TheBrain Cloud Services is host to millions of digital Thoughts from users around the world. We are super excited about our latest release to the cloud that give you even more online authoring features as well as faster response time and synchronization.

TheBrain Cloud Service Update Includes:

• Increased Performance for Online Brains
• Drag and drop files to upload instantly to Online Brain
• Online notes editor enhanced with checkboxes
• Thought Types and Tags can  be added a new context menu online
• Expanded Web Client Preferences for font, wallpaper and hint options

Read our press release for the full scoop or watch our new features tour.

Public Brains may be viewed at http:///www.webbrain.com/explore

We covered how to:

• Build a personal knowledgebase to increase understanding
• Re-contextualize information sources to create a perspective that matches your thinking
• Analyze relationships and map out information networks on complex subjects
• Present your research and share with coworkers and students (Example Brains from teachers, students and researchers)

Questions and Answers

Thanks to everyone who participated! There were some great questions. Here are a few notables:

1. How does TheBrain work with Evernote? Does it integrate with TheBrain?

• There is currently no direct integration with Evernote and TheBrain, however, adding links to Evernote works the same as adding any URL. In fact, this can be done with anything that has a web interface and unique URLs, e.g. Google Mail (or any web email), Google Docs, etc. If you are using Evernote online, you will notice each Notebook and/or Notes has its own unique URL. You can drag and drop or copy/paste this URL into TheBrain to create a new Thought or attach it to an existing Thought.

2. Can I print/export a static outline of my Brain/Thoughts?

• Yes, you can export all of your Thoughts (or even a portion of Thoughts) to a text outline. This can be done by navigating to the Reports tab and, while leaving the first two settings at “All”, clicking the Refresh icon (two blue arrows). You will now see all Thoughts in the Reports. Next, go to Edit > Add Report Results to Selection then Edit > Copy as Text Outline. Open any text document software and Paste. If you want to export a specific section of your Brain, select the Thought you want to start with by CTRL+Clicking (PC) or CMD+Clicking (Mac) it. Navigate to and select Edit > Crawl Brain and Modify Selection then select the number of generations you want TheBrain to crawl and select Ok. Next, navigate to Edit > Copy as Text Outline. Open any text document software and Paste. Also note that if you use Notes, you also have the option to choose Copy as Text outline with Notes when copying. More information on this process can be found in our Importing and Exporting Word and Excel tutorial.

3. What is the advantage/disadvantage of linking to a file attachment, moving a file attachment into, or copying a file attachment into the Brain?

• Linking to files will not allow you access to those files on any machine or location where the same file path does not exist. If you plan to run TheBrain on more than one computer or if you are using TheBrain Cloud Services and want access to your files from those locations, you will want to move or copy your files (internally) into the Brain.

4. Can you display all Thoughts that are connected with the same Link Type?

• Yes, you can run a Report on your Link Types. Navigate to your Reports tab and click on “All“, then hover over Link types and select a Link Type.

Your results will show any Thought that is associated with that Link Type.

5. If I put a reminder in the Brain calendar can I get it to show in my Outlook calendar?

• TheBrain does not directly integrate with Outlook, but you can get around this by using Google calendar synchronization. You can sync Outlook to Google and then Google calendar to TheBrain (File > Synchronize Calendar with Google Calendar…).

6. Can I place the Plex to the right and the Note to the left, etc.?

• Yes, you can drag your tools around to custom locations and resize them to your liking.  You can find out how to do this by checking out our Tool Tab Layout tutorial.

7. Should I create one large Brain or a few topic specific Brains?

• This depends on the individual. Some, like myself, prefer to keep everything in one large Brain and some prefer to create Brains for each section of their larger Brain. I like to keep everything that directly relates to my life in one Brain. If I am working on something specific or, especially, something that requires a lot more time and information I will create a new Brain. Again though, this all depends on the individual. Try out different methods to see what suits you. You can always copy and paste a portion of a Brain into a new Brain if you feel it is getting too large to handle all at once. Another great resource related to this question is our existing Blog Post, One Brain or Many? Approaches to Creating a Brain.

