‘We think like exploding stars’
Vijay Dandige
12 November 2008
Since 1974, Tony Buzan’s ingenious creation, the ‘Mind Map’, has helped millions worldwide to
unlock their mental capacities and creative talents
HE HAS ONE mission in his life: to unlock the power of our brains, and show us how to tap and use our creative genius with ease.
He asserts, with conviction, that each one of us is brilliant. Our only flaw: we don’t use even 1 per cent of our brains and we don’t use our brains in the right way.
For nearly four decades, Tony Buzan has taken it upon himself to teach millions how to use their brains properly. He is the inventor of Mind Maps, the most powerful ‘thinking tool’ of our times. He has authored and co-authored 95 books, published in 130 countries. Mind Mapping can virtually be used for everything, whether note taking, planning, remembering, organising, creative thinking, problem solving to shopping and learning. Mind Mapping is taught and used in almost every Fortune company and in countries throughout the world. Over 200 million people do Mind Mapping on the planet. In a rare tribute, The Times of London predicted: “Buzan will do for the brain what Stephen Hawking did for the universe.”
Tony Buzan was in Dubai last week, for a one-day seminar at Dhow Palace Hotel, organised by Right Selection, a Dubai-based organisation that introduces training and development initiatives to companies in the Gulf region that are committed to promoting a learning culture within their organisations. Right Selection is representing Tony Buzan throughout the Middle East (www.rightselection.com).
Tall, impeccably dressed in a blue blazer, his tufts of silver hair giving him the aura of a distinguished scholar, Tony Buzan gets candid with City Times in this exclusive interview.
How did you think up the idea of Mind Map?
In school I was a good note taker. I could write 15 words on a line, 600 words on a page, in good handwriting. In university things became more difficult. So I took more notes, but the more notes I took the more I began to drown. As exam loomed, I found myself frantically going through my notes and underlining key words or phrases and then putting them on memory cards. I realised that these key words were the essence, the nuggets, and the rest was nothing, a waste of energy. Over the next few years, I studied how the great thinkers, Da Vinci, Darwin, Edison, Einstein and others took notes. I studied the nature of memory, the brain cells, the nature of creativity, and the Mind Map evolved. So, it started with key words. In the beginning they were prototype Mind Maps. Then I added colours and images, realising the truth of the adage, ‘A picture is worth 1000 words’ – because we remember with images, not with words. I added codes and curved lines, because curved lines are more attractive to the brain. So the Mind Map became: key words, colours, images, connections and locating them in their right place.
Mind Mapping is said to be based on the concept of radiant thinking. In learning, remembering etc., why is radiant thinking on paper more effective than normal linear thinking?
The way the brain fundamentally thinks is radiant, meaning that it thinks primarily from image centres, and then radiates out. We think like exploding stars. The brain’s thinking processes, especially memory, creativity and understanding are based on networks of information. When you say ‘mango’, the brain sees the picture of the mango, imagines the taste, the colour. So, from that central picture mango, you have the radiant branches, taste, colour, tropics, your favourite mango, mango cakes, mango pudding, mango drink, regions where mangos are grown… all radiating off, with rich sensory details. So, Mind Map reflects on the page the way the brain thinks. The normal listing not only doesn’t reflect it, it interferes with the process.
When did you realise that Mind Map was a powerful tool that could help others as well?
Mind Mapping had made a phenomenal difference for me. It changed my life. I was then teaching in public schools, and also special needs and delinquent children. Once in the late 60s I was teaching this class of delinquent children. And there was this 12-year-old boy who was a hard case. He was written off by everybody. The principal told me to ignore him. Anyway I showed the class how to do a Mind Map. And this boy, deemed as the dullest, did a phenomenal Mind Map about cars, which was his passion. Then he stood in front of the class, which he had never done before and, reading from his Mind Map, told the class about cars, their engines, mechanics etc. And I began to realise that if you could transform a child’s performance and his opinion of himself and transform the other children’s opinion of him, in one hour, then the Mind Map was something pretty powerful.
How has Mind Mapping grown since its launch in 1974?
It has grown exponentially. Since 1974, I have been asked by businesses and others around the world to come and explain Mind Mapping. Companies like IBM, British Petroleum, leading Management institutes, British Government, Microsoft, Singapore Airlines, HP and many others. I even briefly taught Margaret Thatcher, when she was in the opposition. By 1980, many of the Fortune 500 companies were using Mind Maps. One Boeing man saved $12 million in nine months through a giant Mind Map summarising a 3000-page operations manual on how to build a new aircraft. It began to spread very rapidly. By the 1990s it was getting into governments, where it became a powerful tool for some, like governments of Mexico, China, Malaysia, Bahrain, Singapore, Thailand, Scotland, Germany, Dubai, England and now in America. So, governments globally are using and promoting Mind Mapping. Today, over 200 million people use Mind Mapping.
