juni 2019

This article describes mind mapping and its advantages and disadvantages

Yes, finally! You decided to become a SaaS entrepreneur.

Your head is full of ideas. Now you want to write them down. For yourself, your bank (you need money!), for your website (marketing!!). You stare at an empty paper. You can’t write anything down. Just words, no sentences, no story, no plan…
 
Now what? Did you know I was in a similar situation when I started my business as a SaaS software tester and content marketer.

But then I remembered something from my high school years. I was not an ace remembering big chunks of texts. My former biology teacher told me I should try mind mapping. This way I would remember the text better, and more importantly, distinguish the essentials from the details.

What is a mind map?

Wikipedia defines a mind map as a diagram used to visually organise information. A mind map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole.

Develop a mind map

Remember your empty sheet. Write down your central theme, eg. the name of your company, in the middle of the sheet and encircle it as a balloon. Now place around this central theme the connected sub-themes: finance, marketing, sales etc. Also encircle these subthemes. Connect the central theme with the sub-themes by drawing branches. Doing this, a diagram is generated and a visualization of your SaaS company is seen on paper.

A very creative way to put your thoughts on paper. As I said earlier, I had trouble remembering large chunks of text. By mind mapping I could visualise this text and remember it. But it is also a great way to put your thoughts on paper, giving it more structure, and also be creative.

Let your thoughts flow, there are no boundaries, except the boundaries of your sheet of paper.

Advantages of a mind map

For a starting SaaS entrepreneur mind mapping has many advantages.

You will see in a glance the connections between the central theme and its many sub-themes. Because you will see it as a whole, the text comes to life making it easier for your brains to process.

Turning the text into a mind map makes it more easier for you to remember it. Associations are made between themes, which improves remembering it. Very handy when deciphering the tax rules.

By visualizing you are more alert, improving the creativity process. Especially beneficial when making your business plan and your thoughts are going all the way.

Mind mapping saves time! By mind mapping you are summarizing your thoughts, which is beneficial when writing a plan or pitch.

With mind mapping you will discover more associations. This encourages you to go on, thinking out-of-the-box. Maybe you will invent a new online sales technique?

This is just a brief list of mind mapping advantages. There are many more….

Mind mapping, are there also disadvantages?

Mind mapping is a creative process. It takes time to master it. But when succeeded, it will save you a lot of time.

Mind you, a mind map is a ‘visual summary’ of YOUR thoughts. Another person has other thoughts and therefore another mind map.

When working in a team always compare the mind maps. Let’s be creative together.

Conclusion

Mind mapping can help you start up your company. It takes time to master it, but by creative ordening your thoughts on paper, it will also save you a lot of time. At a glance you will see associations between themes and it wil help you remember important things more.

You can share your mind map with other people. Take in mind, it is a visualisation of your thoughts, which are very personal. Therefore mind maps of other people are different, although they address the same subject.
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Try mind mapping, you won’t regret it.

And let me know your findings.

Huge news! Tableau gets acquired by SalesForce! A shark deal in the cloud?

It is a $15.3 billion all-stock deal, marking the biggest acquisition in the company’s history.

Not only awesome for Tableau, but also for Salesforce, as it continues to diversify beyond CRM software and into the analytics niche.

And, by doing this deal, Salesforce will also increase its business customer base with 86,000, including Verizon, Schneider Electric, but also Netflix!

“We are bringing together the world’s #1 CRM with the #1 analytics platform. Tableau helps people see and understand data, and Salesforce helps people engage and understand customers. It’s truly the best of both worlds for our customers–bringing together two critical platforms that every customer needs to understand their world,”

Marc Benioff, CEO Salesforce

Salesforce also has most of these customers. But now it has a cross selling opportunity. It can sell Salesforce to Tableau shops who are not using Salesforce yet.

Joining forces with Salesforce will enhance our ability to help people everywhere see and understand data. As part of the world’s #1 CRM company, Tableau’s intuitive and powerful analytics will enable millions more people to discover actionable insights across their entire organizations. I’m delighted that our companies share very similar cultures and a relentless focus on customer success. I look forward to working together in support of our customers and communities.

Adam Selipsky, CEO Tableau

Salesforce knows customer data is important for business. With Tableau it can give its customers insight in their customer data.

Are the sharks on the hunt?

Salesforce buying Tableau seems a reaction on recent buyings by other big tech firms. Google bought Looker last week for $2.6 billion. Looker is a unified platform for business intelligence, data applications, and embedded analytics. And Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for about $26 billion. Ok, a few years back, but it’s about billions here, not pennies.

Are the big tech companies behaving as sharks, hungry for analytics?

It seems so. Analytics, and its predicting capabilities, is a growing field.

The big techs want to have the best in their stocks to deliver a complete quality package to their customers.

A shark deal in the cloud, do you agree?

Meetup.com is a great website to find meetups in your neighbourhood.

This way I found out the local Chamber of Commerce (CoC, Dutch Kamer van Koophandel, KVK) was going to organise a workshop about how to go digital as a business. Or in marketing slang: How to digitally transform your business. ( Digital transformation!!)

Interesting, because this also affects my business TestingSaaS: Helping clients create content by testing their software.

Better yet, it was going to be a holographic workshop where speakers were present as holograms. This way the CoC could do this workshop on multiple places.

Awesome because I am an early adopter of this kind of technology, see my VR and AR posts.

How to Digitalize your Business

Here is the list of the presentations and the holographic speakers:

1. The future clients are already there( Steven van Belleghem – Nexxworks.com)
2. This also works – Hans Engelsma (Qoets.nl)
3. How to use videomarketing? – Britt van Smeerdijk (Boomingproductions.nl)
4. Internet marketing for more results with your business- Tonny Loorbach (IMU.nl)
5. The golden rules for today’s networking – Rob B. Tol (Netwerkacademie.nl)
6. Use data to get satisfied customers – Jos & Dorien Beks (Change-hairstyling.nl)
7. How to keep it secure? A story by a hacker – Thijs Bosschert (Ethisch Hacker)
8. Customisation for the masses = Money! – Jos Knulst (Doosopmaat.nl)

All these speakers are very experienced in digitalising their business, and as you can see they come from different niches: hairdressing, video, marketing etc.

A pity they were only present as holograms, engagement was not possible, but, together with the other attendees, I enjoyed myself and there was enough time to engage with the other attendees.

the Workshop Take Away

Every workshop has its homework, so all attendees received a canvas sheet with the take aways from every presentation. Great material to study when back at home.

Thank you for an interesting and engaging evening.

Chamber of Commerce, great holographic workshop, let’s go for a second one!