Time-Based (Calendar) Maps
We’re currently rebuilding our knowledge map store and upgrading the contents to take advantage of advances in MindManager capabilities. Knowledge maps in each category / sub-category will appear in due course.
Time-Based (Calendar) Maps
Time – or rather the measurement of the passing of it – is another of the fundamental constructs us humans use to make sense of our world and organise what we do in it. The calendar / diary is the fundamental tool we have invented to break time down into human-sized, hierarchical chunks – years, months, days, hours & minutes – within which the different aspects of our indivdual & collective lives can be planned, scheduled, recorded & managed.
Our range of calendar knowledge maps of generic, past, present and future years provide – with or without sub-branches for 500+ annually recurring, internationally (and nationally) significant events complete with multiple links to public domain knowledge resources about them – provide the alternative visual framework to help users keep track of, and manage, their own time, and create time lines for planning the future or archiving the past (down to the nearest second if you wish)! Think of the usefullness of your existing calendar with the added versatility of a MindManger map that enables you to add your own ‘events’ “on the hoof” along with links to documents and knowledge resources.
Watch our walk-through video of a previous version of our calendar to give you an idea of what our calendar maps are about. .


Featured Resource

Annual Calendars - General World
The aim is to always have calendars for the next 5 years available. Please be patient as we redevelop our store. If you have an urgent need for a calendar map for a specific year(s), then please contact us.
13,284
Map Branches
16,027
Hyperlinks to Relevant Knowledge Resources
12
Specific Months of the Specific Year
365
Specific Days of the Specific Year
500+
Annually Recurring Significant Public Events
General International Annual Calendar Maps are built on the Annual Base Calendar for the specific year, with the addition of over 500 internationally significant diary events as sub-branches of the relevant day branch – such as astronomical events (eg. phases of the moon), religious observances, United Nations Observances and the national days of every official country in the world. As usual with our knowledge maps the branches have attached links to relevant, public domain knowledge resources about the event – the official event page from the organiser (if there is one), and any other useful sources (eg. there is usually a page or a sub-article on Wikipedia).
Thus as well as a versatile calendar to plan your year ahead (as well as become the archive file of what happened when), this map is a knowledge portal to those annually recurring events that shape our day to day lives for all interested citizens of the world. We have never mixed together as friends, neighbours, colleagues & lovers to the extent we do now In these days of globalisation, so anything that increases our mutual understanding of where we’ve all come from and where (and when) we all want to go next, can only be welcomed 🙂
MindManager Users: You are free to edit, remove or add to the calendar map as required eg. adding your own diary events to plan & keep track of your year in general, or specific projects and milestones. Once your year is over your map becomes your instantly accessible archive file for what happened when. Your ‘business year’ doesn’t start on January 1st? Mix and match main branches from different years to create your own bespoke annual calendar map.
Seed branches provide a ‘base level’ of contextual knowledge about the subject embedded within, or attached to, them in the form of…
- Image [Embedded] – Such as thumbnail location maps, flags, icons, people profile pictures etc., which provide a unique visual element that users can instantly latch on to as they navigate their way through the map.
- Branch Text [Embedded] – Rich (ie. variably formatted) branch text – such as names & unique identifying codes (taken from official sources) – is a unique MindManager feature.
- Branch Note [Attached] – Contains supplementary information with all the elements of a word processed page – variably formatted (‘rich’) text, tables and images.
- Spreadsheet Table / Chart [Embedded] – Containing contextual facts & figures, which can be toggled between table and chart view as appropriate (once again unique to MindManager).
- Multiple Single Data Fields [Embedded] – Another way of adding contextual facts & figures to the map (once again unique to MindManager), these are like single cells in a spreadsheet and the values can be used to format the topic.
- Index Marker Tags [Attached] – Arranged in groups and added to individual branches as appropriate, tags add contextual knowledge, enable map filtering and navigation.
- Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached] – Another unique feature, multiple links to a range of official definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about the subject of the seed branch – usually selected from the full range of general & geographic knowledge resource collections – help turn the map into a knowledge portal without adding to the visual clutter.
All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…
Specific Month Of The Specific Year Seed Branch
Specific Month Of The Specific Year Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Thumbnail Image: Specific Month & Year Icon
A bespoke icon that uniquely identifies the specifc month of the specific year using a calendar image, which ccontains the specific year above the name of the month (abbreviated to the first 3 letters).
Note(s)
i) The icon was originally designed and created by us as a 48 x 48 pixel PNG file, optimised to minimize the file size (typically 2-3 KB).
Branch Text: Specific Month & Year
Richly formatted text string of the specific month name in full and the year, eg. ‘January 2020’.
Embedded Spreadsheet: Specific Monthly Calendar Grid
An embedded spreadsheet (another unique MindManager feature) showing all the days of the specific month in terms of the 7 days of the week in a traditional grid layout. The weekend days of saturday and sunday are differentiated by background shading.
Note(s)
i) This embedded feature can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner of the embedded feature.
ii) The contents of an embedded spreadsheet can be a simple table, or it can be numerical data. If the latter then if it is structured appropriately the data can also be viewed as a chart (the range of chart types is the same as other spreadsheet software). MindManger users are able to toggle between the spreadsheet and chart view, whilst the view is fixed on export of the HTML version.
Index Marker Tags & Groups [Attached]
Arranged in groups and attached to branches as required, index marker tags…
- provide additional contextual knowledge about the seed branch, visiable to all users.
- enable dynamic filtering of the map content to only show / hide branches that have been tagged with the selected marker
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..
- EVENTS – prefix indicates tags to do with an event that can be added to a calendar map – the ‘type’ of event, how the date of it fixed etc.
- GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
- TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
- RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.
ii) Within MindManager, tags…
- can be used to format map branches using MindManager’s unique Smart Rules’ feature e.g. colouring the weekend days in a calendar map to make them stand out.
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
TAGS ATTACHED TO THIS SEED BRANCH
TIME – Months – Year (Mon YYYY) – The specific months of the specific Gregorian Calendar year as abbreviated text and year – 12 tags from eg. ‘Jan 2019’ to ‘Dec 2019’.
TIME – Months – Year (MNN-YYYY) – The specific months of the Gregorian Calendar year as a numerical sequence – 12 tags from eg. ‘M01-2019’ to ‘M12-2019’.
TAGS NOT CURRENTLY ATTACHED TO THIS SEED BRANCH BUT AVAILABLE FOR USE AS REQUIRED
For this map we have created more groups of tags than are assigned to the branches…
- ‘Buisness Year’ Tags – The ‘buisness year’ of any organisation – be it commercial, charity, community group etc. – usually straddles calendar years eg. 2019/20, and, though the personal tax year usually runs from April to March, the ‘business year’ can start from any month. Thus we have also created ‘business year’ marker tag groups that contain the calendar year.
- Additional Time Intervals – Organisations also often like to further subdivide their business year into ‘quarters’ and ‘weeks’. We have also included tag groups for them, but users may want to create additional branches for them and restructure their calendar accordingly.
These will be specific to the user as to whether they want to include them, and which ones go where. Thus they have not been assigned to seed branches but they are available in the index marker pane of the map for MindManager users to use in this (or any other) map. They will not be visible in the HTML version.
TIME – Years (YYYY) – The particular calendar year of the map eg. ‘2019’, plus the year either side (3 tags in all).
TIME – Years (YYYY/YY) – The 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map eg. ‘2018/19’ and ‘2019’20’ (2 tags in all).
TIME – Quarters – YYYY (QN-YYYY) – The quarters of the particular calendar year of the map eg. ‘ Q1 2019’ (4 tags in all from Q1 YYYY to Q4 YYYY).
TIME – Quarters – YYYY/YY (QN-YYYY/YY) – The quarters of the 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map eg. ‘ Q1 2018/19’ and Q1 2019/20 (2 groups of 4 tags from Q1 YYYY/YY to Q4 YYYY/YY).