And how has its acceptance in the educational field been?
At the same time, it began to develop in schools. In education, the star example is Singapore where the ministry of education communicates to 28,000 teachers through Mind Maps. Over 5000 teachers there are trained in Mind Maps to help them teach better. Bahrain has sponsored the World Memory Championship to help children learn how to remember through Mind Maps. In Mexico the Ministry of Health teaches everybody Mind Mapping. And the biggest university, Tec D’Monterey has instituted a programme where 130,000 students in 33 campuses around Latin America will be taught how to Mind Map and will be given extra training in the application of it.
How do you see the development of Mind Mapping software? And what is your opinion of the various Mind Mapping softwares that have come up?
I was always in favour of doing Mind Mapping software. I have worked on nearly every Mind Mapping software that is out there, and none ever really satisfied me. They are not Mind Map software. They are lying. What these softwares produce are not really Mind Maps. Most of them don’t even have images; their lines are straight; they are not flexible; in some you cannot colour properly. They are better than linear notes but they are not better than a proper Mind Map. A proper Mind Map will multiply your thinking capacity by tens to hundreds of times.
So, how did your own software iMindMap come about?
Four years ago, a man called Chris Griffiths came to me. He had an education company that provided video and television programmes for the British Ministry of Education. His company had been using Mind Maps. He told me he thought he could come up with a software that would crack the problem of allowing the computer to manifest thinking like the human brain does. I gave him the go ahead and a year and half later he came out with the first baby software which was subsequently perfected. And this is the software that replicates what human thinking would like. The software is so good, and I’m saying it objectively, that when it came out it went to the top of the Amazon software list in Japan.
How is a Mind Map a valuable tool for developing creativity?
The main aspect of creativity is the ability to generate ideas to come up with solutions to problems. In normal brainstorming a group leader tells his members to come up with ideas, which are noted and listed on a flip chart. But a list cuts off associations between ideas and therefore the exclusive radiant thinking is cut off into shreds in a list, whereas a Mind Map gives you the big picture. You can make more connections and the more connections you can make the more creative you are. So the Mind Map is the creative thinking tool. For example, I used Mind Maps to create every single book that I have written. I brainstorm what I want to write, and do a Mind Map and write the book from the Mind Map.
How effective is a Mind Map when it comes to understanding something that is totally new?
Ultimately, what is understanding? Understanding means nothing but being aware of the focus of the subject and the correct relationship between things in that subject. That is another way of saying Mind Map. A Mind Map gives you the centre and the relationship between the different ideas of it. So, the Mind Map is the demonstration of your understanding.
Having come this far, how do you see Mind Mapping evolving in the future?
My vision is that Mind Mapping will be the standard method for people to take notes. And I do see Mind Map as a very socially responsible, quality-of-life-improving technique. I see Mind Map being used in international conflict situations as a peace-enhancing tool. If the nations in conflict with each other could sit in a big room and, on a giant screen, Mind Map their conflict and their goals and areas of common interest, I think peace would happen a lot more rapidly and functionally. Because they will have seen the whole picture, including all the areas of their wants and needs and their disagreements and they will find some solutions. I see it as a creative thinking tool that will help prevent the kind of crisis the world is in at the moment. I see it as a tool that will help the human race evolve and help pave the way for everybody to be part of the future information democracy. I see Mind Map as a universal language because it deals in images and associations – a language that will help us dissolve differences of race, nationality etc and pave the way for a lot more cooperation and mutual generation of solutions.
What else would you like to share about Mind Maps?
What I would like is that everyone should find out about it, learn about it and apply it. I would like more and more people to join the growing family of global Mind Mappers. I want every parent to make sure that their child has Mind Map software. I want every parent and every teacher to make sure that children know about their brain. I want millions of people to learn how to teach this. The biggest problem in the world at the moment in terms of human existence is starvation. Two billion people are starving. The starvation of thinking is the main cause for physical starvation. So, if everyone is taught how to think, physical starvation would not exist. So, teaching people thinking skills, helping them develop their intelligence is for me the prime way of preventing global physical starvation. I want people to join the family to stop mental starvation. I want the world to be filled with warriors of the mind.
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