to these commands you need more frequently; here, F7 with then a...z, but F8...F12 for one-key copying, and / or why not F7 and F8 for copying with then groups of a...z targets, but just F7 and F8 for frequent, standard target, whenever after the F7 or F8 key pressing, there is NO such a...z key pressing within a second (AHK allows for such time frames without any problem, whilst in AI, that would be much more complicated, but is also possible, with a gui construction). Variant: F7 and F8 with no further key pressing within 600 ms = your must-used target assignments, F7 and F8 two times in a row within 600 ms = two more very frequently used targets, and F7 plus a...z within 600 ms = further targets: This way, at least 4 targets are very handy, and that should be all you need most of the time. It goes without saying, that here, the scope would be within MM, but that on a much more general level, you could have such shortkeys with scope UR, e.g., in order to copy - just an idea - the title, and the very first paragraph of the content, of your current UR item into such an MM (or any other) dashboard. (Also, for pre-determined targets within your UR structure, for clippings, those same F7 / F8 keys working in a similar way when your current scope is your browser. As I said before, the functionally-similar (but technically necessarily totally different) assignment of the same keys, within different scopes, is the key to good macro programming: The same keys, in different applics, will have similar effect.

The AHK command that ensures your macros not running amok, is, here, winwait("Ultra Recall - NameOfYourTargetItem"), so any possible response time from UR will not become a technical problem - it just remains a psychological one. And, as said before, internal macros would possibly be able to work without all these unwanted screen updates, whilst our external macros do lots of screen flashing: they are effective, but they ain't beautiful - and they need much more time than internal macros would ask for: another big argument for better in-built functionality of the applics we buy.

[schferk]

Another idea.

You know CRM sw; you (rather successfully) try to replicate most of its functionality within a system like UR (= you can sort / search by multiple criteria, Boolean search, and hit "tables" (lists, at least), with coding, lots of data interpretations are possible in UR).

Now for the advocates of "Have your customers / prospects handy by mm maps" (One-page methos, etc.) - it's evident that for analysis of your customer / prospects base, mm is near worthless; on the other hand, when in important / decisive contact with a customer / prospect, it's evident that even standardized and more or less "encoded" data isn't that obvious: Within your UR data about him, there'll be lots of text, flurrying in front of your eyes, and after the conversation, chances are you'll have overlooked important details.

Now what about a macro building up a standardized "customer map" for him (= MM in your second screen, UR would remain visible in your main screen), almost in real time

(make it the first 10 or 15 sec. (= slow comp) of an important phone call you receive from him, let alone a biz call on his premises (where the same macro would build up such a map but which you'd then edit / refine manually, and probably print out)),

from your standardized customer data in UR? It'd create a new map, and from your UR paragraphs (= form), beginning with £a=texttexttext, £b=somemoretext, etc., it'd build up main topics, under which it'd put the further paragraphs als children, or even putting further text, within a given £c section, into MM notes, leaving only the very first 150 or so characters within the corresponding sub-topic.

You'd have standard sections, as said, and if a standard section is empty, the correponding MM topic wouldn't even be created, but if there are important elements to consider, they would be literally thrown into your face, with red symbols, yellow background color and whatever, and this is especially useful when it will not have been yourself who took the complaint of this customer, last time, but a collegue of yours: Here, an almost-instantly appearing "red sign" in an MM map would be of tremendous help, instead of getting (or not), within the depths of your text commentswithin UR, to this info only after 60 sec., and after your customer did plenty of rant on you, during which you desparately will have tried to find the corresponding details he's ranting about again.

Getting to the same info, within UR, would mean frantic scrolling (and would suppose perfect, bling-bling formatting anyway that's often not present), or even more frantic shifting back and forth within 3 or 4 sub-items in UR with respect to this customer. (You try to find the details, while your customer checks you don't hear him but with one ear - most of your attention being absorbed by your trying to get to the decisive info in your text.)

