The PersonalBrain 4.0- visual Personal Information Manager

TheBrain screenshot

TheBrain is an associative information organization system-any piece of information can be linked to any other piece. The power of TheBrain lies in the flexibility of these links. You can quickly create structures of information that reflect the way you think about your information. Each item triggers related items, bringing relevant information together as you need it.

• Current information management tools are very linear in layout and structure, which makes it difficult to quickly express thoughts and show the relationships between them. Mind mapping is a step in the right direction, but TheBrain takes it a step further: any item can be linked with any other item, thus creating a brain-like network structure of associations.
• PersonalBrain supports three types of associations between thoughts or ideas: parent associations (this thought is a descendent of that one), a child thought (the new thought is a descendent of this one), and jump thoughts (there’s an association between these two thoughts, but it’s not parent or child).
• By default, the PersonalBrain stores information and provides a visual navigation metaphor of that information. However, for many people, there are data sources that they need to connect to. PersonalBrain offers one additional connectors for other data sources: file folders. This means you can drag-and-drop a Windows Explorer or Mac Finder (or Linux equivalent) folder onto a brain, and the contents will be read and displayed. There’s a persistent link set up between the brain and the folder: when items are added or removed from the folder, the brain will automagically update.
• PersonalBrain 4 provides ways for users to quickly go back to a previous place in their brain – “pins” allow you to put a thought at the top of the screen for a single click return, and there’s a scrolling bread crumb trail at the bottom of the screen for seeing where you’ve been recently.
• Sharing of brains is enabled through various ways. You can send a brain file to another user to open in their PersonalBrain. You can put a brain file on a shared drive for access by many people, albeit one at a time. You can export a brain to HTML and publish it to an internal or external web site.

  

• There are new ways in PersonalBrain 4 for navigating your information set. By default, you see the current central thought and one level of associations, but there are two additional navigation alternatives. One builds a bigger and bigger brain as you navigate through what you’ve got; it doesn’t hide previous things. The second shows two levels of associations, rather than just one.
• PersonalBrain includes an “ESP” mode. This means that your brain sits off to one side on your screen, and monitors what you are typing in any other application. When it finds a match between what you’re typing and entries in your brain, it will automagically shift the brain to the right place. I really liked the concept of this feature, as it aligns very nicely with Pillar 7 in my 7 Pillars model.
• Basic search works on text in the thoughts, whereas advanced search works on text across all items, documents and attachments in the brain.
• Using the “Reports” capability in the brain, a user can quickly see what has changed in their brain.
• Mac and Linux platform support are new in PersonalBrain 4. Harlan said there’s about 99% equivalency between features on the three platforms.

Top 12 PersonalBrain Uses

1. Visual Bookmark Manager

   

   You’re navigating the Web discovering great content. Why bury it in your favorites list and folders? You can think of PersonalBrain as a creative bookmark manager on steroids. Create a few categories of Thoughts and then drag and drop any URL into your PersonalBrain. Now you can conceptually organize all your Web sites and even add notes for each web site.

2. File and Everything in Your Life Manager
   OK, now let’s take all your bookmarks and integrate them with your files and ideas in your head. Simply drag and drop any file or folder into PersonalBrain’s visual interface and new Thoughts are automatically created. This can be a great way to connect ideas for projects you’re working on to the Web sites and files that describe them.
3. Capturing Expertise and Special Interests
   Now, let’s get specific. What do you love? What do you browse the Web for or talk about over lunch? You need to create a Brain for your special interests. Are you an avid diver, strategy gamer, environmentalist, or maybe animal lover? You can store all your ideas and online references in your Brain. Once it’s all mapped out, you’ll be amazed how clear and insightful it is to see all your ideas and information on your hobby. PersonalBrain becomes your ultimate reference.
4. Competitive Intelligence and Product Development
   Creating charts in documents and spreadsheets won’t provide you with the same insight as a Brain on your competitors. Create categories for key markets and product dimensions and link to their Web sites. You can also add any files you have about the products to each Thought. Since TheBrain’s interface is associative you can categorize information under many different dimensions. This is ideal for market analysis, as often one product falls under many categories. For instance, TheBrain’s “PersonalBrain” might fall under downloadable software, mind mapping, and visualization software. PersonalBrain’s unique associative interface enables you to have one topic under many categories.
5. Research and Analysis
   Staying up to date on all the latest trends and developments can mean the difference between developing cutting edge products and letting your competition pass you by. Use PersonalBrain to visualize key research topics and see valuable information relationships.
6. Event Planning
   PersonalBrain is an ideal tool for organizing business and life events that involve many different information sets and possibilities. For example, organizing your vacation or creating a travel section within your Brain is very popular. You can create Thoughts for key destinations and drag and drop all relevant Web pages from the best hotels to main attractions. It’s also really useful to create a Thought for airlines and use the notes section (below your Thoughts) to type in all their phone numbers so they are always at your fingertips. If you are buying a house or just relocating, your Brain can become an essential partner. You can link everything from your escrow, house inspector, moving companies, even information on new hardwood floors and contractors. Getting married? Looking for a new job? Get out your Brain and get it together.

