Launch Updates
Mind Map Nation is launching soon! Sign up for updates here.
🎉 Final Update: Doors Open
September 7, 2022
Today's the day. Our new MMN community members are making their way now to the Town Square to greet each other and peruse the Library's mind mapping books.
Next Monday (9/12), after we give folks a few days to arrive, we're kicking off the Nation's grand opening with our first virtual meetup where we'll break the ice and I'll go over how to navigate the community. The week itself will be packed with opportunities to ask questions and get to know everyone. If you're curious, check out the details on the launch updates page - or better yet, join us for the fun!
If you're wondering what's behind the community doors, you'll find a quick tour here:
This is also my last Launch Update email. For the first time in months, my launch Kanban board stands pretty empty. That "Done" column has 38 cards, each of which served as an important building block to what you'll see today at Mind Map Nation. It'll be a bitter sweet moment when I finally retire this board as I transition from "design & build mode" to running the community. I'm also looking forward to resuming my research and content creation.
This board kept me hyper focused throughout the entire build phase. Before I officially retire and merge it with my ongoing projects, I'd like make a YouTube series to share how I created MMN from beginning to end :)
And it all started from this little map drawn in my traveler's notebook back in February.
🙏 Thank you so much for sticking with me through the whole creation process. It's been a wonderful (though sometimes stressful) journey and your engagement kept me accountable to my goals and milestones every step of the way.
This also means starting next week, you'll receive the very first issue of Epiphany. You know, the newsletter that you probably signed up for in the first place? ;)
Alright, I've gotta head back to the Nation to greet our new citizens. Have a great week everyone 👊
Update #6: Launch Week Revealed 🚀
August 31, 2022
One. More. Week. That's what's on my mind today ;)
Riding on last week's update on community events, I finalized the Launch Week events after taking into account the many different timezones our Founder members reside in. Here's an overview of what's happening.
1. What's Coming Up
September 7 Doors Open: Accepted Nation applicants will get an invitation email to sign-up with payment details. After which, they'll be teleported to the community Town Square to make intros, browse the ebooks in The Library, and spark conversations in the Houses.
September 12-16 Launch Week: After we give everyone a few days to arrive, we'll be kicking off the Nation's grand opening with a full line up of virtual meetups to get to know each other.
2. Launch Week Festivities
🚀 Community Kickoff: If you're going to attend one event this week, make it this one. This is the first time when you'll meet everyone live and break the ice!
🧑🏫 2x Office Hours: Get personalized advice and answers to your burning questions. I'm holding two sessions to give all our members across the globe the chance to join.
⚡ Mid-week Power Hour: Need a boost to your productivity with coworking accountability? Hop into this session to join me for a sustained hour of focus (5 minutes intro + 50 minutes work + 5 minutes break to share your experience). This is the kind of vibes we're going for. If you're arriving a little late, feel free to share what you're working on in the chat.
🔥 Ask Me Anything: Nothing beats a good AMA that puts me in the hot seat ;) Whatever we don't cover in office hours we'll dive into here.
🎉 Happy Hour: Grab your favorite beverage (or coffee depending on where you are). We'll chill and share our favorite Launch Week highlights. If you can't join us live, be sure to share a noteworthy moment from your week in the 🙌 Community Wins channel!
Don't worry if the above sounds like a lot. As mentioned in last week's update #5, there's a community calendar that you can add so you won't miss anything. The only date to remember now is September 7 :)
That's it for now. I'm doing the final pre-flight checks over Labor Day weekend + publishing one more update video. The next time you hear from me will be on the other side of the community!
Update #5: Events & Challenges 📆
August 24, 2022
It's another big week here at the Nation. The Founders Group acceptance letters (ahem emails) just went out. I am so impressed with your thoughtful application responses especially around how you're using mind maps and what you're looking to get out of the Community.
Our first cohort is looking to be a very strong one filled with intentional and multi-faceted individuals. I'm literally counting every day towards September 7th when the community's doors officially open.
Today, I'm sharing what you'll find on the other side once you become a member: Events and Challenges are the staples of effective group learning.
1. Community Events Calendar
Last week in Update #4, we covered the House discussion channels where members can talk to each other asynchronously. Events, on the other hand, are live virtual meetups.
The MMN Community Calendar has exclusive weekly, monthly and special events such as:
Office Hours: Get personalized advice and answers to your burning questions. I alternate between morning and evening sessions to give all our global members the opportunity to join.
