Doing things with concept maps

Years ago, before the Internet, I loved the concept map builder software Inspiration. I bought most of the literature they were selling at the time about strategies to make the best of using it. Inspiration is still better to my opinion than what is available today, but it still lack a commercial web based service, it is still not multilanguage ready, and you can't even simply purchase the software online. There are other and free tools, like Freemind, not user friendly, and Cmap Tools that now fails to launch. I ended up registering to Mindmeister, an OK web based solution but not as flexible as Inspiration, and lacking the toggle between text and map mode that make Inspiration brilliant and unique. But, c'est la vie, and this solution among many still allows to brainstorm with the self in a more creative manner than jolting down notes in a list.

So I embarked, pretentiously, to develop the ideal curriculum for business interpretation, what they don't teach you at school but could, in the ideal school setting where I never went.

It's a work in progress, and as with many concept maps, it may hang like this in the air for a while, because concept maps are a tool to move forward with ideas and discover the branching and extensions. It doesn't matter usually that it is not complete and finished. It can be endless. So here it is, in its almost bare and trivial starting.

http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show/66817653

Dynamics is a keyword, maybe overused here, to pinpoint at what and what for should the interpreter focus on. Understanding corporate, business and the people inside the professional ecosystems is a fundamental pivot for better navigating business interpretation. They say, experience makes perfect, but starting early on at least to understand the mechanics and osmosis between parts even outside a real setting may allow at least to accelerate the comprehension of what matters, from the viewpoint of the interpreter.

I was about to write that there is no such a book like "Business for dummies" in English, but there is, as a matter of fact. The For Dummies series offers pragmatic and narrower books, but what I was looking for is something that tells the reader in simple fashion how things work in a corporation. How a business works seems to deliver on that basic approach, but Japan offers many more books that tell about basic stuff, with flow charts and visuals attached. The culture of humility may explain why there is a market for dummies without calling them dummies, because you won't want to make readers loose face.

Incidentally, concept map, or mind mapping has gained traction the past years here, but I have yet to see any results in business presentations. Powerpoint goes against the dynamics of concept mapping, which is unfortunate.