CHAPTER 10

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In this chapter, you will be encouraged to develop your own

style of maps and read about some amazing applications

covering the following topics:

• EPA Regulation Summary

• A Book-Orbiting the Giant Hairball

• Article Summary in Preparation for a Leadership Development

Program (combines software and hand-drawing)

• Real-Time Presentation Note Taking

• The Future

• World Trade Center Memorial Park

Breaking the Rules

The intention of the laws of idea mapping (refer to Chapter

3) is to maximize recall and thought organization, to clearly

define associations, to provide opportunities for generating

greater quantities of ideas, and to leverage both left and right

cortical skills. I recommend following the laws as closely as

possible during the early stages of learning, but the intention

is not to limit ingenuity. At some point you will have

an application where breaking the rules actually provides

greater creativity and fulfillment of purpose. Making a conscious

choice to do this is part of learning to master some

of he more advanced idea-mapping skills. In this chapter,

each map example will break some of the rules-or maybe I

196

should say that the creators have taken some artistic liberties.

This is intentional. After all, this tool is for you, the author

of your map. I encourage you to work and create in a way that

will give you pleasure and meet the needs of your application.

Have fun with it!

The idea maps in this chapter are also available in color

at www.IdeaMappingSuccess.com.

EPA Regulation Summary

This example uses the Mindjet software. The application did

not lend itself to the "one word per line" rule. Michael Torpey

works on the Diesel Blending Project SPA (Single Point

of Accountability), at one of the world's largest energy companies.

Refer to Figure 10.1 as he describes this application.

Torpey shares,

I am working on a project that will require EPA (Environmental

Protection Agency) approval. Two people familiar

with the EPA requirements for the project provided me with

two contradictory opinions about one of these requirements. I

had read the EPA regulation several times, but I was not able

to determine who was right, and the format of the published

regulation made it difficult to follow. Although it is written

in outline form, with numbers and letters separating the

various sections, it was written without indentations, which

would help to show where one section ends and another begins.

I began to summarize the regulation by hand, but decided to

use an idea map instead. When the idea map was complete, it

proved to be useful for several reasons:

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Figure 10.1 EPA Regulation Summary

• I had the entire section of the EPA regulation summarized

on one page.

• The pertinent section of the EPA regulation, the requirements

for the EPA petition, was summarized in

one branch.

• I was able to clearly see which requirements were not required

for my project.

A Book-Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Megan Clark has held numerous leadership positions within

a large automotive company in Michigan. Her expertise is

broad and ranges from information technology to organizational

development. Her current title is Manager, Program

Management Office, Information Technology. She is one of

those unique individuals who are both highly technical and

highly creative. I met her in 1998 when she brought me into

her organization to teach a 2-day workshop. When Megan

finds something worthwhile, everyone wants to participate.

Because of that class and its success, over 600 employees of

this company have attended my workshops to date.

Shortly after attending this class, Megan was at a highlevel

leadership meeting. During one of the breaks, a prominent

member of the management team approached her and

said, "Megan, you remind me of a book I just read." Megan

was flattered that this man would offer such a compliment.

She followed up by asking, "Really? What's the title of the

book?" The executive replied, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball."

Her reaction went from thinking she received a great

compliment to wondering if she had a corporate future! The

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conversation was brief and then the meeting reconvened.

The only thought in her mind at that point was, "Oh my,

what kind of book is that?"

She immediately headed to the bookstore to get a copy

of Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie. It is a

fascinating book written by a former vice president of Hallmark.

Thankfully for Megan, the comment from the executive

turned out to be quite a compliment.

Megan decided to map the contents of the book as she

read. Refer to Figure 10.2 for her map. This is one of those

books where boiling down a phrase into a single key word for

the map just kills the power of the message. She took some artistic

liberties and created an amazing summary of this book.

Following are Megan's thoughts about her idea map.

Purpose:

Have you ever read a book that touched you deeply and you

wanted to remember every story in it? That was my experience

with Gordon MacKenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball.

The purpose of creating my idea map was very personal-

to help me remember the treasured stories written

by Mr. MacKenzie as a way to remind myself that corporate

life (yes, even in big, dreary, corporate buildings!) can have

meaning and creativity for those of us within the walls!

Benefits:

• instant one page recall of all the key messages in the book

• easy mechanism to share the author's wisdom with others

Outcomes:

• excellent communication mechanism

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• visual reminder of "corporate grace"

• teaching/mentoring tool

But the story doesn't end there. After completing the map,

one of her peers challenged her to send a copy of the map to

the author of the book. So she called the phone number in

the back of the book to find the address where she could send

her map. The voice on the other end of the phone answered,

"Gordon MacKenzie." Megan was momentarily speechless

because she was not expecting Gordon to answer the phone.

