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Writing Articles with a Mind Map

“I have plotted it out — now I only need to write it.”
Some New Yorker Comic

A colleague of mine writes the papers for his dissertation at the moment — using mind maps. While I prefer Circus Ponies Notebook and Outlines, I think his approach has a lot of merit for the more visually minded.

The uses the nodes of the mind map to create a structure he can easily grasp and the commentary fields to the nodes to write the text. The mind map structure gives him a hierarchical order (indispensable if you want to make a text out of it) and the ability to quickly reorder elements of the text. If the work is finished, he exports the mind map as text, which gives him a good first draft of the final text.

According to my colleague, a lot of people work this way and use the platform-independent and OpenSource program Freeplane.

Perhaps this approach is something for you.

mind-map-writing-1

mind-map-writing-2

Images Copyright by Christian W. Michel

Deal with the worst thing first

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Mark Twain

I’m currently reading a “self-help” book called “What’s Stopping You? — Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can” by Robert Kelsey. I love the subtitle which by no means states that the reader actually is smart. Judging from the first 30 pages, it should contain some helpful tips. Mostly because the author has digested a lot of self-help books and actually refers to psychologists and their findings (which usually are ignored by self-help authors).

In other words, the author has realized that many self-help books take the reader out for a ride without leaving him with anything in the long-term — and he looks at aspects that might be helpful.

One interesting tip was regarding todos — his advice is to deal with the worst thing first. He refers to other books that recommend a similar approach and yes, it makes sense. If you deal with the worst thing first on your todo list, then with the next worst thing, etc., your day improves as you knock off the things on your todo list. You will be inclined to do the things on the list as early and fast as possible in order to reach the pleasurable todos. If you would go the other way (starting with the best thing first), your day goes downhill and why would you hurry — you would only reach worse and worse todos.

Of course, this means that you must have pleasurable todos on your list and that you do not betray yourself and drop some tasks.

But it seems like a good tip and I’m curious what else is in the book.

Poster: How to Organize Your Creativity?

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

oc-poster-englishThe poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.

The Future of Your Research: How to organize (a) scientific work?

To put it differently: You are highly qualified people who should not be wasted in the wrong job. You are ambitious, in the sense that you want to accomplish something, be advanced, move forward. Choose the right environment if you can. PhD positions are qualification positions — it is not sufficient that you do your work well, the work must also allow you to move forward and improve/qualify yourself.
Presenter Note from “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”

I’ve finally translated the presentation I did at the MinD-Akademie 2011 regarding “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”. The slides include the presenter notes, which in turn include the script. It’s not my best translation work, so don’t be surprise to see a lot of “broken English” — but at least it’s readable, I think.

Note that due to copyright constraints, I cannot show the pictures I did show in the presentation. I have replaced these images with grayed out placeholders and an image description in square brackets.

mind-akademie-2011-english-grayed-out-picturesClick on the slides to see the presentation as PDF (about 5 MB).

If you have further points that should be included in a presentation like this, I’d appreciate a comment. :-) The recommended literature is also shown here as a separate posting.

Presentation: How to Organize a Scientific Work [German]

Kurz gesagt: Ihr seid hochqualifizierte Leute, die man nicht auf der falschen Stelle verschwenden sollte. Ihr seid ehrgeizig, im Sinne von ihr wollt etwas erreichen, gefördert werden, weiter kommen. Sucht euch das passende Umfeld genau aus wenn ihr könnt. Promotionsstellen sind Qualifikationsstellen — es reicht nicht, dass ihr die Arbeit für die Stelle gut macht, die Arbeit auf der Stelle muss euch weiterbringen und euch selbst weiter qualifizieren.
Vortragsnotiz aus “Die Zukunft deiner Forschung — Wie organisiert man eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit?”