TIME – Months – YYYY/YY (Mon-YYYY/YY) – The months of the 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map with the month in 3 letter abbreviation format eg. ‘ Jan 2018/19’ and Jan 2019/20 (2 groups of 12 tags from Jan YYYY/YY to Dec YYYY/YY).
TIME – Months – YYYY/YY (MNN – YYYY/YY) – The months of the 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map with the month in numeric sequence format eg. ‘ M01 2018/19’ and M01 2019/20 (2 groups of 12 tags from M01 YYYY/YY to M12 YYYY/YY)
TIME – Weeks – YYYY (WNN-YYYY) – The weeks of the particular calendar year of the map with the weeks in numerical sequence format eg. ‘W01 2019’ (52 tags in all from W01 YYYY to W52 YYYY).
TIME – Weeks – YYYY/YY (WNN-YYYY/YY) – The weeks of the 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map with the month in numeric sequence format eg. ‘ W01 2018/19’ and W01 2019/20 (2 groups of 52 tags from W01 YYYY/YY to W52 YYYY/YY).
Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached]
See next section for full details
Specific Month Of The Specific Year Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
ii) The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (logo icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
iii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Internal Navigation Links
Internal Navigation Links: Days of the month sub-branches – The Month branch has internal hyperlinks to each day of that month sub-branch, which provides a means of quickly navigating to it.
Note(s)
i) Each day of the month sub-branch also has an internal hyperlink back to this month branch, so you can quickly jump back and forth between days.
ii) The ‘Dates’ and ‘Months’ index marker tags used throughout the map branches provide another means of quick internal navigation.
General Knowledge Resource Links
Wikipedia: Generic Month Article – Encyclopedia article on Wikipedia about the generic month e.g. ‘January’.
Wikipedia: Worldwide Current Events Portal for Specific Month – Encyclopedia article on Wikipedia ‘Current Events’ portal for the specific month e.g. ‘January 2019’.
Specific Day of the Specific Year Seed Branch
Specific Day of the Specific Year Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Thumbnail Image: Specific Date Icon
A bespoke icon that uniquely identifies the specific day of the year using a double calendar image. The left hand calendar contains the specific year above the name of the month (abbreviated to the first 3 letters), whilst the right hand one contains the day of the week (abbreviated to the first 3 letters) above the numerical day of the month (so from 1 to 31).
Note(s)
i) The icon was originally designed and created by us as a 96 x 48 pixel PNG file, optimised to minimize the file size (typically 2-3 KB).
Branch Text: Specific Date
Richly formatted text string of the specific date (year, month & day of the month) and day of the week in the format eg. ‘1 Jan 2020 Wed’. The day of the week is in normal (as opposed to bold) font to improve ‘readbility’.
Branch Shading Colour: ‘Type’ of Day
Day topics are shaded according to the usual differentiation between days of the week – working (‘normal’) days and weekends – as well as public holidays.
Note(s)
i) Topic shading is controlled by a Smart Rule (a unique MindManager feature) triggered by the ‘TIME – Days of the week’ index marker tag – ‘Weekend Days’ are set to be topics tagged as ‘Sat’ and ‘Sun’ by default. MindManager users can easily change this rule to set weekends as any days of the week they want.
Index Marker Tags & Groups
Arranged in groups and attached to branches as required, index marker tags…
- provide additional contextual knowledge about the seed branch, visiable to all users.
- enable dynamic filtering of the map content to only show / hide branches that have been tagged with the selected marker
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain…
- EVENTS – prefix indicates tags to do with an event that can be added to a calendar map – the ‘type’ of event, how the date of it fixed etc.
- GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
- TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
- RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.
ii) Within MindManager, tags…
- can be used to format map branches using MindManager’s unique Smart Rules’ feature e.g. colouring the weekend days in a calendar map to make them stand out.
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
TAGS ATTACHED TO THIS SEED BRANCH
TIME – Dates – YYYY (D Mon YYYY DoW) – Every date of the year in the same format as the day branch text – 365 tags from eg. ‘1 Jan 2019 Tue’ to ’31 Dec 2019 Tue’.
TIME – Dates YYYY (DD/MM/YYYY) – Every date of the specific month, for each of the 12 months of the Gregorian Calendar year in the most commonly used numeric format – 365 tags from eg. ’01/01/2019′ to ’31/12/2019′.
TIME – Dates YYYY (MM/DD/YYYY) – Every date of the specific month, for each of the 12 months of the Gregorian Calendar year in ‘Amercan’ style numeric format (ie. months first) – 365 tags from eg. ’01/01/2019′ to ’12/31/2019′.
TIME – Dates YYYY (YYYY/MM/DD) – Every date of the specific month, for each of the 12 months of the Gregorian Calendar year in ‘year first’ numeric format – 365 tags from eg. ’01/01/2019′ to ’31/12/2019′.
Note(s)
i) This format is the only one in which the chronological order of the tags in the group will ‘survive’ a numeric sorting operation (ie. arrange ‘lowest to highest’ or ‘highest to lowest’).
TIME – Dates (D Mon) – Every generic date of the month, for each of the 12 months of the generic Gregorian Calendar year as abbreviated text and number – 365 tags from ‘Jan 1’ to ‘Dec 31’.
TIME – Days – Of the Year (DNNN) – The seqential number of the day in the generic calendar year – 365 tags from eg. ‘D001’ to ‘D365’ (366 if it’s a leap year).
TIME – Days – YYYY (DNNN-YYYY) – The seqential number of the day in the specific calendar year – 365 tags from eg. ‘D001-2019’ to ‘D365-2019’ (366 if it’s a leap year).
TIME – Days – Of the Week (Day) – The days of the week abbreviated to the first 3 letters – 7 tags from ‘Mon’ to ‘Sun’.
Note(s)
i) The tags in this group are used to control the shading of ‘working’ and ‘weekend’ day branches by a Smart Rule in MindManager (a unique MindManager feature). ‘Weekend Days’ are set to be topics tagged as ‘Sat’ and ‘Sun’ by default but these can be changed within MindManager.
TAGS NOT CURRENTLY ATTACHED TO THIS SEED BRANCH BUT AVAILABLE FOR USE AS REQUIRED
For this map we have created more groups of tags than are assigned to the branches…
- ‘Buisness Year’ Tags – The ‘buisness year’ of any organisation – be it commercial, charity, community group etc. – usually straddles calendar years eg. 2019/20, and, though the personal tax year usually runs from April to March, the ‘business year’ can start from any month. Thus we have also created ‘business year’ marker tag groups that contain the calendar year.
- Additional Day Criteria – There are lots of different ways that days in a calendar can be classified. We have also included tag groups for some of them.
These will be specific to the user as to whether they want to include them, and which ones go where. Thus they have not been assigned to seed branches but they are available in the index marker pane of the map for MindManager users to use in this (or any other) map. They will not be visible in the HTML version.
TIME – Days – YYYY/YY (DNNN-YYYY/YY) – The seqential number of the days of the 2 business years straddling the particular calendar year of the map – 2 groups of 365 tags from eg. ‘D001-2018/19’ to ‘D356-2018/19’ (366 if it’s a leap year).
TIME – Days – Type – The type of day with respect to work & lifestyle. 3 tags in all…
- Working
- Holiday
- Weekend
Note(s)
i) Day branches are not tagged with ‘type’ as they are very subjective to the user and the society in which they live and work.
Attached Hyperlinks – See next section for full details
Specific Day of the Specific Year Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel. whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
ii) The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (logo icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
Internal Navigation Links
Internal Navigation Links: Month parent branch – Each day of the month sub-branch has an internal hyperlink back to the parent month branch, so you can quickly jump ‘back up’ the map.
Note(s)
i) The Month branch also has internal hyperlinks to each day of that month sub-branch, which provides a means of quickly navigating to it.so you can quickly jump back and forth between days.
ii) The ‘Dates’ and ‘Months’ index marker tags used throughout the map branches provide another means of quick internal navigation.