Adding More Meaning to Your Brain

There are so many possibilities for classification and organization of information in TheBrain. If you are just creating a new Brain, the first step is to map out your ideas with Thought relationships. Once this is done, you can add another compelling level of insight to your knowledge map with Thought Types and Tags.

If you are still deciding how to structure your Thought relationships new to TheBrain, as precursor to this article, I suggest reading Parent Child or Jump?  What relationship do I choose?

Now on to Thought Types!

Thought Types
Thought Types are an additional classification of meaning you can add to your information. Thought Types are useful for grouping large amounts of Thoughts that don’t necessarily fit under the same area in your Brain.

You can use Thought Types to help you specify key types of information that are relevant to your business or projects. If you are creating a brain for your company, you might have Thought Types for managers, directors or executives, clients, customers, partners, and even project phases.

Thought Types have a mouse-over label to indicate the Type. You can also set icons and colors for each Type to see them easily.

An IT manager might have Thought Types for different classes of applications he or she manages.

Classification and Functionally Oriented Thought Types
Really any Thought Type that works for you goes.  To distinguish two different uses of Thought Types you can think of them as either “Classification Oriented” or “Functionally Oriented”.

Classification Oriented Thought Types are more “objective” attributes. Examples include person, place, or employee position.

The above Brain uses classification oriented Thought Types to show Phylum (Orange) , Class (Purple), Order (blue), and Family (Green) in the Animal Kingdom.

Note that by Thought Typing this information you don’t have to create additional Thoughts for these classifications.

Functionally oriented Thought Types are more subjective in nature, examples might include:  “Best Web site”, “Good Deal” or “My Favorite”. It’s important to note that you don’t necessary have to have a completely consistent and formal classification for your Thought Types. I really like functionally oriented Thought Types because you can still gain much utility by visually distinguishing Thoughts based on more subjective attributes.

For instance, you can create Thought Types to visually distinguish information from the rest of a larger group of Thoughts that has special meaning to you.

In this example I have a yellow Thought type for “Great Web Site”, green Thought Type for “Good Flash Reference” and orange for “My Favorite Web Site”. This makes these Thoughts stand out over and above the others.

Setting Your Display to Organize By Thought Type
If you enjoy having many Thoughts under one category, Thought Types can help you see key levels of classification at a glance while still having everything connected directly to a central Parent Thought.

Right click on the background, select “Arrange Thoughts by” and “Type”. All Thought of the same Type will be displayed together.

Super Types
You can only have one Thought Type per Thought but Thought Types can belong to a Super Type. Super Types represent a family of Thought Types. For instance you might have the Thought Type of “Person” as a Super Type of the Types “Manager” and “Executive”. This allows you to indicate that a Thought of the Type “Manager” is also a “Person” and when you use reports to look up Thoughts by Type this can be very useful.

From Thought Types to Thought Tags
If you find you want to add many more attributes to your Thoughts then a single Thought Type can accommodate, or you are creating a lot of functionally oriented Thought Types, you will probably want to start using Thought Tags.

Thought Tags
Thought Tags as the name suggests let you tag your Thought with additional attributes and contexts to further define or classify it. You can have as many Tags per Thought as you like. Furthermore, you can activate a tag by selecting it from the Tags tab or using instant activate and all the relevant Thoughts appear. This makes it possible to aggregate items based on an attribute that might otherwise be logically scattered throughout your Brain.

Clicking a Thought Tag in the Tags Tool displays all the tagged Thoughts.

Thought Tags are especially useful for task lists and GTD users where you might have many different labels you want to add to a Thought. (For more information on how to use TheBrain for GTD see Getting Things Done with TheBrain)

Thought Tags appear to the side of your Thought. You can have as many Thought Tags as you need per Thought.

The Difference between Types and Tags: When to Use Each.
You can think of Thought Types as the primary attribute of the Thought. Note that when you set your Thought Type you can specify color and icon that distinguishes the type. With Thought Tags you can have as many as you want on a Thought and they need not be the defining characteristic or key attribute of a Thought. This is even reflected in their display in the interface; they are off to the side of the Thought.

