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Just looked at mindmeister. Yes that is a mind mapping tool.
here is a very old blog about mind mapping I wrote, amazingly over 1,300 days ago Mind Mapping | PM Words of Wisdom

Mind mapping is great for creative though, the key difference is that goalscape organises the elements into a 100% circle, and then you can prioritise and track agaist the goals (elements).

So it takes it from 'creative' into 'real world implementation/project'.

We tend to 'mind map' first on a whiteboard, then translate into goalscape to rationalise / prioritise and track against the goals.

(small caveat, for a project above a certain size, it is no substitute to full blown project management tools (that may be used in a full blown project management process like Prince-2), with gantt charts, critical path analysis, resource scheduling, dependency management etc, you wouldn't plan a multi-million

I haven't looked at mindmeister, I'll have a look at that first before I can comment and similarities.

I think it actaully works very well with small groups, we often used it just between two people (e.g. me and my marketing director ) to decide on strategy and measure progress.

FOr someone working alone, it could be effective, but if there is no one to communicate with (at all) then I can't see the point. But for instance, we have used it in the past (when we use to offer SEO / Adwords services ) as a way of reporting to our clients. That was pretty much 1 analyst on their own, but someone to communicate with.

We use a goal setting tool that presents components of goals as 100% circle, that way it is very easy to if you spend more effort / time here you haveeto give up some somewhere else.

We use it for everything, business strategy, project plans, marketing planning, documenting concepts, setting objectives ... so many uses

Easier to explain if you see it in action. Although the example I have to hand isn't so much a business plan, but interpretation of a law, but of course you can use such diagram techniques for anything that is a 'whole' that is made up of 'parts'

Please take a look at my example here

The software is available on 14 day trail in desktop or cloud versions.
Visual Goal Management Software - Goalscape

I wish I had the skills - I very lazily picked an avatar from the selection already available on the forum!

In the good old days when backlinks were important, you could get 'free' backlinks from 20 or more system that scrape twitter to create some form of value add site that you could add a 'profile' with you website address in. Of course that is all history now (unfortunately for the economy of some sub continents that specialised in the arts)

I think that promoting businesses on social media needs to be very subtle, as most people use social media exactly as that - social.

So when I am down the pub having a drink and chat with my mates, I don't want the double glazing salesman stopping the conversation and saying ' we have 30% off if you sign up today'.

However, if I am in the pub and one of my mates tells during some banter me 'I got my Windows sorted by a really good company, they were clean, fast and inexpensive' (or words to that effect, or may be not) if I was vaguely interested I might ask him the name of the company.

So - my theory, social media marketing needs to be about subtle endorsement, not self promotion.

Disagree?

p.s. I know 'the pub' isn't social media, but I'm using the analogy to make a point

Definitely not a fan of cold calling. I'm on TPS for my home number & mobile, and I actually get very few cold calls.

When we started in business, we thought for about 5 seconds about cold calling, then we decided we shouldn't do something to others that we personally hate.

When you add 'cold e-mailing' (not technically spam, as technically you can't spam a business e-mail, but close enough) as another 'hate', that does rather limit direct marketing methods.

So we haven't got many customers, because we don't pester a lot of people, but we at least are living to our own standards.

Which sort of turns the question around, 'if you don't call call / cold e-mail' then how do you get new business?'

edit: thinking about it I personally hate being 'sold to' by any method

What does 'after work' mean?

Normally, I work, eat, work some more, sleep, work. Then the weekend comes, and I go shopping with the wife. Something like that.

Mission understood - avatar selected

edit: now seeing it I might change it, it is a bit disturbing

Thanks, interesting. I guess the difficult question is whether the extra performance is worth the $299 per year fee. For some sites this will be a no brainier, for others it is not so clear.