General Knowledge Resource Links
On This Day: Generic Day List – With over 215,000 entries On This Day is the world’s largest ‘on this day in history’ website.
Wikipedia: Worldwide Current Events Portal For The Generic Day – Encyclopedia article on Wikipedia ‘Current Events’ portal for the generic day of the month e.g. ‘1 May’.
Wikipedia: Worldwide Current Events Portal For The Specific Day – Encyclopedia article on Wikipedia ‘Current Events’ portal for the specific date e.g. ‘1 May 2019’.
Recurring Publicly Significant Event Seed Branch
Recurring Publicly Significant Event Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Thumbnail Image: Event Icon
Most events have an associated icon image – ‘national days’ have the country’s flag, official UN Observances have the UN flag, religeous observances have a bespoke icon for the religeon. Other types of events don’t have one.
Note(s)
i) Each event icons was originally is a 24 x 24 pixel PNG file, optimised to minimize the file size.
Branch Text: Event Title & Type
Richly formatted text string of the name by which the event is commonly known in bold and some basic information on the ‘type’ of event it is in smaller, normal font below. The ‘type’ is one (or sometimes more) of the following…
- Astronomic – Lunar cycles or Seasonal Planetary
- Awareness Days – Cultural, Environmental, Health, Human Rights, Professional, Remembrance
- General Civil
- Religious – Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim
- UN Official Observances
- National Days of every ISO3166-1 country of the world
Note(s)
i) Our general calendars record events that occur regularly, usually once a year. An asterisk (*) after the name indicates the event does not occur on the same date each year eg. 3rd monday in May.
ii) For ‘national day’ events the full ISO3166-1 codes are included for completeness e.g. Grenada (GD – GRD – 308).
iii) There is a balance between some additional information to help the user place the event in context, and overloading the branch with too much information that visually overwhelms the user.
iv) More contextual information about the event is provided by index marker tags.
Branch Note
This provides brief contextual knowledge about the event around it’s timing and significance, which will probably be adapted from a Wikipedia article (which will be linked to). Timing can be…
- Fixed to a generic calendar date (e.g. ‘May Day’ is aways observed on May 1st each year).
- Moveable relative to the calendar month (e.g. the ‘May Day Pubic Holiday’ in the United Kingdom is observed on ‘the first monday in May’, whatever date that is).
- Moveable relative to astronmical events (e.g. some religeous events are determined by lunar cycles, so the first Sunday after the first full moon after such and such…).
Note(s)
i) Further information about the event will be found on the attached hyperlinks to the free, online public domain knowledge resources about them. Further information about the occurrence of the event in terms of more culturally relevant calendars can usually be found on the Wikipedia page.
Index Marker Tags & Groups
Arranged in groups and attached to branches as required, index marker tags…
- provide additional contextual knowledge about the seed branch, visiable to all users.
- enable dynamic filtering of the map content to only show / hide branches that have been tagged with the selected marker
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..
- EVENTS – prefix indicates tags to do with an event that can be added to a calendar map – the ‘type’ of event, how the date of it fixed etc.
- GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
- RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.
- TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
ii) Within MindManager, tags…
- provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
- can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
- can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.
The inder marker tags attached to this seed topic are from the following groups…
EVENTS – Date Fix – How the date of the event is fixed. Is it always on a specific date (eg. ‘May Day’ is aways on May 1st), or does it vary relative to the calendar month (eg. the ‘May Day Pubic Holiday’ in the UK is on ‘the first monday in May’, whatever date that is) or the lunar cycle? 3 tags – Fixed, Variable (Calendar) and Variable (Lunar).
EVENTS – Astronomical – Predicatably recurring significant events in the annual machinations of Planet Earth that are beyond our control, but nonetheless have influence over all our societies…
- Lunar – The phases of the moon recurring each lunar month. 4 tags – New Moon, 1st Quarter, Full Moon & 3rd Quarter.
- Planetary – Events that mark planet Earth’s annual passage around the Sun and the passing of the seasons. 4 tags – 2 Equinoxes in March & September and 2 Solstices in June & December.
EVENTS – International – Internationally significant public events of the following ‘types’…
- Awareness Days – Events officially organised by persons or organisations for the purposes of celebration, education and action – celebration of past achievements in a particular area of human endeavour, education about problems and barriers that still exist in the world, and the action needed to be taken by everybody to tackle them. 7 tags (not necessarily mutually exclusive) – Cultural, Environmental, Health, Human Rights, Professional & Remembrance.
- General Civil Observances – Events that are generally observed in a society each year. Some may be ‘officially’ designated by the church or state, whilst the origins of others may be more obscure. Whatever, their observance is part of the civic year. Some may be observed in public on the streets with parties and a sense of ‘joi de vivre’, whilst others it is just at home with family & friends. 1 tag.
- Religious Observances – Major religeous festivals are often public holidays in countries where the religeon is significant. Even when it isn’t, they will be significant in the lives of your friends and colleagues who practice it. 7 tags for the major religeons – Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish & Muslim.
- United Nations Official Observances – The UN has designated days, weeks, years, and decades for observance to promote international awareness on significant issues and provide a springboard for awareness-raising actions by the organizations & offices of the UN system, governments, civil society, the public & private sectors, schools, universities and just general citizens around the world. 1 tag that is used alongside the ones for ‘Aawareness Days’.
Note(s)
i) Events can have more than one of these tags.
EVENTS – National Days – The day on which an ISO3166-1 designated country publicly celebrates it’s nationhood may be the date of independence, of becoming a republic, or a significant date for a patron saint or a ruler (such as a birthday, accession, or removal). The national day is often a public holiday. Many countries celebrate more than one national day, whilst a small number don’t celebrate any. By linking through to Wikipedia articles about the country (and the public holidays if available) we want to celebrate the range of national cultures withinyour circle of family, friends and colleagues. In these days of globalisation us citizens of the world have never mixed together as friends, neighbours, colleagues & lovers to the extent we do now, so anything that increases our mutual understanding of where we’ve all come from and where (and when) we all want to go next, can only be welcomed. – 249 tags (one for each ISO3166-1 country).
Note(s)
i) There are a handful of non-sovereign countries for which no ‘national days’ could be found.
ii) Sometimes the CIA factbook listed several ‘national days’ so after further research we made an executive decision which one to list.
Wikipedia often, but not always, has an article on the national day itself. This is linked to if it could be found.
iii) Wikipedia usually has an article (or section of article) listing public holidays for each country. This is also linked to on the branch if it could be found.
EVENTS – GEO – UN Geoscheme – Devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the UN Geoscheme divides the countries of the world into ‘standard’ regional (‘continental’) and sub-regional (‘sub-continental’) groups, with standard names and numeric codes:-
- WORLD (001)
- AFRICA (002) – Eastern Africa (014), Middle Africa (017), Northern Africa (015), Southern Africa (018) & Western Africa (011)
- AMERICAS (019) – Northern America (021), Latin America and the Caribbean (419), Caribbean (029), Central America (013) & South America (005)
- ASIA (142) – Central Asia (143), Eastern Asia (030), Southern Asia (034), South-Eastern Asia (035) & Western Asia (145)
- EUROPE (150) – Eastern Europe (151), Northern Europe (154), Southern Europe (039) & Western Europe (155)
- OCEANIA (009) – Australia and New Zealand (053), Melanesia (054), Micronesia (057) & Polynesia (061)
By using tags from this group in conjunction with those from ‘EVENTS -GEO-ISO3166-1′ the map can be’ geo-filtered’ to show only events from particlar ‘places’.
Note(s)
i) Users should be aware that as far as the United Nations Statistics Division classification of international regions and sub-regions is concerned, “the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories”. As such it can sometimes be counter-intuitive eg. Cyprus (CP – CYP – 196) is classified as being part of Western Asia, not Europe, whilst the Russian Federation (RU – RUS – 643) is part of Eastern Europe, not Asia.