Use Thought Types for Primary Attributes and Thought Tags for additional classification.

As shown above, once all ideas for the company’s “Market Expansion” are captured, Thought Types are used to signify a primary attribute of an idea. In this case, something that is a “Green lighted project” or a “Hot topic” which has generated much debate is identified with a Thought Type. Thought Tags for “Cost” and “Timeframe” are used to show key factors that will affect executing these ideas. (For more information on using TheBrain for brainstorming see Visualizing Decisions and No Limits Brainstorming)

Information Architecture Issues Solved by Thought Types and Tags
Thought Types and Tags can help you evolve your Brain in the following ways:

• Prioritize or highlight key Thoughts out of large groups. Using Thought Types helps you Identify key information sets at a glance
• Provide a consistent framework for visually distinguishing information beyond Parent, Child and Jump relationships.
• Allow classification of many Thoughts without necessarily breaking things down under additional child Thoughts.
• Avoid creating frivolous categories in your Brain. For instance, I would never have a Thought in my Brain called “when talking to CEO” but my tag “CEO”, which I use to tag key Thoughts in my brain, is perfect for this!
• Filtered reports and searches can be generated in the reports tab with Thought Types and aggregate displays can be visualized with Thought Tags.

So what are you waiting for? Type or Tag a Thought Today!

Video Tip:

How Visualization Leads to Enhanced Self Knowledge
and Better Results

Plato refers to thinking as the talking of the soul with itself. Yet one of the problems we have with these “conversations” is their transient nature. Our great ideas and strong moments in life can be fleeting and overlooked in our daily routines, deadlines and tasks. This can leave us in a bit of a rut: always busy with life but never rising above the fray to actualize key values and long-term goals.

Well fellow Brain users, I suggest we all take 2013 to be even more mindful and let our best thoughts and vision shine through in our digital Brains. Capturing your thinking in TheBrain enables you to achieve a level of self-awareness that isn’t possible otherwise. Though using your Brain for self-reflection can happen naturally, you can also create key Thoughts that enable better understanding of your life and help you reach your goals.

Strong Moments

In last month’s Big Thinker Event, Omer Aziz, Director of Human Resources for RIM, showed us a dazzling example of how one’s digital Brain can enable self-growth and improved performance. One of the most interesting and less obvious areas he had mapped in his Brain was his “strong moments” section. I asked him to elaborate on what a strong moment is and how he captures them. Here’s what he said:

Watch the Omer Aziz Webinar Here

These strong moments can be anything from a meeting with an old acquaintance to a well-handled business call. When you review these Thoughts you can learn what is most fulfilling in your work projects or where to focus more of your time and energy to excel.

Going from Thinking to Doing

David Allen, bestselling author and creator of Getting Things Done® talks about how you can develop a positive shift in your energy just by identifying what you need to do… i.e. when you are stressed out think about the relief you feel just by creating a list. In GTD Times he referred to this as “The value of getting things out of your psyche and into a more objective format”.  So in addition to your strong moments, capturing all your commitments and tasks in your Brain will help you gain control on everything that you have going on. This can be quite enlightening. In fact, you might find that you have too much on your plate. So you might need to delegate or decline certain commitments.

You can use Thought Types and Tags in TheBrain to visually prioritize your responsibilities. Use bright colors to represent and visualize the more important projects or commitments.

Thought Types for “Green Lighted Projects” and your “Action Items” convey a visual priority when juggling multiple projects.

Omer also does this in his Brain with his “strong week” where he captures everything that he wants to accomplish and sets out to do for the week.

Adding your New Resolutions to Your Brain

If we apply the idea of creating a place for focused thought to action you can see why adding your 2013 resolutions in your Brain is a no-brainer.  Creating resolutions in our Brains helps make them tangible and actionable and at the same time helps us to think deeper to understand ourselves through our visual thoughts.