Power Hours: Need a boost to your productivity with coworking accountability? Hop into this session to join me for a sustained hour of Pomodoro focus (50 minutes work + 10 minutes break). Feel free to share what you're working on in the chat.
1:1 Coaching Hours: Each week, I'll select one member's coaching request to take on, which could be on any topic from my coaching page.
Ask Me Anything: I've made a lot of YouTube videos at this point, but nothing beats a good AMA that put me in the hot seat ;).
Masterclasses: These are hyper focused 1-hour workshops designed to get you up to speed on a new skill or tool. The first one is scheduled in October after our first community Challenge (more on this next). This is definitely an area where I think our members will find a lot of fun and value hosting.
Here's a preview of what the Events Calendar page looks like. The calendar itself can be added via Google Calendar so members don't miss any events.
2. Community Challenges
Accountability is key to succeeding in anything, especially learning new skills and frameworks. Unfortunately, studies show abysmal completion rates for online courses. If you have a long list of unfinished MOOCs like me, then you know exactly what I mean.
This is why we have Community Challenges, guided 1-2 week programs that get the MMN community rallying to keep each other going to the finish line.
In September, I'm leading our first Challenge based on the book of the same name: 7 Days to Mind Map Mastery. During that week, we'll start with a kickoff call, then create one themed Mind Map per day, share our thoughts and encouragement in the comments, and meet back together for a live retrospective session to solidify our learnings.
In the process, participants will also pick up useful techniques to improve their intentionality, productivity, and learning capability.
Every week will have recurring and special events for ample opportunities to grow together
Phew! A lot's coming to the Nation and in 2 weeks, the most important part of the community will arrive: members like you. In the next update, I'll go over what to expect for Launch Week.
Have a great week everyone!
Update #4: Community Sneak Peek! 👀
August 17, 2022
This week the MMN members community has now gone from mind map concept to reality! I'm excited to share the sneak peek with you today :)
1. Mapping Your Needs
There were several steps that went into designing the community. In the MMN membership application, there are two specific questions that tell me what you're looking for in a mind mapping community. I carefully read through *all* your responses (which were awesome btw!), extracted the key themes and connected them to the different components of the community site.
This exercise helped me gauge if the final product will capture your needs. And if not, what features can I add to do so, such as adding a new discussion channel or "House" dedicated to professional mind mapping scenarios (more on this in a bit).
2. Community Sneak Peek
In the above screenshot, you'll see a few things:
1. Lit Community Logo
The community and website logos are different. The community version is lit up by a glowing orb in its center to represent how you are the heart of Mind Map Nation. Without you all, MMN is just another content site floating in the vast interwebs.
The logo also makes it slightly easier to differentiate the two sites on your browser ;)
2. Town Square
This is where you start your journey, make introductions, attend live events, learn continuously, and suggest community improvements. Here are a few highlights.
Community Wins is one of my favorite channels because recognizing and celebrating our incremental successes is critical to growing in anything. Whether it's finishing a big presentation, closing out your latest 2-week sprint, or making your first mind map, this is where the whole community can root you on!
The Community Handbook has a quick start guide plus everything you need to make the most of your membership.
The Knowledge Vault contains MMN's shared educational collection like ebooks, courses, and workshop recordings, which will continue to grow as our community expands.
3. Challenges
Many of you told me the need for accountability partners. This is where you'll find folks to level up together on 1-2 week challenges. I'll go into more detail about these programs in the next update.
4. Five Conversation "Houses"
Outside the Town Square are five Houses. These are the conversation engines of MMN where members dive into different topics. Why name them "houses"? Harry Potter references aside, a real world house provides a home for likeminded people to gather and mingle.
I thought a lot about the "user personas" or identities of who would love to frequent each House and named them accordingly. For instance, Strategy Nerds are philosophical-leaning folks like the Charlie Mungers and Ben Thompsons of the world who analyze everything in a high-level abstract way. I then include examples of the types of conversations/posts that would take place in each House.
The other personas are: Creative Geniuses (Jonathon Ives and Ed Catmulls), Productivity Gurus (Ali Abdaals and Tiago Fortes), Tactical Masterminds (the professional LinkedIn crowd and my coaching clients), and Sensitive Poets (Brene Browns and Paulo Coelhos). For those who follow my Silver & Steel website, you'll notice that Geniuses and Poets are Silver leaning, while Gurus and Masterminds are Steel practitioners, whereas Nerds is a blend of the two. This makes for a balanced community where everyone can find a House where they can feel most at home in.