Note: The following presentation (PDF with Notes, which contains the script) is about ways to organize a scientific work. I did this presentation at the MinD-Akademie 2011 in Hannover and thus it is in German. It was my best presentation ever. Loved the audience :-) . Regarding an English version, I’ll be doing a translation soon. [Update: Translation is online in this posting.]

mind-akademie-2011-vortrag-graubilder-mit-skript-cover-2Auf das Bild klicken um die PDF angezeigt zu bekommen (ca. 5 MB). Ein Teil der Bilder in der Präsentation sind ausgegraut, weil ich leider nicht das Copyright für diese Bilder besitze. Das mindert die Qualität der Präsentation, auch wenn sie nur zur Illustration eingesetzt wurden. Auf der anderen Seite sind alle wichtigen Informationen in den Notizen vorhanden. Das Design der Folien beruht zum einen auf ein Template von Apple’s Keynote (Cover), wobei die Seiten von den Aperture/iPhoto Photobüchern inspiriert sind. Die Angaben zur empfohlenen Literatur ist hier als eigener Eintrag verfügbar.

Poster: Wie organisiert man seine Kreativität? [German]

English Note: This posting is about a poster I did submit to the MinD-Akademie 2011, showing on one (very large) page how one can organize one’s creativity. It was accepted and well received. The poster is in German, but I will do a translation soon. [Update: Translation is finished and available in this posting here.]

MinD-Akademie 2011 Poster

Das Poster zeigt die verschiedenen Punkte die wichtig sind, um Kreativität zu organisieren. Während der Prozess von oben nach unten läuft, ist jeder Punkt auch eine Beschäftigung mit dem Thema (gelbe Pfeile nach oben) und führt entsprechend zu weiteren Ideen (mittige Pfeile nach unten). Auf das Poster oder hier klicken, um das Poster als PDF in DIN-A0 zu sehen (die Bilder selbst sind runterskaliert, so dass die Datei “nur” ca. 7 MB groß ist). Die Datei ist in der Dateigröße reduziert, die Bilder sollten aber trotzdem in druckbarer Qualität sein. Das Poster, das ich ausgestellt hatte, habe ich in Hannover gelassen (vielleicht hat es ja ein nettes Heim gefunden, sonst wurde es halt entsorgt). Ich musste los, habe mein Poster nicht gesehen (oder ich war grad blind) und ich habe mich auch von einigen Leuten nicht (bzw. nicht richtig) verabschieden können (war auch was k.o., auch wenn’s/weil’s riesigen Spaß gemacht hat). Ich hoffe, ich sehe ein paar Personen bald wieder, auch gerne mal zu Besuch in Tübingen, auch wenn ich die Namen grad nicht verfügbar habe (ich denke, ich habe den Networking-Workshop wirklich gebraucht — war gut und eine gute Erinnerung).  Ich wünschte halt, ich hätte mir die Namen notiert, von den Personen, mit denen ich interessante Unterhaltungen geführt hatte (hmm, in der Badewanne eben gab’s eine nette Idee für eine App bzw. die Fortführung einer älteren Idee dazu  … ;-) ).

Interesting Discussion going on about Thesis Writing

“I wrote them down in my diary so that I wouldn’t have to remember.”
Professor Henry Jones, about why he and his son need to go into the lion’s den to save his diary, in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)

I’m currently preparing a presentation for a student group about organizing an academic work (focus is on a dissertation thesis, but it can be applied to any major written work). Interestingly, there are currently a few questions about establishing academic work flow, esp. regarding storing citations. The discussion is going on in the posting about Circus Ponies Notebook for Academic Writing (e.g., Thesis Writing).

If you have ideas I’d like to hear them — how do you manage your sources?

Leadership in Academia

I stumbled over two great articles regarding leadership — or the lack thereof — in academia. Unfortunately, both are in German, but they key points were (translating and paraphrasing the authors):

  • Using the classification of leadership in laissez-faire, autocratic and cooperating leadership behavior works. It must not be seen as either-or, but as present to varying degrees.
  • Leadership behavior is not a matter of personal preference, but has consequences on multiple measures, e.g., affective commitment, achievement motivation, fluctuation, quality of the work relationship, and total work performance of the department. Leadership behavior that is high in cooperative, low in autocratic and low in laissez-faire style leads to the best results.
  • There are many good examples of great leadership, of professors who support their staff and help them to become good or even great scientists by opening doors, giving advice and encouragement.
  • However, many academics do not see themselves as leaders and do not think that they should show leadership behavior. Often the reason is the (false) argument that academic freedom and training independent scientists precludes leadership, thus resulting in no (i.e., laissez-faire) leadership behavior. However, mentorship — giving advice and feedback — allows the advancement of skills and work and keeps the independence and self-directed work of the young academics.
  • Bad leadership behavior is usually not the tyrant who plays god in his department, but the lack of systematic (i.e., targeted, deliberate, reflective) leadership behavior. For example,
    • giving critic without constructive recommendations for change and encouragement,
    • making optimistic estimations regarding whether something can be implemented without giving the necessary support and impulses of how to transform an optimistic estimation to a measurable success,
    • pressing for the implementation of their own visions without gaining commitment by their staff first, and
    • academic thesis advisers who are usually not available.
  • Bad leadership wastes potential, because it is a main reason that doctoral students quit their dissertation and leave academia.
  • Great leadership combines support/advice with promoting values which are consistent and lived in the everyday work and can be experiences by the staff, e.g., promoting ethical values like respect, transparency, fairness and setting a good example.
  • Training of leadership behavior in academia was neglected but — apparently — this is going to change.

