Information Management From 20,000 Feet

Nowadays, we all need to process information faster than ever before.

We have to understand what our options are and what the best action is we have to take.

Finally, we do need to make sure others are buying into our ideas and lead them towards our mutual goals.

That’s quite a big thing to do! Fortunately Visual Mapping helps us doing just that. Let’s step into an imaginative plane and take a good look at information from 20,000 feet. At a place where information is less clouded by details and we are more objective.

I hope you brought your parachute!

Prepare for your journey

Have you ever tried to understand information when you are emerged in or completely surrounded by it?

You can’t get a clear view on it that way. You will not be able to see what the big picture is when you are in the middle of it. You need to create distance between yourself and your information. This allows you to understand it much better.

When I work with people, most of them look at mind mapping as it was some sort of magical solution that creates insight and overview for them. I wish it was like that.

Most of the time, it simply takes a lot of hard work and dedication and yes, being honest with and to yourself to find the right information. You add the information you found to your mindmap.

Is that it?

Of course not.

You need to put it IN your map at the RIGHT location. Badly organized information doesn’t give you the right answers.

Information management at 20,000 feet

Now most people can create an overview of a situation of piece of information. They identify keywords and concepts. Our journey at 20,000 feet helps us to create the overview we want and need.

Imagine this. When you are at 20,000 feet, you can’t see any details. You only have overview of the big picture.

You see cities, woods and lakes

You removed subjectivity. You become more objective.

This is good!

In the beginning, when you want to create a really nice overview and understand what is happening, you need to do this. Only look at the big picture. When looking at the mindmap, this is the information in the first level below the topic of your map.

Once you understand that, you are ready to descend to a lower altitude.

Suit up!

We are going to jump!

Moving to 3,000 feet

From this altitude, you are adding more and more detail to your view. You can see roads, rivers and cities.

This means you are actually adding more information to your map. This is usually done by adding details to the outside of the map. You could call this the second level of information.

At this time, you won’t be able to see the expressions of people on the ground. This is done later on.

Passing the 500 feet mark

This is an important mark. People who ever went skydiving should know this. It takes about 500 feet for your parachute to open… So you better have your map ready to make a soft landing!

Translating this to your mindmap could mean that, when you further zoom in and you add detail, your basic structure of the map must be correct.

At this level, you may be adding relationship lines. The structure of your map is becoming more clear.

Ready for your landing? Only 100 feet!

This is the moment you can add some of the third level details. This means that you can see who’s interacting and how, you can perhaps see expressions, you can see more and more detail on the ground.

Back on your feet

Congratulations, you’ve made it!

Right about now, you have your mindmap branches filled with your main topics and more detailed information. Only one thing to add now…

Ask people questions to get even more information, if you need to. I would suggest you either:

• add a fourth level to your map,
• add more relationship lines or,
• when mapping on a computer you add notes to topics in your map

And now you are done! Your map is ready to be used.

Share, further investigate, start working or do whatever you want to do with your map.

Tags: advice, hands-on, technique, tip