We all need a place for ourselves, a place to work, a place to rest, but most importantly a place to think. You can make that place for thinking and translating your goals into action in your Brain. It’s easier than you might think. All you have to do is get started with a conscious effort by translating your goals and desires into something concrete that you can build upon. Here you can think about your objectives and be continually reinforced with your own ideas. By returning to this area of your digital Brain habitually, you train yourself and focus your own mental energy on the things that are truly important to you. These simple, subtle actions can lead to small changes that add up over time and can be the difference between achieving your goals and just dreaming about them.

Happy New Year and Happy Digital Thinking!

Watch our 6 minute video on how to add your 2013 New Year Resolutions into your Brain.

During this busy time of year let your Brain be your digital assistant so you can stay focused on your key goals and events. Here are twelve must have Thoughts that will make your holidays richer and your work load lighter; so you can spend more time with the people that matter most to you and end your year with a bang.

Project Focused Thoughts that Save Time for the Holidays
With a few additional Thoughts and links, your Brain can dramatically streamline your tasks and mitigate any unforeseen holiday hassles.

1. Travel and Trip Planning Thoughts
Whether you are going to the airport to pick up your grandmother or flying up north to see your parents, TheBrain is the ideal tool for organizing travel.  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.

For a quick demo on my travel Brain you can watch this video

And also see Matt’s travel Brain in Action!

2. Special People Thoughts
The holidays are all about connecting with people. You can drag and drop your friends’ Facebook pages, Outlook contacts or simply type in their name and add their information in your Thought notes. I like to link people to the city they live in. This way when I visit somewhere I can click on that city and easily see who to have dinner with during my stay.

Of course, adding family members into your Brain is something you will get use from all year round. Clicking on the in-laws and seeing their connection to bowling will remind you to get them those passes for Christmas and a link to your sister’s favorite author from Oprah’s book of the month will be a very helpful reminder for a nice stocking stuffer under the tree.

3. Gift Ideas and Online Shopping Thoughts
You can see where this is going… Yes, everything is connected. So now linked to the people you love can be notes or Thoughts to gift ideas. You can drag and drop their favorite books from Amazon to trigger interesting ideas and help you customize the perfect gift.

This is also a useful Thought for office managers who are buying holiday gift baskets for clients. You can drag and drop the best ones in, show them to your boss, and then place your order.

This section is a must for avid online shoppers. Often you will run across something online that is perfect for your family but it’s not their birthday or Christmas. Then when that magical occasion comes around, you can dazzle them with that perfect gift or conversation topic. Just activate Mom’s Thought and your plethora of ideas and online gifts is right there.

4. Holiday Schedules and Event Planning Thoughts
Use TheBrain’s built-in calendar to remind you of key deadlines. Set up reminder Thoughts for key dates or deadlines so you can be sure nothing is overlooked. Additionally many people take time off during this season. Be prepared and link in schedules. Connect people to their replacements or supervisors so you have the right contacts when they are out of the office.

If you are planning any holiday parties, you can link all event venues, budgets and guest lists together for complete project management. For more information, see the TheBrain for project management video.

5. Year End Sale Figures, Metrics Thoughts and Multitasking Mode
Of course with the season so merry it’s very important to stay focused on key work projects to ensure you meet your annual goals. Now more than ever it is especially important to have Thoughts for key business objectives. With TheBrain there’s no limit to the number of Thoughts or connections you can make so you can link all relevant documents and online resources. If you are concerned about increasing your sales read my blog post on “Increasing Your Sales with TheBrain”.

In fact, TheBrain’s instant activate is ideal for people who are multi tasking. Just type in the first couple letters of your project or goal in the Instant Search Box and TheBrain displays this Thought and all related connections. So you get the big picture on all key aspects of a task and an immediate visual briefing of what needs to be done. This allows you to switch tasks quickly and still remain focused.

6. Year End Tax Planning Thoughts
Each year end gets easier and easier with your Brain. You can visualize key business processes and steps to ensure you are prepared; make the necessary investments and plans for year end. Throughout the year you should also drag and drop interesting web articles from fortune.com or other finance oriented web sites. This way you will always have them when you need them, and aren’t scratching your head trying to explain to your accountant about this tax credit that you can’t quite remember but read about online a couple months ago.