EVENTS – GEO – ISO3166-1 – ISO3166: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions comes in 3 parts…
- ISO 3166-1 – Country Codes
- ISO 3166-2 – Country subdivision codes
- ISO 3166-3 – Codes for country names which have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 since its first publication in 1974.
By using tags from this group in conjunction with those from ‘EVENTS -GEO-UN Geoscheme’ the map can be’ geo-filtered’ to show only events from particlar ‘places’. This group can also apply to international events that have a national focus eg. Chinese New Year. – 249 tags (one for each ISO3166-1 country).
Note(s)
i) Updates to ISO 3166-1 are posted in official newsletters on the ISO3166 website. Note that updates occur very infrequently (there’s also a handy update history here).
ii) Although many countries on the ISO3166-1 list are Dependent States & Territories, it does not include all dependent territories and possessions of a particular Sovereign State ie. a dependent territory is not automatically classed as a separate country.
iii) Similarly the ISO3166-1 list does include some Countries whose status as a Sovereign State is in dispute eg. the short name of the Republic of China (TW – TWN – 158) is listed as “Taiwan, Province of China”, but not all de-facto states eg. Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic “Transnistria” (a de facto independent state inside Moldova).
iv) The ‘Short Name’ listed on the ISO3166-1 webpage is sometimes actually the long name. Sometimes this is to minimise confusion between States with similar names eg. the official short name listed for the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville (CG – COG – 178) is “Congo” whilst that for The Democratic Republic of the Congo (CD – COD – 180) is “Congo, The Democratic Republic of the”. In other instances however there is no obvious reason eg. Islamic Republic of Iran (IR – IRN – 364) is listed as “Iran, Islamic Republic of “, rather than simply “Iran”, or Syrian Arab Republic (SY – SYR – 760) listed as “Syrian Arab Republic”, rather than simply “Syria”, which are the official short names cited in other sources eg. Wikipedia list of countries. Note also that sometimes the official long name is the same as the short name.
EVENTS – GB – Annually recurring events of national public significance specifically in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 3 tags – General Civil, National Patron Saints Day and Public Holidays.
EVENTS – GEO – ISO3166-2-GB – Official codes for the sub-national divisions of the United Kingdom, which is quite a complex entity in terms of geographies. As well as the 4 individual ‘home nations’ they are also combined in different ways. 7 tags – United Kingdom (GB-UKM), Great Britain (GB-GBN), England (GB-ENG), England and Wales (GB-EAW), Northern Ireland (GB-NIR), Scotland (GB-SCT) and Wales (GB-WLS).
Note(s)
i) Each of the 4 home nations has further subdivisions as part of ISO 3166-2-GB but these are not included in the group as they are not relevant in the context of ‘geo-tagging’ of ‘national’ events…
- England – 27 two-tier counties, 36 metropolitan districts, 55 unitary authorities, 32 London boroughs and 1 city corporation
- Northern Ireland – 11 districts
- Scotland – 32 council areas
- Wales – 22 unitary authorities
Attached Hyperlinks – See next section for full details
Specific Day of the Specific Year Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel. whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
- original sources get used more often, by more people.
- errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
- updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
- rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
International Civil / Awareness Day / Religeous Observance Knowledge Resource Links
Official ‘Day’ Website – Many (but by no means all) awareness days at the international level have an associated website as their main purpose is often to campaign for some sort of social change. The Other types of events usually do not have an ‘official’ website.
Wikipedia: International Day – Just about all international days will have a main article about them on Wikipedia (or perhaps at least a sub-section within another article, often about the sponsoring organisation). As usual with Wikipedia articles there may be some additional knowledge and external links to other resources that may not be on the ‘official’ website. For astronomical events there will only be a link to the Wikipedia article about it.
National Days Knowledge Resource Links
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
- greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
- means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (logo icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
Seed branches provide a ‘base level’ of contextual knowledge about the subject embedded within, or attached to, them in the form of…
- Image [Embedded] – Such as thumbnail location maps, flags, icons, people profile pictures etc., which provide a unique visual element that users can instantly latch on to as they navigate their way through the map.
- Branch Text [Embedded] – Rich (ie. variably formatted) branch text – such as names & unique identifying codes (taken from official sources) – is a unique MindManager feature.
- Branch Note [Attached] – Contains supplementary information with all the elements of a word processed page – variably formatted (‘rich’) text, tables and images.
- Spreadsheet Table / Chart [Embedded] – Containing contextual facts & figures, which can be toggled between table and chart view as appropriate (once again unique to MindManager).
- Multiple Single Data Fields [Embedded] – Another way of adding contextual facts & figures to the map (once again unique to MindManager), these are like single cells in a spreadsheet and the values can be used to format the topic.
- Index Marker Tags [Attached] – Arranged in groups and added to individual branches as appropriate, tags add contextual knowledge, enable map filtering and navigation.
- Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached] – Another unique feature, multiple links to a range of official definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about the subject of the seed branch – usually selected from the full range of general & geographic knowledge resource collections – help turn the map into a knowledge portal without adding to the visual clutter.
All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…
International Public Events & Knowledge Resource Link Collection

Recurring Significant International Public Events Knowledge Resource Link Collection
This collection contains multiple links to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knolwedge resources about 500+ annually recurring events that will be of public significance no matter where you are in this ‘globalised world’…
Astronomical Events – Predicatably recurring significant events in the annual machinations of Planet Earth that are beyond our control, but nonetheless have influence over all our societies…
Moon Phases – The phases of the moon recurring each lunar month. 4 phases marked…
New Moon
First Quarter Moon,
Full Moon
Third Quarter Moon.
Equinoxes – The point when the equatorial plane of Planet Earth is exactly parallel with that of the Sun, as the rataional axis of the planet prcesses in it’s own annual cycle. 2 equinoxes in March & September.
Solstices – When the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly point on the horizon during the same process. This marks the beginning of the end of summer or winter depending on the hemisphere you are on. 2 solstices in June & December.
Awareness Days – These are officially organised by persons or organisations for the purposes of celebration, education and action. Celebration of past achievements in a particular area of human endeavour, education about problems and barriers that still exist in the world, and the action needed to be taken by everybody to tackle them. We have filed these under the following (not necessarily mutually exclusive) catagories…
- Cultural
- Environmental
- Health
- Human Rights
- Professional
- Remembrance
General Civil Observances – A ‘catch all’ category of events that are generally observed in a society each year. Some may be ‘officially’ designated by the church or state, whilst the origins of others may be more obscure. Whatever, their observance is part of the civic year. Some may be observed in public on the streets with parties and a sense of ‘joi de vivre’, whilst others it is just at home with family & friends.
Religeous Observances – Major religeous festivals are often public holidays in countries where the religeon is significant. Even when it isn’t, they will be significant in the lives of your friends and colleagues who practice it. The major observances of the following religeons are included in our calendar maps…
Buddhism
Christianity (‘Eastern’)
Christianity (‘Western’)
Hinduism
Islam
Judaism
Note(s)
i) In some religeons the observance begins at sunset on the previous day.
ii) In many religeous observances the date is determined by astronomical factors as well as scripture eg. the first full moon after such and such a date.
United Nations Official Observances – The UN has designated days, weeks, years, and decades for observance to promote international awareness on significant issues and provide a springboard for awareness-raising actions by the organizations & offices of the UN system, governments, civil society, the public and private sectors, schools, universities and just general citizens around the world.
