Mindjet Unleashes Creativity with Online Collaboration Tools

One of the great things about the Internet, and Web-based tools is that they make the world a smaller place and enable virtual teams to work together remotely. Recent acquisitions and new tools from Mindjet are making cloud-based collaboration even easier and more productive.

Mindjet announced that it has acquired Cohuman, and launched Mindjet Connect and MindManager 2012 to give teams the tools they need to spark creativity and drive productivity. Mindjet is focused on letting teams work together and stay in sync, sharing ideas securely to get the job done.

Forrester's Rob Koplowitz indicated in his 2011 report that 43 percent of information workers work from multiple locations over the course of a month, and that 42 percent work outside of the corporate firewall. Work is decentralized, moving faster and likely to keep changing at a rapid pace to keep up with the similarly frenetic pace of change in communications, business and technology.

To address these evolving needs, Mindjet bought Cohuman--a social task-based Web service that makes information more people-centric, organized and transparent. Cohuman incorporates aspects of social networks like Facebook and Twitter to give people the ability to better coordinate and collaborate with project teams.

In addition to the Cohuman acquisition, Mindjet launched MindManager 2012 Professional for Windows. MindManager 2012 helps teams spark fresh ideas. It helps teams unleash creativity with a three-step approach using pre-defined challenge questions, inspiration cards, and a visual representation that helps teams refine concepts and plans.

"MindManager 2012 has been designed meet the needs of today's professional who constantly barraged with new opportunities and pressing business challenges," said Blaine Mathieu, chief products officer, Mindjet. "The new Directed Brainstorming feature organizes an outpouring of ideas that can be quickly honed into real solutions for real business needs."

Mindjet has also launched Mindjet Connect. This collaborative work management tool pulls all of Mindjet's products and apps together and provides teams with a cloud-based service to visualize plans and ideas, securely manage and share files, and foster an environment that gives users access to the information they need anytime and anywhere.

"Work today is different. Individuals and teams are overloaded, increasingly virtual and knee deep in unstructured information, resulting in a lack of clarity, accountability and action," said Scott Raskin, Mindjet CEO. "Mindjet Connect goes beyond document management and file sharing, and includes a powerful way to visualize information that provides faster insight and better results."

Best of all, it's free. Mindjet Connect Free edition provides teams with access to Connect from the Web, desktop, and mobile devices, and the ability to share files and projects with an unlimited number of users. It also makes it easy for teams to manage online files and documents, and provides 1GB of free online storage.

The Mindjet Connect Business edition has all of the same features as the free version, plus more advanced document management, and enhanced permission controls, and 6GB of storage. The Business edition is $45 per month.

Both the Free and Business editions of Mindjet Connect will be available as of 9/22. There is also an SP edition that integrates the Mindjet tools with an existing SharePoint infrastructure. The SP edition is slated to be available later this year and no pricing information is available yet.