Take your time to explore each House to see which ones you naturally gravitate towards (maybe it's all of them!). Even if you don't immediately resonate with the nature of a particular House, it's useful to peek in and learn from minds outside our bubble. That's in fact how we become innovative Connected Thinkers.
Fun note: I personally have a strong affinity to House Strategy Nerds + Sensitive Poets, but shift between all of them depending on the situation. Right now, for example, I'm squarely in Creative Genius + Productivity Guru mode as I'm building MMN.
Update #3: Launch Timeline + New Home Page 🏠
August 10, 2022
I got married last week and just returned from honeymoon, during which I was still cranking away on MMN and posting the latest video on Mind Mapping Emotions, which was very well received by you all as I crossed the 18k subscriber mark 🙏🏼. Olivia, my now wife, was also gracious enough to let me be on the computer half the time while we were on "vacation"!
Alright, let's check on the progress...
1. Counting Down
We are less than a month away from the official launch of the MMN community and the below timeline will give you a preview of what's to come.
Be sure to submit your members application (acceptance emails will be sent out on 8/24) soon to get the Mind Mapping eBooks for free before they go on sale to the general public. I've already received responses from all over the world including SF, LA, NY, Alabama, Scotland, Japan, Guam, India, Taiwan, Australia and even Papua New Guinea! I seriously can't wait to meet all of you.
You also won't want to miss the Launch Week events where I will host a meet and greet for everyone to introduce themselves plus an AMA. 1:1 Coaching prompts will also be sent out then.
2. New "Start Here" & Home Pages
The MMN homepage got a fresh facelift - check it out!
One of the most consistent feedback I've gotten is that it's difficult for someone just getting started in mind mapping to navigate my content now that there's so much. I've finally addressed this with a Start Here page that features my best articles and videos under specific categories.
Update #2: Newsletter & Member Applications ✍️
July 27, 2022
MMN weekly newsletter "Epiphany"
After mind mapping for 15 years, I can tell you that the true power of this tool isn't just to help us organize chaos, but to reach new Epiphanies.
You see, despite the versatility of mind maps, it pales in comparison to the actual human mind. Nature has made us the most powerful general learning algorithms in the world. Every technology and advance around us came from it.
Our machines may be fast and handle unfathomable bytes of data, but they can’t hold a candle to us when it comes to our natural associative thinking abilities.
Mind mapping trains our powers of associative (connected) thinking, observation, inquisitiveness, 2nd order thinking, and objectivity. All these lead to epiphanies, mental supernovas when "everything clicks" and the game completely changes.
In fact, the first antibiotic was discovered this way.
"One sometimes finds, what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic." — Alexander Fleming
Fleming, a Scottish microbiologist, left and forgot a few bacteria petri dishes in a corner of his lab before leaving for holiday with his family. Upon his return, he noticed that one dish was contaminated with a fungus, and that there wasn't any bacteria growing around it. He famously remarked, "That's funny" and proceeded to change history by isolating penicillin from a single mold.
A less observant person with dull connected thinking abilities would have completely missed the significance of this groundbreaking moment.
Steve Jobs expressed the same sentiment nearly a century later - that creativity is just connecting things:
"When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." — Steve Jobs
So my passion for mind maps really stems from the deep belief in using this tool to harness the full potential of our minds and experiences to generate immense creative value. Mind maps help us become versatile, connected thinkers at a time when we need it most in the face of AI automation, murky information, growing uncertainties.
This power exists in all of us. My goal is not only to make us more productive (we'll give that to the machines, thank you very much), but help you become strong independent thinkers who are adaptable, creative and capable of making your own opportunities.
What you'll find in this newsletter after Launch
That's why I'm naming MMN's newsletter "Epiphany". Each week you will receive an email with:
1) One mind map (see here, here, and here for examples) to demonstrate how I use the tool.
2) One epiphany that I had. This is an idea that stopped me in my tracks. Mind maps optional.
3) One snippet of wisdom. In other words, an epiphany drawing from my readings and conversations.
As the community picks up, I look forward to sharing storyworthy moments and guest articles from our friends in the Community Highlights section.
Speaking of which...
Join the MMN Founders Group
As I mentioned in the last update, prospective MMN members will go through a simple application process so that our initial Founder Group can make meaningful connections and contribute to a vibrant community. This also allows me to dedicate more time to enhancing your experience with intimate weekly events, timely replies, and incorporating feedback.