‘National Day’ of ISO3166-1 Country of the World – The day on which an ISO3166-1 designated country publicly celebrates it’s nationhood. It may be the date of independence, of becoming a republic, or a significant date for a patron saint or a ruler (such as a birthday, accession, or removal). The national day is often a public holiday. Many countries celebrate more than one national day, whilst a small number don’t celebrate any. By linking through to Wikipedia articles about the country (and the public holidays if available) we want to celebrate the range of national cultures withinyour circle of family, friends and colleagues. In these days of globalisation us citizens of the world have never mixed together as friends, neighbours, colleagues & lovers to the extent we do now, so anything that increases our mutual understanding of where we’ve all come from and where (and when) we all want to go next, can only be welcomed
New to our knowldge maps? Find out more below…
File Formats
We make our knowledge maps available to download in 2 file formats…
MindManager (.mmap) format for full featured viewing, amending and adapting using MindManager software. These can be imported into other ‘mindmapping’ software applications, but with caveats.
HTML5 (.html) versions of our maps (published using MindManager’s unique HTML export feature) can be viewed by anybody, in any modern web browser software, on any digital device, without the need for any software plugins, as stand-alone files or embedded in web pages, on(or off)-line (once dowloaded).
Find out more below…
MindManager (.mmap) maps are the original maps we create. Thus when opened in MindManager, all the features of the world’s best information mapping software are available for…
- full feature viewing…
- editing & amending…
- adapting & re-purposing…
MindManager is available for both Windows and Mac, with an Enterprise version that can be centrally installed on local area networks for users of 5 or more (eg. integrates with Microsoft SharePoint). There is also a free mobile app for Android.
A fully functioning 30 day free trial copy can be downloaded from the links. At the end of the trial period MindManager remains fully functioning, apart from the ability to save files. Thus it can be used as a free file reader for our knowledge maps in MindManager format.
HTML5 (.html) knowledge maps retain all the content – and most of the interactivity – of the original MindManager map (from which they are exported). For example they can be interactively queried by filtering using index marker tags to hide / show / highlight the coresponding branches.
And, just like any other html file, they can be …
- viewed by anybody, in any modern internet browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safara etc.), on or offline (once downloaded), on any device…
- shared by email or file sharing services (eg. DropBox).
- published online as stand-alone web pages, such that they have their own URL (which can be shared), or even embedded within existing pages (and hosted somewhere else eg. the aforementioned URL).
However HTML maps cannot be edited or ammended, or content copied and used in other maps.
Because MindManager was the first software of it’s type and has been the market leader for over 20 years, many other information software programmes (or online platforms) that have subsequently emerged have the capability of importing map files in MindManager (.mmap) format. A word of caution however…
Our maps fully utilise the large range of unique ‘information cartography’ features available in MindManager…
- large maps (1000’s of branches)
- ‘rich (ie. variable) formatting’ of topic text
- multiple hyperlinks attached to a single branch,
- embedded data features (spreadsheets, charts & topic properties)
- configurable sub-branch layout options for every branch within the one map
These features are not supported by other information mapping software programs. Thus even if your program can import a MindManager file, how it copes with each of these features, and what it renders on-screen as a result, will vary from the MindManager version so user beware!
HTML Maps
The fact that our knowledge maps can be published as HTML5 files – viewable in any modern web browser software, on any digital device, without the need for any software plugins, as stand-alone files or embedded in web pages, on(or off)-line – means they can be viewed & used by anybody!
However unlike MindManager users, almost by definition those who are using our HTML maps for the first time will be unfamiliar with the whole ‘knowledge map thing’ – what the different parts are, how you interact with it, how you acess the embedded / attached content (eg. accessing the multiple hyperlinks to knowledge resources, or filtering the map using marker tags).
That’s why we’ve produced the content (including short videos) below…
MindManager is the only information mapping software that can also publish it’s maps as HTML5 files…
HTML knowledge maps are…
Just about the same as the original – HTML versions of knowledge maps retain all the rich, visual content – and just about all the functional interactivity – of the original MindManager map. It’s also continually being developed. For example HTML maps can now be visually filtered using the index marker tags attached to branches.
A bit bigger – The file size of the HTML version of the map is about 40 – 50% bigger than the original MindManager (.mmap) file, depending on the type of content (the presence of lots of images is really what bumps up the file size no matter which file format).
Easily Viewed – Just as importantly HTML map files can be viewed…
- In any modern web browser software – Which is basically all of them – Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge etc…
- On any device – Desktop computers, tablets and smart phones (all of which come with browsers pre-installed!)
- Without the need for any software plugins – No need for additional bits of software to be downloaded and installed on your device in order to open and view your file properly,
- As standalone files or embedded in web pages – The .html file can be viewed as you would any other file downloaded from the web or file sharing service (eg. Dropbox), or sent as an email attachment – by double clicking on it on the device. However like a Google Map it can also be embedded within a frame on a web page and viewed without the viewer consciously downloading anything (the file still has to be physically ‘hosted’ on a server somewhere and ‘served’ to the page when viewed). An example would be our ‘map of maps’ is embedded in the footer of every page of this website.
- On-, or off-, line – Once the file – or the web page in which its is embedded – has downloaded to the device, there is no need for an internet connection in order for it to be viewed and interacted with. Obviously a connection is required to view the online knowledge resources linked to in the map, but the contextual knowledge contained in the seed branches of the map itself will be available.
‘Thumb Friendly’ – Easily interacted with on small touch screen devices such as mobile phones.
Find out more about map elements, basic navigation and some tips for viewing on mobile devices in the following sections…
We pack a lot of knowledge ‘bits & pieces’ into our maps, either embedded within, or attached to, the 100’s of map branches (‘topics’) that provide the visual structure that connects them all together. This video explains the different types of knowledge content.
Now that you know the different elements that make up one of our knowledge maps, this video shows the basics of navigating your way around it and accessing the hyperlinks to the public domain knowledge resources about the ‘building blocks’ of Scotland.
As stated already our HTML knowledge maps are “thumb friendly and viewable in any modern browser, on any device”. Here are a few extra tips to enhance your user experience if viewing maps on a small touch-screen device…
1) Vertical Scrolling Of Webpage – If your ‘scrolling thumb’ is anywhere within the embedded map window when it slides across the touch-screen, you will pan around the map rather than scroll the webpage as a whole. To counter this there is always a narrow margin around the map panel at the edges of the screen, which you can ‘drag’ to move the page. (Viewing the map full screen in a new browser tab also gets round this issue :-).
2) Activating Branch Content – Clicking on map branches will activate content. Notes & the list of attached hyperlinks will open up in a side panel in the browser window. On mobile phones this panel can be take up a disconcertingly large proportion of the screen. If you don’t want to access this content, just click on the map background away from the activated branch, and the panel will disappear.
3) Following Hyperlinks – If there is a single hyperlink on a branch then clicking on the favicon symbol at the end once will activate it and the web resource linked to will open up in a new browser tab. If the topic has multiple hyperlinks attached (another unique MindManager feature) then these can only be followed by clicking on the link in the list in the side panel that opens up within the browser window when the branch is clicked. Note that notes and hyperlinks are on separate tabs within the sidepanel if both are present. Hyperlinks are listed in the ‘Attachments’ tab.
Benefits Of Knowledge Maps
Our knowldge maps work on many levels…
- visually structured indexes of what ‘things’ exist in a defined ‘space’.
- visually structured index of knowledge resources about the ‘things’ available in the public domain.
- visually structured portal to said knowledge resources (discover & access with a couple of mouse clicks).
- visually structured source of rich contextual, ‘big picture’ knowledge about the ‘things’.
Find out more about the benefits they bring to users below…
Users of all our maps (HTML or MindManger) enjoy these benefits…
- Visual Register – Maps are the official / definitive list of what’s what, visually structured in a way that makes it easier to see what’s there and understand the context.
- Big Picture – See everything in the context of the bigger picture.
- Contextual Knowledge – MindManager’s many unique information cartography features – rich (variably formatted) text, embedded images, embedded spreadsheets / charts / data fields, attached index marker tags – enable much useful knowledge to be visually encoded in the map so users don’t even have to look up the linked knowledge resources in many instances.
- Fast Search – Even when a map has 100’s / 1000’s of branches & links, searching the content – in all the different ‘information channels’ that MindManager provides – is super quick.