Eventually she sent him her map, and he was appreciative of

the way Megan was able to capture his message in a visual

format.

Megan also refers to this map as a teaching/mentoring

tool. During one of the more recent workshops I taught for

Megan's organization, there was a participant in the group

who was visually impaired. A medical condition made him

legally blind at an early age. He had the most incredibly positive

attitude. When Megan asked him why he was always

smiling, his response was, "Because I remember seeing at a

very young age, for me the grass is always green and the sky

is always blue." Prior to him leaving the automotive industry,

Megan spent several weeks reading Orbiting the Giant Hairball

to this young man. She cried while reading him the last

chapter. Who was impacting whom? I think it was mutual.

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Figure 10.2 Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Article Summary

in Preparation for a

Leadership Development Program

The next map-which can be found in Figure 10.3-combines

the use of the software with real-time mapping. Sandy

Dietrich is a production superintendent working for a large

automotive supplier and has been using idea maps since

1998. Following is the description of her application.

The original map was created using the Mindjet software. It

was the summary of an article entitled, "Jack Welch." The article

was distributed in preparation for a company-sponsored

leadership development program. I took the map of this article

to the program. The map already captured most of the presenter's

material; therefore, it minimized the note taking

during the lecture. Instead of worrying about taking notes

during the lecture, I could focus on the presenter's ideas.

The combination of software and real-time note taking

saved time. Prior to the lecture, I already had most of

the key points in my mind. The presentation reinforced those

thoughts instead of introducing them for the first time. This

added to my ability to remember important ideas. Instead of

pages of notes, the completed map provides an excellent onepage

reference with all concepts and the entire theme readily

viewable. After the program I displayed it in my office, where

it generated interest and conversation.

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Figure 10.3 Article Summary

Real-Time Presentation Map-

Landmark Forum

Choon Boo Lim has served in various senior management

positions and is currently a principal lecturer for Ngee Ann

Polytechnic in Singapore. He has been mapping since 1996,

and he has mastered the advanced skill of capturing data at

the moment it is presented. For suggestions on how to create

"real-time" maps, see the description in Chapter 12.

Choon Boo attended a Landmark Forum seminar on

March 29, 2005, in SPRING.Singapore's Auditorium. (See

his idea map in Figure 10.4.) Following is his description of

that event and his map:

My good friend, Robert Koh, invited me to this seminar and

I decided to accept his invitation. I was not disappointed.

Why did I decide to do an idea map of this session?

In the back of my mind, I was thinking, since I am already

at the seminar, it would not cost me anything except

listening, drawing some images, and writing down some key

words. If the map turns out to be presentable, I would then be

able to share it with Robert and anyone interested in this wonderful

whole-brain method of taking notes.

Fortunately, the idea map turned out to be really memorable.

It provided me with lots of inspirations from the

many Landmark Forum graduates, who spoke with tremendous

feelings and energy about what they have gained from

the course. These comments were captured under the "LESSONS"

branches. Of course, needless to say, the speaker, Mr.

Jerome, did a wonderful job in explaining the principles involved

in the course as well as what many of us have gone

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Figure 10.4 Landmark

through in life. I captured that information under the

"PRINCIPLES" and "LIFE" branches. I was extremely

delighted to have mapped the lecture in real-time.

How did I create the map?

My basic preparation involved bringing along my

multi-colored pens, an A4 or A5-sized paper (depending on

the type of course or seminar), and arriving early for the presentation

so that I could find a good seating location. The latter

is important as it helps me see the face of the speaker and

clearly hear the emphsis [sic] of the words. I was amazed at

how the map unfolded during that seminar.

How many hours of information?

The Landmark Forum map summarised a total of

about 21⁄2 hours of presentation ( 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM). The

break provided a great time for the brain to integrate essential

information after listening and summarising the key

points of the lecture as well as participants' presentations.

How did it benefit me and how did I use it afterwards?

Mapping the lecture benefited me in many ways. I find

myself reviewing the lecture from time to time. In particular,

the information on the "PAST," "PRESENT," and "FUTURE"

branches helps me in finding freedom, power, and

peace of mind. This seminar also taught me a lot about "THE

PRESENT"- a gift that every one of us should treasure.