7. Lessons Learned and New Year’s Resolution Thoughts
As the year comes to a close both personally and professionally adding some Thoughts and ideas on key milestones in your life and lessons learned will ensure you capture valuable knowledge for years ahead.

You can create Thoughts for any 2013 goals or resolutions. What’s great about TheBrain is that your new year’s resolution list doesn’t have to be a static list.  You can build a complete knowledge base under your goal on how to achieve it! For example, if your goal is to reduce your cholesterol or lose 10 pounds, you can have links to key diet sites, fitness logs, and notes on your progress. Your Brain becomes your launch pad for success.

Festive Thoughts for Holiday Fun!
Sprucing up your Brain with wallpaper and some holiday Thoughts can be a very entertaining project and at the same time help prepare you for your in-laws! I recommend the following new Thought for the holidays:

8. Winter Events and Destinations
When the snow comes you might as well make the most of it. This is a section for all your winter activities including skiing, snow tires and snow angels. This is the part of your brain where you can put frivolous YouTube videos like how to make snow angels and the world’s largest snowwoman.

If you are a skier you can create a section here on the best resorts, specials, and link all your trip plans. You can also add Thoughts for winterizing your car here.

9. Holiday Decorating Ideas and Resources
Drag and drop ideas from online design stores or brainstorm on holiday themes for family get-togethers. You can even attach your shopping list so you know exactly what to pick up when you venture into the crowded stores.

10. Holiday Recipe and Menu Planning
Let’s face it for most of us the holidays are all about the food. But for any time of year linking and organizing your favorite recipes takes your cooking to the next level. With TheBrain’s associative interface one recipe or dish can be effectively categorized under multiple Thoughts so you can always discover the right dish for all occasions. For instance, eggnog could be under both “Christmas Meals” and “Cocktails”. Drag and drop Web links to launch the recipe web page. You can also cut and paste from the web or jot down new recipes in TheBrain’s Notes area.

11. Religious Traditions
Diving deeper into the meaning of the holiday season with your digital brain can be very enlightening. You can use TheBrain’s built-in search web feature and then drag and drop web sites and make connections to other Thoughts or ideas in your Brain for a complete perspective.  This can also be an area where you link to Christmas Carol lyrics or traditional family items.

12. Charities and Good Deed Thoughts
When yearend comes this is the time to finalize any donations. Once a donation is made this Thought is a great place to store all your receipts. If you get the receipt by email you can drag and drop the message in. For hardcopies I recommend scanning as a PDF file and adding them in.

If you want to get even more creative, you can create a “Goodwill Thought” and brainstorm on ways you can make your home, office and/or the world a brighter place. It could be as simple as taking a niece or nephew out for the day, bringing home some fresh cut flowers, or planning some volunteer work in your community. A noble exercise that is perfect for your digital Brain.

Your Holiday Brain
Even just a few of these Thoughts should bring some order to your busy life and certainly some good old fashion holiday cheer. So as you start decorating your tree and putting your Christmas lights up, don’t forget to dress up your brain this holiday season. It will keep you focused and energized into the coming year.

Your Holiday Brain Template
Download a copy of my Happy Holidays Brain for ideas and useful categories to start your own.

Event planning by its very nature involves many variables, people and ideas coming together. Organizing events in TheBrain where you can link any idea to anything else will help you visualize all aspects of an event, build and grow good ideas.

Our own organic brains aren’t always linear. One thought can lead to a cascade and convergence of many others. So trying to confine your thinking to a folder or a linear filing structure can really inhibit creative approaches to problems and events. Or even worse the process of organizing information into folders becomes so tedious that we simply don’t bother. We carry it all in our head.  This presents a number of problems from misplaced information to overlooked ideas that lead to disappointing results, not to mention the psychological drain of never getting things off your mind…

Your digital Brain will enable you to take control of life events by leveraging your own thinking. Create a Thought in your Brain for all your key events. Even just having an area where you dump ideas or add key references and notes will help you to elevate your life. Think of it as the visual grocery list with hooks into all the information you need.

