I used XMind: ZEN for more than a year. For me, it's an easy-to-use app. I can focus on the content, and grab the mind flow instead of getting interrupted by "where's the feature" or "my map looks terrible" questions.

I wondered how other users apply XMind in their work and life, and XMind workshop opens the door for me to explore and communicate with others.

For most of the time, I use XMind in my work, like weekly report, brainstorming, break down articles/working process, etc.

Note-taking for online course, jot down interesting things, catagorize files, etc.

The workshop gathers people from different occupations and we were assigned with different people into 5~6 groups. I talked with my groupmates, and one of them are students share with me how they use mind map and share with other members in their reading club. Another groupmate shared about how she used mind map for efficient meeting notes. The way they combine different features fasinated me.

For example, a participant shared how she comebined mind map and Outliner together to ensure there's nothing left behind. Another participant even used the timeline structure to record his child's biography.

I also shared how I used topic link to demonstrate my mind map right away, and XMind also talked about it here. My goupmates also felt surprised of my combination with ZEN Mode and Topic Link, and they would love to give it a try for the next presentation.

We also have a glance of how XMind staff use their home-made tool.

They even use mind map to build a metro map :)

The most inspiring part was the brainstorming. We drew a keyword as a central topic, and wrote down the ideas came up with. The coolest thing was, we needed to make the keyword into a product, a story, or even a play as long as we could make the wheel turns. I bursted into laugh for several times when discussing with my group, and we switched to negotiate about keeping and removing several keywords, then only focussed on the topics that can elaborate clearly and clearly.

The presentation part was BRAVO! One of the groups used the ming map as a content of a script, and made the presentation into a play. That inspired me a log, "wow, mind map can be played like this".

We received very XMind gears, canvas bags, stickers, and brouches (I love them). I heard they would release mind mapping notebooks soon. XMind workshop was super fun and inspiring, it's on my must-go activity list. I am still in contact with several participants I met there. I look forward to meet more people, and see you next time.