A more important benefit arising from my idea map

was that I was able to share the knowledge of what I have

gained with my many colleagues and friends. On a broader

perspective, the idea map helps increase not only an individual's

intellectual capital, but also that of an organisation-

especially if everyone maps any talk, seminar, or course that

they attend.

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Last, but not least, the idea map enables me to share my

passion and dreams of encouraging everyone [to] learn this

wonderful technique.

Choon Boo's map is the original one he created. I don't want

anyone to think that he went home and made it beautiful! He

has quite a gift for capturing live information. You can view

one of his more complicated "real-time" maps at www.Idea

MappingSuccess.com. Look for his Robert Kaplan map.

The Future

I met Michael Shaw in October of 2005. He was a participant

in my workshop at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He

is currently a second-line manager with responsibility for

three computer data centers.

My work at Mayo is unique. The original management

team that brought the workshops to Mayo beginning in

2004 requested advanced training and the addition of memory

and speed-reading. It requires additional work on the

part of those attending to make this possible. As prework

for the 2-day workshop, each participant reads a book

about idea mapping and then creates a map that I review

prior to class. The night before this particular series of

classes, I was browsing through the maps when Michael's

map caused me to stop and study his work in detail. I felt

like he had given me a personal look into his life. His map

covers his past as well as his future (see Figures 10.5 and

10.6 for before and after photographs). Because nearly

everything in his idea map is an image, it takes some expla-

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nation in order for you to understand the map. See Figure

10.7 following his story.

When thinking about the topic to choose for my first idea map,

my first instinct was to keep it strictly business. After all, the

course would be full of people from our organization of employment.

However, because I had gone through two major

life changes in the past 3 years, it seemed appropriate to make

it personal (The Future inside a crystal ball). This proved to

be a good decision as the effect was therapeutic as I drew, and

became something I now call my "visual journal."

Seibboh (Hobbies Backwards)

For reasons that will become clearer after describing the "4

Me" branch, hobbies often seem foreign to me-which is why

I wrote the root word backwards. This is most likely due to the

fact that the majority of my time is spent alone (although I

wish it were otherwise). Also it seems foreign because most of

my life had been about work. I really didn't allow myself to

"waste" time on hobbies.

I was an avid reader all the way from childhood until

just a couple years ago (I even read technical manuals and

enjoyed them!). Since then reading has been much more difficult

in that it doesn't hold my attention. In fact, there have

been several times where I can only read a couple sentences on

page one and go no further. However, I still do manage to find

a couple books a month that I can stick with.

I have a very wide taste in music (CD with musical

notes)-classical, blues, rock, reggae, even some country-

anything but opera!

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I took up fishing this year. Beyond catching bass and

trout locally, I took my first trip into Canada this past Labor

Day. In addition to catching walleye and northern, I also

kayaked ( for the first time) around the island our cabins

were on.

I own several hundred movies on DVD. Surprisingly,

I've never tired of watching the same movie numerous

times.

Growing up I had always wanted to go to a professional

sports event. I recently attended a Minnesota Wild NHL

game (an awesome experience!) as well as a Minnesota Vikings

NFL game.

When I came to work for my current employer, I was

given opportunities to travel. Often, this coincides with my

giving a presentation on my profession-computer data

center management. I've traveled to Orlando, Palm Springs,

Seattle, Nashville, and Las Vegas. One day I hope to travel

to Europe and New Zealand. Although I never followed

through on it, this hope stems from the foreign languages

I've learned in high school, college, and a previous employer:

Spanish, German, French, and Japanese.

The Past

Unarguably, this was the toughest branch for me to draw. I

was raised to always achieve something greater than I'd already

accomplished, don't settle for second best, and so on. Yet

there are some things from my past I have a difficult time

accepting.

On the good side, I have an Associate's degree (that's

supposed to be a blue graduation cap) from Rochester Community

College (RCC) and a Bachelor's degree in Computer

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Science from Winona State University (WSU). I completed

my Bachelor's while I was working full time for my second

employer.

My first job was delivering pizza for Domino's. We ate

pizza for dinner every night and to this day, I cannot stand

the smell of it. I then left to start work at International Business

Machines here in Rochester. I worked there 11 years,

starting out in disk-drive manufacturing and ending up a

programmer, coding tools to help build the AS/400 operating

system.

I left IBM and came to work at the Mayo Clinic, also in

Rochester. I've been here for 9 years, starting out as an offshift

computer operator and currently I am a second-line

manager.