And even when there were NO such probs between your company and your customer, even when it's all just trying to satisfy him in the best possible way: As soon as you ain't the only contact for your (possible) customers any more, or just get too many of customers / prospects to deal with, such an INSTANT INFO upon what preoccupies the person on the phone, would not be extremely handy, but would leave a perfect impression on the customer/prospect, re your professionalism - he'll be really impressed (not if you spoke together yesterday, but if your collegue - or even yourself - discussed the matter 3 weeks ago: he'll think, wow, my prob is always present in this guy's mind, it would be advantageous for me to buy from him, instead of some of his competitors! - instant availability of the CORE info means, for your customer, he's constantly in your mind (even when he's not).

And since you know all this, your own stance here will be very easy, no searching around for the core info, you're safe you'll get it instantly... and this will relax you in a spectacular way that will communicate to your caller, again reinforcing his impression of your incomparable competence (btw, the same applies to any other element of your business knowledge: easy access, easy going, perfect proof of competence).

Now for the macro, it could even further this strategy by building up the really important main topics first, i.e. not by the order of standard-encoded text paragraphs in your UR file, but searching first for any non-standard, "currently important" coding, and thus, you will be able to read these current core elements of your customer relationship as soon as your macro starts to build up the corresponding map, even when the completion of this construction effort in front of your eyes will take 15 seconds.

As you see here, the only delay being, how much time will it take to display the "main" item of the customer/prospect in question, within sw like UR, AS or such this will be very quick, and whenever possible, have another routine (also possible by macros) to fetch the phone number of your caller from within your phone system, in order to display the corresponding UR page almost instantly - and then, the building up of the corresponding MM map could even have been automatically started!

Now for some seemingly coding prob: One collegue put the "current prob" code into the UR text, some day, i.e. a ££ anywhere in the corresponding paragraph. Now it's a customer of longer date, so there are let's say 4 or 5 such "££" within the text - what's the "current" one, then? (And remember, trying to force your collaborators, or even to force yourself, to administer such codes, would be a hopeless venture: no time for that, and error-prone as hell on top of that.)

No problem, though: Whenever such codes are put into your UR text, the corresponding little macro will also enter the date of creation of that code. And of course, the map-building macro then would SORT these "current prob" codes, by date, and start to build up the map with the REAL current such prob paragraph, and then only add less recent "current prob" text passages, by creating "child" topics, or even by putting such probs into notes, e.g. when they are older than 6 months and are coded in the normal way, i.e. there would be codes like "prob forever" that wouldn't be buried this way even years after the fact - and if ever they get less important, why not change the triple £££ into the ordinary double ££, in order to make these ancient probs fade with time?

Similarly, your map-building macro would fetch data from your accounting sw, e.g., in order to have the recent command history of this particular customer (without having these numbers to be stored both in your accounting system and in your UR system), and similar for any relevant data concerning your customers and prospects: a certain standardization, by coding ordered paragraphs, but also "free encoding", i.e. codes wherever pleases you, and triggering the building-up of your respective info map (incl. Excel extracts, etc. - it's just about the power of your hardware and about its response times, there are no sw / programming probs whatsoever in all this).

As you can see here, efficient IM is MORE than just creating db's - but on the other hand, solid db's, as UR's, are the best possible way to store your raw data, from which then you'll get your graphical representations for instant - and that implies: pondered - access when your customer calls: data without perfect, instant orientation is not instant-access data, even if it's all on your screen without delay.

So, this post, at the end of the day is just another example of what I advocate above: Separate your "decisional" data from the depths of your raw data - and whenever possible, automate this process: but it's obvious that CRM is a field of predilection for such automatation: it's easy, from the moment on you think about the details applying to your business.

Most people dream of integrated solutions like SAP, but will never have them available; but that makes them overlook what home-made, easily affordable smart hybrid solutions can offer them, and in the field described, it'd be a quantum leap.