- Knowledge Portal – Maps contain 100’s / 1000’s of single / multiple hyperlinks attached to the map branches, which means a virtual library of official / definitive / plain old useful online knowledge resources about the ‘things’ in the register is no more than a mouse click away. The visual structure of the map makes it easier to discover, assimilate and utilise the new knowledge eg. for desktop research.
- Interactively Query – Users can query the map using the filter function to hide / show branches based on the index marker tags attached to them (even the HTML ones).
- Share – As they are single files, maps can be easily shared as email attachments, via file sharing services, or as downloads. HTML files have the added ability to be pusblished as standalone webpages, or embedded in existing web pages.
- Print – Maps can be printed, in their entirety or in it’s filtered state. Printouts can be used as a visual prop to facilitate discussions and meetings amongst stakeholders, no matter how impromptu.
- Archive – Because the maps are an actual digital file (as opposed to a web page constructed from a database), they can be permanently preserved as a knowledge artefact by simply saving it in a digital archive. Obviously as time goes on the knowledge in the map will gradually be superceded and the URL’s for the linked resources therein may no longer work, however the knowledge that this was the big picture at one time and that these knowledge resources about it existed (and may still exist but now at a new URL?) will still be useful in the future.
Discovering knowledge is usually just the starting point. Once it has been understood & assimilated, users want to do things with it, depending on why they were looking for it in the first place. MindManager users therefore have further options available to them to take our knowledge maps to the next level for their own benefit…
- Living Document – As well as re-arranging the existing content to suit them, users are free to add their own, as and when they want, turning the map into their own living document. So for example users can add their own appointments & events (with links to files etc.) to our calendar maps, turning them into their personal diaries, after having first perhaps removed some of the content (eg. international events), or added another level of granularity using content from the time template map, to personalise it. Or if undertaking desktop research using our world atlas knowledge maps, they can selectively add the newly disocovered knowledge to the map as sub-branches and/or branch notes on the existing seed branch, which has the added beenfit of retaining the ‘big picture context’ of where it came from in the first place.
- Template Basemap – If your need to add / ammend your map with the latest knowledge is ongoing, then you can think of it in terms of a ‘basemap’, to which you are adding additional ‘layers’ of knowledge (just like ‘layers’ of geographic ‘things’ – points, lines, polygons, travel routes – on top of a geographic basemap from Ordnance Survey or Google). Once you have a basemap template, it is easy to re-purpose for many other uses without having to start from scratch each time.
- Content Source – Use any of the content of the map in other maps as appropriate. So not just whole branches withtheir sub-branches, but individuala embedded / attached elements like spreadsheets / charts, data fields, hyperlinks etc. This could be a simple, one off ‘copy & paste’, or creating a map part that is saved to your parts library so that it it is instantly accessible to be added to any map without recourse to the original source map.
- Index Marker Tag Source – This is especially true of groups of index marker tags, used to tag map branches. Thanks to the great MAP add-in from our partners at Olympic, a whole new group of marker tags can be created from a whole level of map sub-branches with a single mouse click. As our maps are usually definitive registers of ‘real world things’, our maps always contain those as a groupf of marker tags as well as branches. For example our world atlas knowledge maps contain tags for every country in the world (as officially defined by ISO3166-1), which can be used to ‘geo-filter’ the map ie. show only those branches tagged with a particular ‘geographic location.
Background
The origins of knowledge mapping, MindManager software and our own journey to creating the knowledge maps that we do, lies in the technique of ‘mind mapping‘, popularised in the 1970’s by by British popular psychology author and television personality Tony Buzan (though the use of diagrams that visually “map” information using branching and radial tree maps traces back centuries).
Find out more below…
The technique of ‘Mindmapping‘, originally pioneered by Tony Buzan in the 1970s, is a manual, graphical way of capturing, storing and working with information, and the thoughts, ideas and connections that it generates once it’s in your head, that works in harmony with the way your brain actually processes and stores it – that is in “branching” chains of associated concepts (literally ‘chains of thought’). In a “mind map” information is not stored in traditional “linear” lines, paragraphs and pages of text, but instead in discrete ‘chunks’, arranged around the central topic, connected together by lines that show the (often hierarchical) inter-relationships between them. This forms a branching structure, radiating out from the centre, which is why they are also known as “tree diagrams”. Text is minimal, a few words only that encapsulate the concep t or idea, but this is supplemented by the use of different colours, pictures, shapes and symbols so that the mindmap engages the whole brain, both in creating it and reading it.
The power of the mindmapping process is that, because your brain can literally see your thoughts and the relationships between them in front it as a picture, it can’t help but think of other thoughts and connections, which once added to the map, spark yet more thoughts and so on in a positive feedback loop. Thus a mind map is both a fundamental ingredient in the mental thought process, as well as a physical, tangible by-product of it.
Given the popularity of mindmapping, and the physical limitations placed on it through using a sheet of paper and pens, it was only a matter of time before somebody wrote a software program to create mindmaps on computer. MindManager was one of the first (version 1 was released in 1994 under the name “MindMan”).
Now we don’t care a jot about the arguments around whether or not mindmaps created by compter software are “real mindmaps” according to the rules of Tony Buzan. What we do care about is the power of the mindmap form – the tree diagram – as a visual knowledge framework for super efficiently recording, sharing and retrieving any sort of digital information (ie. not just thoughts and ideas generated inside your brain but also existing, published information about any subject), in way that works in harmony with the human brain.
Software adds several fundamental features to the information mapping process that are not described in the original scope and design of mind mapping:-
Unlimited editing & rearrangement – Maps can be endlessly amended, edited and rearranged within the software. In other words digital maps can be changed “at the speed of thought”.
Infinite canvas – Unlike a sheet of paper, the canvas in mindmap software has no edge. Thus it is possible to literally follow and record a complete “chain of thought” without the mental disruption of worrying about running out of space.
Infinite visual hierarchy – Likewise there is no limit to the number of levels of sub-branches that can be added to the map. At any level in the hierarchy however, the software allows you to collapse the sub-branches below so you can’t see them, and then expand them out again so you can. Thus it is possible to record effectively unlimited amounts of information down to the finest level of detail, but to hide the detail from view until required so that just the upper branches, which outline the “big picture” about the central topic in question, can still be seen in one view.
Digital integration with information sources – in the modern knowledge society information is digital and available on the internet, so by using software to map it there is the opportunity to connect the map with the information in ways not possible if the map is only on a physical sheet of paper. As you will see from the next point, the map can contain all the information about a subject (as is the case for traditional paper “mind maps”), or it can be a summary index that links to the actual content elsewhere. The analogy is with the table of contents at the start of a reference e-book, with the chapter / section headings linking through to the relevant content (which can be anywhere else and in any digital form). Because it is arranged in a tree diagram however, it forms a visual knowledge framework that can put information in context depending on where it is placed on the map. As with all maps that show the spatial relationships between things, this is in itself useful and valuable information.
Multiple information recording “channels” – You will have choice of ways for recording information in a digital map. As well as text and images visible on the branches of the map, mindmapping software allows you to record information as:-
– branch notes attached to the branch, which are visible in a side panel in the software. In Mindmanager notes are mini documents in their own right so can be formatted and stylised and contain tables and images.
– files “attached” to branches, which can be opened up by clicking on the icon on the branch. The appropriate software will then be fired up and the file opened within it (obviously the appropriate software must be installed on the device on which it it to be viewed).
– hyperlinks“attached” to branches to either files stored elsewhere or pages on the internet. Two of the unique features of MindManager in this respect are the ability to have multiple links stored on the one branch, and the built-in browser which allows you to view webpages in a panel beside the map without leaving the MindManager software environment.
– data tables and charts, just as you would have in ann excel spreadsheet (this ability is unique to MindManager).
Built in templates, icons and graphic images – MindManager especially comes with a large number of template maps already installed. These templates allow users to be guided through a process to create maps to fulfil particular purposes quickly and efficiently, even if they have never done it before. For example undertaking a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) analysis of their business / project.