Although I show a cross on the past branch, that doesn't

mean my faith is not important to me today-it's just that I

used to be heavily involved in church (teaching Sunday School

as well as being a church administrator and treasurer for

more than a decade).

My greatest failure was my marriage (two rings). I've

been involved in a divorce that has been going on for 2 years

now. As I've told others, this isn't something I would wish on

my worst enemy. As I'll note later, my family views me as the

stable one-the one who never changes and makes all the

right and moral decisions. This major life event has me on a

rollercoaster [sic] of emotion-one that I can't get off of because

it seems that this will keep going on forever.

Working backwards on the "state" branch, I've lived in

Rochester, Minnesota, for my adult life. I attended high school

in Spring Valley, Minnesota, which is only 20 minutes from

Rochester. I did spend some time with my mother in New Or-

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leans ( junior in high school). This hurricane season has hit

home for me [not only] in seeing the pictures, but also not

hearing yet from two cousins. My family spent 1 year in

Chicago; however, most of my childhood was spent in Ellington,

New York (born in New York as well). Although Ellington

is a very small town, it supported the town kids in

sports enthusiastically. My favorite was baseball. As a

catcher, my goal was to make the traveling team (baseball

and smiley face)-which did happen.

My father is connected to two branches-Family and

The Past. When I turned 16, my parents divorced. It was at

that time that he told me that he never wanted a son at all

and wished I had not been born. I wasn't upset mainly because

he had not spent much time with me growing up, so it's hard

to know what you're missing when you didn't have it to begin

with. Now that he is getting older and his health is deteriorating,

he is making attempts to talk with me-I'm just not

sure if I want to yet. There is a lot of distance (winding black

branch) that I'm not sure can be overcome.

Family

When my father left us, my mother told me I needed to get a

job and help her support my two sisters. My sisters are twins

and they are 5 years younger than I. Although I was too young

to see it at the time, I became the "man of the house," and having

to assume so much responsibility so young (I was paying

the majority of the bills), I ended up becoming like a superhero

(the Superman logo). Ironically, I would later come to

shun this stereotype and persona-for I was held on a pedestal

others would not let me come down from. It took my standing

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up and adamantly stating that I didn't have all the answers

and that I am just as human as anyone else, before they saw

that I had changed and would no longer "play the part."

Unfortunately, one of my sisters suffered a heart attack

this past year. She came through it okay, but events such as

this make one seriously look at their own life, family, health,

and even the words we say (or don't) to others.

I have several nieces and nephews that I care for deeply

and wish we could be closer.

4 Me

Three years ago I went through a mid-life crisis (my second

life event). I describe my experience as:

1. Unscrew the top off Mike's head.

2. Pull out Mike's brain.

3. Put someone else's brain back in (a random brain will do

nicely).

4. Screw the top back on.

5. Say the words "Scoot. Off you go."

6. Let's see what happens to the lab experiment.

One day I woke up and everything I liked to do, such as reading,

my job, watching sports, etc., etc-I didn't like anymore.

I felt foreign. So I got on a treadmill. This also coincided with

my mother having a heart attack. I was extremely overweight

and when I went in to have myself checked out, in a span of 4

hours I had gone from seeing my family doctor to a top heart

specialist at Mayo. Given my health and lifestyle, he gave me

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5 years to live. In the course of a year from the time I got on

the treadmill, I lost 130 pounds (running shoe, me before and

after). Call it anger, angst, or even rage-that was my motivation.

I ran from 2-5 miles a day, every day. Above are a

couple of before and after pictures.

It's funny to me that although I've always been a "Type

A" personality, I now often find myself sitting on my balcony

watching sunsets (the road leading to the hills with the sun

setting behind). The simple things in life seem to appeal to me

more than ever before.

Although it led to my weight gain earlier in life, I found

I had a knack for cooking ( fork, spoon, and knife). Although

it may have to wait until I retire, I would like to attend a cheftraining

school to see how far I could take that skill.

Finally, although I could have put it under hobbies, I

do on occasion write some poetry-it helps me to collect my

thoughts. I put it here because there are very few people I

would show this to, so for the most part it really is just

"4 Me."

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Figure 10.5 (left) "Before" photo

Figure 10.6 (right) Current photo

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Figure 10.7 The Future

Hopes

My hopes are all about the future and most are unknown (the

question mark in the cloud). I included lots of smiley faces as I

wish for the best.

I do want to be in a relationship sometime in the future

(two more rings). I also hope to have a family and that it will

last forever (infinity symbol).

