This last year was an incredible year for Mindjet, and one of transition, disruption, and a lesson in embracing and effecting change. As the world dives head first into the new year, it’s with many lessons taken from the last twelve months.
2014 is promising to bring major revolutions in innovation, collaboration, and mobile that will largely impact the way we work, both globally and individually. Below, we discuss some of our favorite pieces from 2013 that we’d not only like to tip our hats to, but that will help us prepare for a future owned by development, growth, and progress.
January: Workology Takes the Spotlight
One year ago, we were focused on bringing you better ways to understand your employees’ varying personalities, and how different teams can better collaborate and be more effective. That’s where Workology came in. Take the quiz to find out how your team fits together, and what you can do to be more successful.
February: Visualization, Outdated Innovation, and Wasting Time
In February we focused a lot on innovation’s ho-hum standard practices, and tried to jump-start your efforts and point you in new directions (perhaps we had a premonition about what was going to happen in September). We also did a little bit of digging into mobile behavior, why visual project management is critical to success, the importance of the ‘I’ in collaboration, and the world’s Top 10 office time-wasters.
March: Agile Marketing, Working from Home, and Social Business Transformation
In March, enterprise mobility apps were all the rage. We jumped right in the middle of the delightfully controversial Marissa-Mayer-spawned debate about working from home. We discussed Altimeter’s 6 Stages of Social Business, and our CMO, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, kept moving through his extremely informative agile marketing series. Plus, we talked about the hard truth that statistically, Millennials fail at productivity — and why that might be a good thing for your business.
April: Project Management, Mind Mapping for Innovation, and More Project Management
It became abundantly clear in 2013 that traditional project managers were a dwindling breed, and that the importance of giving everyone in your organization the tools to manage their own projects was vital to getting things done. From questions to ask to taking best practices from the pros, PM secrets and blunders to avoid, we did our best to help out those lucky folks out there who’ve suddenly found themselves knee-deep in deadlines. We also published the inspiring story of one man’s quest to use mind mapping to solve global problems.
May: Collaboration, Communication, and Getting Uncomfortable
May was all about working together, better — from the top down. We told you a love story about CIOs and CMOs, told you how not to do collaboration, and what it would take to do business collaboration correctly (hint: it’s a little awkward). We even got creative with collaboration, and talked about how innovation and marketing can work together for a more agile organization.
June: Creativity and Innovation, Mindjet ProjectDirector, and Advocate Marketing
With summer just around the corner, it was time for us to release the much-anticipated Mindjet ProjectDirector product. We talked a little bit about the importance of advocate marketing, the differences between creativity and innovation, why waiting for permission to innovate is a big mistake, World War ‘I’, asking the right questions, and the 7 Deadly Sins of Innovation.
July: Multi-tasking, GTD, and the Mindjet Productivity Calculator
Summertime is a naturally lazy season for most of us, so we tried to reverse some of the damage by talking about the dangers of multi-tasking, as well and introduce the Mindjet Productivity Calculator to help businesses figure out what efficiency truly means for ROI. We even gave you business rebels a few alternative tips to try, a unique productivity hack, and a way of getting things done without all of those pesky apps.
August: MindManager Showcase, Lessons from Genghis Khan, and Tribal Leadership
The heat made us all a little savage, which may explain why we brought you a few agile business lessons from Genghis Khan and a discussion about tribal leadership. We also started our MindManager Showcase series for our dedicated mapping audience, and made the argument for shorter work days. Plus, we gave you fair warning about brown-nosing coworkers and how to keep them in check.
September: BIG NEWS, Innovation’s Top 50, Company Culture, and MindManager 14
September was arguably the craziest month for us — we announced our merger with innovation management company Spigit, released MindManager 14 for Windows, published the Vision to Action Lifecycle whitepaper, and covered everything from company culture to innovation’s biggest players, doing business innovation the right way, and the world’s first mind map. There was also the continuation of Roger C. Parker’s Mindjet Dashboard series, the Productivity Pantry, and the key correlation between crowdsourcing and open innovation. Oh, and competitive advantage. Phew!
October: Innovation Management, Gamification and Science, and the New SpigitEngage
As the spookiest month of the year came about, we dug into the mechanics of making innovation management work, including the science behind it and the process of gamification. We released the latest version of SpigitEngage, hosted a great webinar, and were thrilled to showcase UnitedHealth Group’s award-winning innovation program.
November: Humanitarianism, Making Mistakes, and Going Beyond the Great Idea
In the spirit of thankfulness, November brought about discussions about using innovation to change the world, moving beyond the great idea, letting go of perfectionism, and an honest look at the (innovation) mistakes many of us are guilty of making. We also talked about ‘intrapreneurship‘, the 10 Commandments of Repeatable Business Innovation, and successful change management.
December: Mind Mapping, Project-Based Innovation, and Looking Ahead
Finally, last month was dedicated to our very well-received 12 Days of Mind Mapping series and taking a look at what project-based innovation could mean for your business. We also made a few predictions about innovation initiatives for 2014, as well as delved into some collaboration, project management, and social business trends to watch out for.
With such an amazing year behind us, we can’t wait to see what happens next. Cheers to 2014!
The post Looking Back, Moving Forward: Mindjet’s Year in Review appeared first on Conspire: A @Mindjet Publication.