Integrating Resources for Action
Sometimes we know exactly what needs to be done but we just need a place to stay inspired and track our progress. With TheBrain you can drag and drop all relevant files, emails, and Web pages. For instance if you are organizing a conference you need to track all your marketing

collateral, speaker agendas and venue links – it’s only a click away in your Brain.

You can also take notes on your Thoughts and files to capture those snippets of information. Plus, TheBrain’s built-in calendar lets you set reminders and other dates so you are always on top of any action items and deadlines.

Dragging and dropping sources of inspiration that you read about on the Web will enable you to recalibrate and reenergize yourself when you need an extra nudge. This might include key leaders in your industry, pictures of desired results or reference links for your project.

Achieve Multifaceted Focus with Instant Activate
Unfortunately, creativity can’t be produced on-demand. So being able to capture your thinking when the idea strikes is important. But being able to instantly recall an important idea is even more critical. One of the advantages of your digital Brain is that it allows you the freedom to relieve your mind from mundane details. So rather than having your Thanksgiving dinner plans, marketing projects and new kitchen renovations all circling around in your head, you can get it all into one place and give your mind a break. You can turn off your thinking with the confidence you can return to it in a moment’s notice and get back into the groove of things.

One of the most powerful features that TheBrain offers is Instant Activate. Just type in a few letters and up pop the Thoughts you need. You can always get to exactly where you need to be in seconds.

The power of this feature should not be underestimated. It gives you the ability to get to any Thought and its related content in seconds. This is especially crucial for users juggling multiple projects or tasks. Anyone who needs to shift contexts, respond and bring up information quickly will love this feature.

Instant Activate

Just type in the first couple letters of what you need and a list of your Thoughts appear. Click on the Thought and get your information instantly.

Thought Types and Tags for Prioritization
With multiple responsibilities and projects moving at once it’s critical to manage and control the flow of your information, your time for each project and even the desirability of the projects themselves.

Once you have all your key ideas and to-dos captured you will need to take a step back and prioritize or even delete a few!  You can use Thought Types and Tags in TheBrain to visually prioritize your responsibilities. Use bright colors to represent and visualize the more important projects or commitments.

Thought Types for “Green Lighted Projects” (in green) and your “Action Items” (in orange) convey a visual priority when juggling multiple projects.

Seeing all this in your digital Brain enables you to be more conscious of what you need to focus on.

Visualizing Your Next Event
You can get started by mind mapping and visually organizing an event by creating a Thought in your Brain. This Thought will serve as the central knowledge hub to store and access information as well as add new ideas. With the Thanksgiving week upon us creating a travel section in your Brain is perfect for organizing itineraries, confirmation numbers, etc.

For more information on using TheBrain for travel you can watch this recorded event and get a template Brain.

Watch Matt Create His Thanksgiving Brain in 5 Minutes

With your event focused Brain you can take care of the little things that bog you down and keep your eye on the big picture. This helps you get more done so you can make the most of finer things in life. So whether you’re organizing your turkey recipes or planning for an international event, the same principle holds true:

Smarter Context = Better + Stress-Free Results.

TheBrain Cloud Services Gives You Improved User Interface
Features and More!

Your Web Brain has curves,
like your desktop!

TheBrain cloud service offers easy, secure Brain publishing and data synchronization. With our latest update we’ve enhanced your online viewing experience.

TheBrain interface is even closer to the look and feel of the desktop edition including:

• Thicker, curved links
• Improved link highlighting
• Active Thought indicator
• Background colors on Thoughts are shown in the plex, just like on the desktop if this preference is set
• Support for the “hide tags” brain preference

Explore published Brains at http://webbrain.com/explore

Check out Your Enhanced Online Features.