Sharing The Map – It is much easier to share a digital file than a static image on a sheet of paper. At the very least digital maps can be shared with other users that have the same software that was used to create it. Most software will allow maps to be saved as a static image, but another of MindManagers unique features is the ability to save maps as interactive Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files, which can be viewed by anybody using the freely available Acrobat Reader. Though not editable, users can still drill down through the visual hierarchy of information by expanding and collapsing branches. This is done through a built-in feature of the Adobe Acrobat Reader so the end user does not need to install an additional plug-in or anything like that.
From initial thoughts & ideas, through plan of action to completed deliverable – Again in todays “information-age society” almost everything we do in terms of work is digital, especially if we are “knowledge workers” who must create / use / share a lot of information on a daily basis in order to do whatever is we want to do. Mindmapping software is an ideal digital tool to take you from defining the problem / project, through brainstorming a solution (how the problem will be solved / deciding on the project content), to a plan of action to deliver it (who is doing what, by when, with the resources available), to a dashboard that is visually telling you if everything is going according to plan! The key thing to note – and this is one of the “killer apps” of mindmapping software that saves you time and makes business processes so much more efficient – is that the final map produced by the end of each stage, is re-purposed as the starting point of the next one. The following examples illustrate this key point:-
– Authoring Digital Documents – If you need to produce some sort of digital information document, like a report or a presentation, plan out the broad structure as a map. Then flesh out the branches of the map with the content, the words and images, perhaps as notes. Mindmanager is especially good at enabling maps to be exported to other “linear” file types, like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. However not only is the content exported, all the styling and formatting to make it look right can be too. Thus you can end up with a more or less finished file by doing all the work in MindManager, the same enviromnment in which the content was created.
– Better Meetings – Plan the meeting – the purpose, the venue & related logistics, the invitees etc, – using one of the built-in template maps. Spin off a comprehensive agenda map from this, complete with links to the relevant files and web pages (or embed the files within the map so that they are always avaiable, even offline). Send it to all the attendees beforehand and they will be much more engaged when they turn up. Have this agenda map on display friom the start and use it like a digital whiteboard to run your meeting. If you add to the map as you are going along, recording the key thoughts, ideas, proposals and responses, it will be the focal point around which everybody engages. Quickly move from planning to execution by assigning tasks, priorities, and deadlines right in the meeting map. Comments and decisions can be documented so everyone is prepared for next steps, and participants leave the meeting knowing what’s happening, who’s assigned to each task, and when action items are due. This final meeting map can be swiftly sent out as the post-meeting minutes. A link to this map can be added to your digital calendar as part of your digital archive. Ideally your calendar should also be a map so that it can serve both as a rolling archive of past activities as well as a diary planner of future ones.
– Problem Solving – define the problem in map form, capturing all the thoughts and ideas about it. Use the unrestricted map canvas to follow chains of thought as far as you want, then backtrack up your branches as far as you need and branch off in another direction. Or just put things anywhere on the canvas as discrete, as-yet unrelated elements. Whatever. The idea is just to record thoughts and any connections as fast as they are articulated. When the time comes, move into consolidation mode. Review what’s there, the overall structure, the substructure of the individual branches and chains. edit and re-arrange as necessary. Move the discrete elements into the map structure, even if it’s just in a “parked for now” branch. Organize and prioritize elements in a relevant way that boosts everybodys understanding and buy-in and gets you towards your solution. MindManager for example has a Guided Brainstorming feature to inspire new ways of thinking that drive you and your team to consider alternative approaches and solutions. Choose from predefined challenges and questions cards that help you categorize ideas and work through hurdles when you hit a mental roadblock.
– Project Planning – What is project management if not an exercise in anticipating a series of inter-related problems, resolving them and documenting the solution in the form of a plan that all particpants have “bought into”? Thus the next stage to transform a problem solving map into a project plan map is to assign tasks, resources and timeframes. Or again simply start with one of the many project management template maps included with the software. Visualize goals, validate requirements, intelligently manage resources and identify dependencies. Create and manage budgets in the project map alongside priorities and schedules (again MindManager has this ability built in to the map). If kept up to date in near real time, the map becomes a live project dashboard, where progress on individual tasks can be visualiy tracked against the deadlines that have been set, whilst not losing sight of the “big picture”. Quickly make adjustments when schedules and resources change. The task roll-up feature in MindManager shows the overall impact of changes to assignments and dependencies so that everyone can understand (and respond to) the implications of schedules and budgets. Integrated Gantt charts provide a timeline view of your schedule. Another essential feature of MindManager is the ability to export maps straight to Microsoft Project if that is what is required.
– Program Planning – More than one project to keep track of? A Project Program is a series of related projects that may be running in series or parallel. Again it is a logical extension of the previous 2 points (and a very straightforward process) to create a program dashboard map that links to all the individual project plan maps. Again MindManager has the ability to update this dashboard map in real time from the other maps.
Filtering the map based on content and properties of the content – Most business orientated mindmapping software allows you to use your map like a visual database by enabling you to query the map (technically known as “filtering”) on text string values and / or formatting elements (such as colour) and / or text or icon tags associated with the topic. This hides all the map content that doesn’t fit the selected criteria, leaving only the content that does. However because of the visual branching hierarchy the query results are instantly placed in a wider context. Also the filtered map can then be saved as a new map that can be used elsewhere. The queries can also be saved in the software to be repeated at any time in the future.
Other diagram types – “Mindmapping” software has gone beyond the simple tree diagram and most have the ability to create other visual diagram structures as well. For example Mindmanager allows users to create organisational diagrams, process maps, concept maps, swim lanes etc. The key thing with mindmapping software over other drawing software that could also be used to create such diagrams, is that they retain all the other advantages of digital mindmaps, especially the multiple channels for recording information. Thus information elements within these other diagrams can still have associated notes, multiple hyperlinks and attached files!
Anyway as you can see “mindmapping” software goes way beyond the technique of mindmapping as envisaged by Tony Buzan. It is a hugely vsersatile digital tool that enables you to do a lot of the everyday digital stuff you have to do anyway, but much quicker, easier and efficiently, allowing you to stay more in control of the whole information capture, understand and share process.
So much so in fact that we don’t like to call MindManager “mindmapping” software. We produce maps of information and information sources so it is “information mapping” software as far as we are concerned!
We use MindManager from to create our multi-level, multi-purpose, digital knowledge maps. First created in 1994 and now with over 2 million users worldwide, including over half of the Global 2000 and Fortune 500 Corporations’ such as Boeing, BMW, Ford, Hewlett Packard, KPMG, Microsoft, Motorola, Rolls Royce, & Siemens, Mindjet MindManager is the worlds leading information (“mind”) mapping software. We have been users since version 4 (MindManager 2002). 18 years later we are now up to version 21 (MindManager 2021).
There are plenty of free software tools out there if all you want to do is “mindmapping” on computer. However we haven’t found any other software to match the versatility of MindManager for the sheer range of easy-to-use – and often unique – opions and tools for…
- capturing information digitally “on the hoof”, either through manual, keyboard entry during solo / group brainstorming sessions, or by simple on-screen “drag and drop” with a mouse.
- importing existing information from other “standard” digital sources such as Microsoft Outlook, Excel and, for coporate IT setups, SharePoint.
- organising it into a visual framework, in other words a map or diagram. Not just a traditional “mindmap” ie. a radial branching tree, but organisations structure maps, right/left-only maps, flow charts, concept maps etc.
- combining (“mashing up”) information about the same subject from (sometimes radically) different sources into the one document that is effectively infinite in capacity but more compact and intuitive to navigate than traditional “linear” documents – “drill down, not scroll down!”. For example our biggest map to date, which maps all the pages in the websites of over 60 European Union bodies, has over 17,000 hyperlinks in over 18,000 branches – try getting that amount of information in a single, usable Word document 😉
- re-organising the map content quickly, intuitively, flexibly, organically, responsively, as you want so you stay in control.