These past 2 years I've been searching again for the

meaning of my life. There have been many, many days I question

what good I am. Ironically, in November 2004, I got an

answer for at least 1 day. I was in my office wondering this

very question when my door burst open. One of my administrative

assistants ran in with her arms waving and unable to

talk-I didn't have a clue at first of what was happening. She

had enough sense to spin around and put my hand in front of

her stomach-she was choking on a piece of food. I almost had

someone die in my arms that day. After four tries, she started

to slump forward in my arms. On the fifth try, I thought for

sure I was going to hurt her, but fortunately it was on that final

try that the food dislodged and she took a gasp of air. Although

we don't talk about it much, we have a bond that can

never be broken. That was Veteran's Day (November 11-

life preserver). Although it was a very good thing, I can see

where I tend to erase the positive, focus more on what I

could/should be doing, and then become down as I try to jumpstart

myself once more to other things.

I do attend church again but, for the most part, stay on

the fringe (smaller cross). Although I want to take things

more slowly than in the past, I was asked to play a role in a

drama in the near future (me on stage).

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Foolish

Every once in a while I tend to do something crazy (e.g., driving

a car at 150 mph). Most of these I haven't done yet as my

family members try to talk me out of them-maybe it's a good

thing they do. I've threatened to go bungee jumping off a

bridge or go parachuting quite often. I am thinking of training

for a marathon. This past July I ran my first 5k race. All

of the proceeds went to one of my coworkers who has been battling

brain cancer for the past 10 months. His initial prognosis

was 18 months to live and when I crossed the finish line, he

met me there. I whispered to him that I would run that race

every year if he would continue to meet me at the finish line.

He is one of my heroes.

Emotions

Most of my life I've kept my emotions buried (part of my upbringing).

The branch is primarily red and it actually turned

into a vein which burst open when I thought of all the frustration

I've experienced by not letting my feelings (like love)

show. The stability branch is in gold, as it is what several seem

to prize the most in life. That branch leads to peace (the rainbow).

However, most people (including me) are unable to take

the easy path, so they have to go through hurt (bandage) and

come to a point of acceptance (open hands) before they can be

happy and hopefully peaceful.

Conclusion

After I had drawn all of this, I somehow felt that my future

had boundaries or limitations and yet I didn't know how to

show that. Then I got the idea for the clock. When I consider

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that I am over 40, I realize that I can still do much in life but

it is an eventual march against time. Finally, although I had

no clue I had done this when I drew the clock, I found it interesting

that "peace falls outside time." There is a lesson in

there somewhere.

World Trade Center Memorial Park

Kaizad Irani is an architect who left the corporate world because

of his passion to teach-and he is one of the best at it!

Kaizad is currently a professor of landscape architecture with

Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois. He is a soughtafter

guest professor by universities all over the world. I

count it a privilege to know him. Below is the story about his

map. Refer to Figure 10.8.

Two years after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the

city of New York started looking at various memorials to help

the residents and the world heal from the aftermath of devastation.

They contacted the Associated Landscape Contractors

of America (ALCA), and initiated a design competition

to create a landscape design for a memorial park that would

be built in Lower Manhattan under the shadow of Ground

Zero.

In May, 2003, the finalists (including myself ) for the

design charrette met in Chicago and started working on the

landscape plan. The design charrette consisted of approximately

30 finalists who were some of the top landscape architects

and designers in the country. Each architect was assigned

to one of five teams, and the teams were given 2 days to come

up with a landscape plan for the WTC (World Trade Center)

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Figure 10.8 World Trade Center Memorial Park

Memorial Park. I created this map for my team during the

initial Site Analysis phase of the design process.

The map that I created helped explain to the design jury

the significance and importance of designing the winning

project. It showed what makes an urban park work. This was

a key aspect to our success.

Currently, the project [is] undergoing some final changes

and logistical issues before its installation in New York.

As you can see from these examples, idea mapping isn't about

a bunch of rules. It's a process of understanding how it is that

our brains associate, collect, organize, and remember information

and then of deciding on the best way to represent and

use that data in a meaningful way. See Figure 10.9 for a summary

of the different idea maps where we saw how the rules

were broken in this chapter. Create maps that fulfill your

purposes and create them in a way that is visually pleasing. At

the same time, feel free to create idea maps that look like

a complete disaster. I know I've certainly had my share of

those, but they were only for me and no one else. Be yourself

when you are idea mapping. After all-they are your ideas!

In the next chapter we will revisit one of your earlier activities

and see how you are progressing.

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Figure 10.9 Chapter 10 Summary