   

7. 7. Brainstorming and Mind Mapping
   Everyone knows how to brainstorm and many people are familiar with the concept of mind mapping where you branch out your ideas in a visual diagram. PersonalBrain takes brainstorming and mind mapping to the next level. Each concept you think of can be quickly captured with PersonalBrain and easily built upon. You can create a new Brain for each topic you need to think about and branch everything out continuously. Links between different ideas are easily handled and you can keep on growing it until you run out of ideas – you’ll never run out of space in your Brain! Think of PersonalBrain as a dynamic mind map that enables an infinite number of ideas and interconnections.
8. Innovation and Strategic Planning
   Creating a new strategy or product line can be both complex and rewarding. Building your business plan using PersonalBrain gives you a head start by letting you easily analyze all aspects of your new venture. For example, you can do SWOT analysis by creating Thoughts for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Or, you can break down each of the key aspects of your products and even connect them up to the people and resources that you’ll be relying on. PersonalBrain lets you quickly map out all key aspects and easily understand it all, letting you focus on new innovations and strategy.
9. Presenting and Capturing Your Vision
   PersonalBrain’s flexible linkages and connections can capture your vision and imagination. Use your Brain to reflect on your own ideas and share your vision with others! PersonalBrain is an evocative presentation tool that gets your audiences’ attention for public speaking, complex ideas and business presentations. You might even get that next promotion by unveiling your Brain! Visually, navigate through your ideas and topic themes using PersonalBrain. You can even rearrange your Thoughts and add new ideas in real-time as your audience asks questions.
10. Visualizing and Tracking People Networks
    Use the Brain to organize all your contacts and the organizations you interact with. PersonalBrain’s flexible display lets you organize your contacts by any number of dimensions…location, deal size, business type, project involvement…Whatever is important to you. This context gives your contact information new meaning. As you browse through your Brain you will be able to see who’s connected to whom for insight into such key tasks and missions as: making new investments, solving crimes, understanding industry landscapes, new business development and more effective sales prospecting. Companies can also visualize staff members, practice areas and key reporting structures with TheBrain’s powerful visual interface.
11. Network and IT Management
    Map out all your servers, software, hardware and the interdependencies. You can even link in the people so you know who uses what and who is responsible for what. If an application goes down, you can make an instant impact assessment by simply looking at the related connections and contingencies. TheBrain has several Fortune 1000 and government organizations using BrainEKP for helpdesk support and IT management including Park Nicolett, Medtronic, TechniSource and many IT managers all over the world.
12. Web Site Planning and Site Navigation
    The Web is one of the most interconnected spaces we use each day. Creating a Web site and maintaining all the page relationships can be a challenge. By using TheBrain to map out all your Web pages, you can see how everything connects and add notes on revisions or things you would like to add. You can also link to key reference sites or other Web sites that have relevant design ideas you like. Taking this a step further, you can even publish a Brain on your own Web site for visual navigation, making your Brain into your site!

User’s experience

• Harlan Hugh, CEO of the Marina Del Rey, Calif.-based vendor and the inventor of PersonalBrain, said the application makes it easier for users to store information they will need to retrieve again at a later date — without having to spend a long time searching for it. “I can do the work as I’m working” by saving collected information and linking it to related information so it’s easily accessible in the future, Hugh said.
• Conrad Clyburn, a partner in The Clymer Group LLC, a medical technology consultancy in Silver Spring, Md., said he has been using PersonalBrain for four years to better organize his work. It did take some time to create a framework, he said, but once he began adding the information and building its connections, “for me, it became like breathing in and breathing out. Once you get to that level, it’s an incredibly dense and powerful tool.”Using PersonalBrain, Clyburn said he can gather information on any topic and bring together useful snippets that aren’t available through a Google search of the Web.
  “What’s missing with Google is you’re just getting lists,” Clyburn said. “What the PersonalBrain gives you is relationships [among your existing data.] What it provides is context for the information. All that seemingly unrelated information now makes sense.”
• Timothy Cahill, an IT systems integrator who runs a home automation installation business in Salt Springs, British Columbia, has been using PersonalBrain for 10 years and said it helps him better connect projects and ideas. “I’m a highly disorganized person,” Cahill said. “I didn’t spend any time organizing it. It builds itself as you work. Within a few days of using [the free trial version], I thought, ‘I’ve got to pay for this.’ My brain really works well with this product.”

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