- formatting the map with great information cartography tools to get the look and feel that you want eg. the ability to use your own, customisable image libraries.
- visualising information in different ways within the map eg. as embedded spreadsheets, charts etc.
- creating new information from existing information within the map using formulas and auto-calculation features that incorporate data from sub-branches (branches can also be formatted according to the value of the newly calculated data to aid visualisation).
- tagging map branches using your own or imported tags and groups of tags.
- querying your information like a visual database by filtering the map on text string values and/or formatting element and/or tag. Query results can then be saved instantly as a new map.
- re-purposing existing map elements to quickly use in other maps, either by simple copying and pasting, or as map parts which can be made available to all users in a library.
- hyper-linking to online resources, with multiple hyperlinks on a single branch and a built-in web browser so you never have to leave the MindManager environment to view the resources (one of our personal favourites 🙂
- exporting information to other “standard” formats such as Acrobat pdf, Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc.
- sharing your map so that others also have the benefit of discovering / accessing a huge amount of information in a more compact and intuitive to navigate – “drill down, not scroll down!”.
- presenting /publishing your map to make it easier to transfer knowledge and experience in a form that makes it easier for others to act upon it.
- adapting & extending the softwares capabilities via the API (Application Programming Interface) and macro writer to create bespoke solutions.
- enabling people and organisations to not just collect and organise information from a huge range of different sources into the one environment, but to assimilate it and act upon the inights it provides them to get the stuff done that they need to do, in a more productive way. For example the great project / task management tools and templates are used by project managers controlling multi-million dollar projects and project programmes around the world.
In addition there is a community of official Mindjet partners (such as ourselves) offering a range of value-added services and add-ons / plug-ins that greatly extend the functionality of Mindmanager, which is already pretty awsome anyway!
All of these mean MindManager is a hugely flexible, digital information tool that provides practical, focused, low-cost solutions to help people and organisations stay on top of their information and ideas, and get a lot more done with a lot less stress… 🙂
Where it began…
Once we seriously began using MindManager – the world’s best information mapping software – as a business mindmapping tool back in 2002, we soon realised we could also use it in a way that complemented our geographic information mapping work. We could…
- Map geographic space in a different kind of way – By capturing geographic entities as branches in a MindManager ‘tree diagram’ map from definitive source spreadsheets, we created a visually structured, digital framework that, just like a ‘traditional’ geographic map, not only recorded the different entities that made up ‘the space’, but also the hierachical relationships between them.
- Map knowledge resources about the space – By attaching (often multiple) hyperlinks to public domain knowledge resources about the entities to their branch in the map – be they official, definitive or just plain old useful – they become both more easily discoverable within the ‘bigger picture’ context of the whole map, and more easily accessible as they are only ever no more than a couple of mouse clicks away. So as well as being a visually structured index of knowledge resources about the ‘things’ in the ‘space’, our map was now also a portal to those resources.
- Incorporate contextual knowledge – Using MindManager’s many unique ‘information cartography’ features (see above), some of the core information contained in the linked resources could be embedded within, or attached to, the map branches – such as images of ‘traditional’ geographic maps (eg. location maps) or basic geo-statistical data like size and population. The resulting ‘knowledge seed branches’ are mini knowledge portals in their own right, and can often negate the need to consult the linked resources for basic information.
A different kind of geographic world atlas
We decided to begin applying this new knowledge mapping technique to the fundamental building blocks of ‘geographic space’ – the countries of the world and the macro-geographic regions and sub-regions in which they sit. So we…
- Started with the data tables for the international standards that define these things – UN Geoscheme (macro-geographic regions) & ISO3166-1 (countries) – and imported the appropriate fields into mindmanager to create the basic framework.
- We then hunted down all the official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about them we could find in the public domain online, and attached their URL’s as hyperlinks to the appropriate map branch.
- Finally we applied a bit of cartographic know-how.
And so (to cut a long research & development story short) we created our first countries of the world knowledge atlas map…
But with important similarities
New and exciting though this new type of atlas was, we realised that our knowledge maps still shared important characteristics with ‘traditional’ geographic maps…
- A map is it’s own ‘type of knowledge’ – A map – the visually structured index of what things are where and how they inter-relate within the space – is a type of knowledge in it’s own right. It’s not a pure picture, and it’s not just words, rather it’s a carefully, and scientifically calculated, combination of the 2.
- A map is a knowledge artefact – Geographic maps have 2 lives… The first is as a working document that shows ‘the space’ now. However the world moves on and spaces change, so the map then becomes a historical record of what the space looked like at a particular point in time. Traditional (ie. paper) geographic maps were physically archived in libraries, so they could be consulted by future generations. Online mapping services like Google Maps however are constantly being updated to always show the most current picture, and anyway aren’t a discrete artefact that can be stored but are assembled from databases on demand to the viewer. Because MindManger maps are a software file, they can be saved and archived.
- A map as a ‘basemap framework’ – Most of us at some point have taken a geographic map and drawn our own information on top it to quickly communicate information to others – how to get to our house / the hotel etc. (though these days Google Maps will do that automatically for you to show you the driving route between 2 points). In such cases the geographic map is acting as a ‘basemap’ – a visual knowledge framework upon which additional, more specialised, content could be added that would be difficult to interpret if the basemap wasn’t there. Well we realised that our general knowledge atlas map could be used as a basemap to create all sorts of different knowledge maps about the countries of the world.
A different kind of calendar (‘time atlas’)
Intrigued, we applied the same technique to the humble calendar – the atlas for ‘time space’ – and, to cut a slightly shorter research & development story short – our calendar knowledge maps were born…
(These also crossed over to the ‘geographic space’ when we added links to the national days of every country of the world, as well as calendars for specific countries…)
Map Any ‘Space’
Thinking further we realised there’s plenty of ‘things’ in the world of human endeavour that are real, and important, and have hierarchical (and other) inter-relationship with other real, and important things – organisations from governments (national to local) and public bodies, to corporations to community groups, to informal networks, in fact networks, people and organisations of any type and the ‘spaces’, economic spaces. Such spaces can’t be mapped geographically, or even if they can, mapping them only geographically doesn’t add much to our practical knowledge about them. An ‘organisation map’ is an obvious example of such a non-geographic knowledge map.
In fact we soon realised that, using this new visual mapping technique , we could map pretty much capture any ‘space’ of human interest and endeavour – be it physical, virtual, conceptual or whatever – as a MindManager map…
Share It With Everybody, Even If They Don’t Use MindManager
Anybody with access to MindManager software can use our knowledge maps as ‘ready made’ templates to amend, adapt & repurpose (in whole or in part) in their own projects, so they do not have to re-invent the knowledge wheel each time.
However thanks to MindManager’s unique HTML export capabilities, the HTML versions of our knowledge maps can be accessed by anybody using any modern browser, on any device, on or offline, without the need for any plugins ie. everybody!
Save Everybody Time & Resources
In these days of information overload we also realised that our knowledge maps could help people – and the teams, organisations and communities of which they are part – more quickly and easily answer the basic questions about ‘the spaces’ that they spend a lot of their time & resources trying to find answers to…
- What are the important ‘things’ that make up this ‘space’ we are interested in?
- What is the ‘spatial’ / hierarchical relationship between them?
- What do we know about them?
- Where are those knowledge resources to be found?
- How do we access them now – and in the future – so we can use them to benefit our organisation / community / project?
By discovering & accessing the knowledge they need more quickly (and with a lot less stress :-), they could spend their precious (and usually limited) time & resources actually utilisng it to do what they need to do, rather than scrolling through endless search results (assuming they knew what to look for in the first place of course).
Let’s start a map store
And so we opened our digital download map store so that anybody can benefit from the ‘universdally useful’ knowledge maps of our world we create, and began offering our knowledge mapping services to map ‘spaces’ on behalf of clients as well as help them to do it for themselves…
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