Once you're in, you'll be able to engage in the main forum Channels (🧠 Structured Thinking, ⛰️ Intentional Productivity, 🌱 Harnessing Creativity, 💠 Inner Cultivation etc), create your own Support Circles and events, apply for 1:1 coaching sessions, and access exclusive members resources like mind mapping books, tutorials, and weekly challenges. Here's the full menu of exclusive membership benefits.
Last but not least, you'll also get a special Founders Badge next to your name so everyone will know you were one of the original members who brought this community to life.
Here's the application and the process.
Ah thank you for making it this far - the official launch date is September 14 :)
That's it for now. Next time I'll share the full launch timeline and how to best navigate the new website. I look forward to reading your thoughtful responses soon!
Update #1: Let’s GO
July 19, 2022
Sheng here. I've been in deep work the last few months building Mind Map Nation (that is when I'm not flying across the world to hike 100 miles in the French Alps to meet the future in-laws 😂). Today I'm excited to finally reveal a sneak peek of what's been going on under covers.
The Mission
First, why does Mind Map Nation (MMN) exist? The manifesto is here along with the meaning behind the logo design. MMN is for "connected thinkers" who yearn to make something of every facet of who we are. We are all gifted with the power of creation despite the term "creator" these days being used to describe a solopreneur or influencer. We are not widget makers or mere consumers, but beings in search of productive and meaningful existences. MMN is dedicated to helping you find your guiding light and enable you with the tools, systems, and people to get you there.
The Tale of Two Websites
Content Site
First is the main site which houses free articles and resources grouped by the following topics:
🧠 Structured Thinking: frameworks, mental models, systems thinking, and training powers of analysis.
⛰️ Intentional Productivity: productivity systems and tools and clarification of purpose.
🌱 Harnessing Creativity: Learning, capturing creative inspiration, and training powers of observation.
💠 Inner Cultivation: mental & emotional wellbeing, winning mindsets and growing wisdom.
♟️ Strategy Nerd: this is where I go ham and geek out on various topics like economics, future of work, the metaverse etc.
I originally had a separate category for Effective Learning, but decided to combine it into Harnessing Creativity. The rationale is that the purpose of learning (after we've left the circus of academia) is to enhance our creation ability. Being a connected thinker means being a perpetual student, observant of our daily surroundings and experiences and using structured thinking to create new insights and solutions, not just memorize and regurgitate knowledge.
I'm authoring the initial pieces, but would like to share high quality articles from our community in the future.
Community Site
Second is the community site, the "Nation" in Mind Map Nation. For this I'm using Circle, a platform with features like forum, chat, support groups, and events. I'm part of several online communities built on Circle and am a big fan of how well members can connect and grow together on there. Being part of the MMN community is $15 per month or $120 a year.
Member Benefits & Application
Mind Mapping Books
First are two ebooks designed to greatly improve your mind mapping skills in just one week, one hour a day. Together they feature a 25-page guide on everything you need to get started with mind mapping, and a 60-page seven-day structured program in full color. They are FREE for MMN members.
Community
Then there are the community and people. The launch MMN group will go through an application (more on this next week). Don't worry, no one will be unreasonably turned away - it's to ensure that our initial “founder cohort” care about making meaningful connections, growing a vibrant community and making the most of their membership.
Once you are in the community, you'll not only be able to engage in the main forum Channels (based on the topics above), but also create your own Support Circles and events based on your unique interests. Need a 2-week sprint accountability partner, practice public speaking with a new workshop idea, or geek out on second brains? You'll find the right folks here.
Events
Speaking of events, I will host official weekly office hours for mind mapping questions, "power hour" co-working sessions to boost our productivity, monthly AMA's that put me in the hot seat, and even bi-weekly drawings for 1:1 coaching sessions with me ($500 value). In addition, I will be a regular moderator on the Channels and Support Circles.
Challenges
I'm also looking forward to taking on the Challenges with you, which are 1-2 week programs designed to level you up in some way. At launch we will have a 7-day Mind Mapping Skills Challenge and a 10-day Empowering Mind Maps Challenge. Like everything else on MMN, these will grow over time.
I have always wanted to develop a deeper relationship with you, my dear viewers, but YouTube has never been the right platform. This is why I'm so excited to meet you on Mind Map Nation.
That's it for now. Next week I'll share more details on the membership application, what to expect from the MMN newsletter going forward (these build updates aren't it I promise ;) as well as the launch timeline.