I think the articles are highly relevant for anyone working or planning to work in academia, as post-doc or professor. The climate of a department can make or break great science and leaders strongly contribute to it. And as Kurt Lewin, who started research in leadership behaviors, said: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” and the texts are great to make sense of leadership behavior in academia.

Highly recommended.

Sources

Schmidt, B., & Richter, A. (2008). Unterstützender Mentor oder abwesender Aufgabenverteiler? – Eine qualitative Interviewstudie zum Führungshandeln von Professorinnen und Professoren aus der Sicht von Promovierenden. Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 30(4), 34-58.

Schmidt, B., & Richter, A. (2009). Zwischen Laissez-Faire, Autokratie und Kooperation: Führungsstile von Professorinnen und Professoren. Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung, 31(4), 8-35.

Questionnaire for Organizing Creativity 2

It’s been a few years since I wrote “Organizing Creativity” and in the meantime I have learned a lot. I am also critical of the style of the book — I wanted to write everything I knew, I did and it shows. It contains a lot of information, but it is not exactly easy to read.

So, I am currently working on a new version, more concise and more useful for practical application. For this version I would like to ask you for your input. How do you organize your creativity? What skills and tools did help you? What gave you a boost in working. The questions are very broad and no matter how trivial or supposedly widely known it is, I really like to hear about it.

Which skills help you to be creative?

Which tools help you to be creative?

Is there anything else you think is important for creativity or its organization? If so, what is it?

In which areas are you creative?

If you want to, you can also give your name and eMail, but you don't need to. I promise not to abuse this information.

Your Name

Your eMail

Thank you in advance :-)

Daniel Wessel

Dealing with Deadlines – Do it in Phases

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound as they fly by.”
Douglas Adams

I had a hard deadline in the past week — one of those you cannot dodge. For a presentation I needed a working version of a critical thinking tool on an iPod touch/iPhone for a museum exhibition. I already had programmed a working version — so far so good — but I needed to fill it with exhibition information and a case story to train critical thinking with. Problem was, I hadn’t either of those and only a day left.

What I am always remembered of in these situations is a comment about Pratchett’s Rincewind — something like that he always survives because he refuses to believe that his continued survival against impossible odds is anything but coincidence, and if he would ever think otherwise, the world would flatten him in an instant.

So, I guess it was coincidence that I had a day where nothing else was important and where I made the right amount of pauses so that I was working at peak efficiency. But it was also something else — the way of structuring the work, which isn’t new but which might be neglected.

I worked in phases, meaning that after a small test whether it worked, I rapidly did the same action for all other instances. For example, when it came to writing the case story I first wrote a draft, the wrote the paragraph containing the information units in the different parts of the story, then I copied it into the database. Working in phases instead of writing the first paragraph, then the information units for this paragraph, then copying it into the database not only reduced the amount of interruptions of one kind of work, but it also made sure that I would have to repeat the same thing again and again immediately one after the other, which helps you speed up things. You don’t have to think, you just do it as fast as you can.

phasenweise-vorgehen

Of course, I had tested the concept first to ensure that filling the database with the information would work and I was reasonably sure that I could finish on time. After all, if you miss out the last step, you have nothing to show for. In comparison to following one process to the end, you do not even half a half-stocked database, you have simply nothing in it.

So, despite the tight deadline I was finished at the end of the day (to be exact, half an hour before the end of the day) and I couldn’t have done it if I had followed one process to the end.