Get easy access and valuable statistics when you login to your enhanced cloud services account. New features include:

• Streamlined Brain listings
  • A menu is now used to request a brainzip, alter settings, delete and view Brain statistics
• Brain Statistics
  • Brain statistics can now be viewed for cloud Brains.
  • The statistics page also includes a graph of activity for the last 30 days
• Google Nexus 7 tablet support

See for yourself! Login to your cloud account now.

Updated TeamBrain Services for Smarter Collaboration

TeamBrain Services lets groups of users synchronize their thoughts and data together to make connections in a single Brain. With our latest release TeamBrain users get a new online experience to manage their group.

Enhanced TeamBrain Listings

• TeamBrain subscribers now have a team page for all their members and Brains. This page is automatically constructed and appears when team members log in.
  
• The TeamBrain subscription administrator can name the team and add a description.

New Brain Settings Page for TeamBrain Subscribers

• When TeamBrain users share a Brain, by default only team members are available to share with. A check box enforces the addition of only team members.
  
• There is a button to quickly share with all team members.
  
• Non-team members are distinguished from others in the list of people a Brain is shared with.

With TeamBrain users can add and connect hundreds of thousands of ideas. TheBrain’s award winning interface is ideally suited to large data sets so you never have to worry about running out of space. Your TeamBrain grows more powerful as you use it.

To setup your TeamBrain Services contact sales@thebrain.com or call 310-751-5000.

Use TheBrain for Outstanding Presentations

We had a great webinar today with a ton of questions.  Thanks to all attendees for their participation. We focused on how you can use TheBrain as a presentation and persuasion tool for more effective communication before, during and after your meetings. If you missed the webinar, feel free to watch the on-line recording.

Template Brains from Webinar

• Here is the BrainZip I used for my presentation. A Brain on “Presenting with TheBrain…”
• Here is the sample Brain of an executive annual meeting presentation done with TheBrain.

Here is an overview of what we covered:

Three Phases for Better Presentations with TheBrain

1. Before Presentation

1. Organize ideas and agenda with Thoughts
2. Pin key Thoughts so you remember them
3. Add zoomable icons to Thoughts
4. Add Thought Types and Tags
5. Adjust animation speed

2. During Presentation

1. Wander your Brain before the meeting starts to peek people’s interest
2. Use TheBrain’s Presentation Mode (Under View Menu)
3. Switch to Expanded and Outline View for bigger picture
4. Instant Activate gets you to whatever you need to talk about instantly
5. Create new Thoughts from your meeting discussion live and make the presentation interactive

3. After Presentation

1. Add in your meeting notes and new ideas
2. Continue to store additional information
3. Publish your Brain on the Web
4. Send a BrainZip to attendees

TheBrain Presentation Applications. There are a Ton!

Collective Brainstorming

• No limits to number of ideas that can be added
• Additional files and supporting research can be integrated
• Easy and flexible linking and unlinking of concepts

(See my previous blog post for more on Brainstorming)

Education Seminars and Lectures

• Enhance understanding of subject matter
• Provides overview of content for students
• Reinforces key concepts

(Watch Previous Webinar on Using TheBrain for Education)

Project Management Meetings

• Link people to areas of responsibility
• Perform impact assessment on project changes
• Visualize project phases and key milestones
  • Phase1
  • Phase2
  • Phase 3
• Visually identify and capture requirements

(Read previous blog post on project management)

Sales Pitches and Business Development

• Highlight and focus on key marketing messages
• Visualize contingencies of a problem

(See Ken Morris’ Brain on Sales Management)

Visual Arguments and Persuasive Proofs

• Legal briefings
• Political debates
• Raising money
• SWOT analysis

Visual Catalogues and Product Showcases

• Multidimensional categorization of products
• Zoomable icons highlight product

Why Not Just Stick to Traditional PowerPoint Decks?

Using TheBrain for your presentation helps you:

• Focus on core ideas and their ramifications
• Get busy executives attention!!
  • Audience doesn’t get lost in the slide
  • A novel presentation means they will remember.
• Minimize graphic and artwork requirements
• Simplify complex relationships
• Visualize key ideas

Recording available at www.thebrain.com/recordings/get-attention/