Dilip has sent me an email about consultant Dr Scott Simmerman making an observation to the effect that Evelyn Wood (of Reading Dynamics) was the originator of 'mind-mapping'.
I wrote back to highlight that Dr Simmerman had probably echoed - if I recall correctly - what an earlier old-timer consultant/trainer Bob Pike had said - in writing - about Evelyn Wood, having invented 'mind-mapping'.
I also mentioned to Dilip about another school of thought:
Gabriele Rico, a professor of English & Creative Arts, invented 'clustering' (sometimes known as Rico Clusters), based on her doctoral dissertatuion at Stanford University during the mid-70's.
Personally, I have always subscribed to the fact that 'clustering' is the precursor to 'mind-mapping'.
It is quite possible that Evelyn Wood may have come up during the 50's with a rudimentary graphical outline, resembling some sort of "a radiating spoke with truncated lines" as a keyword-based approach to organise info after speed reading, but I can't verify it.
Nonetheless, I have seen many variations with fancy names like 'patterned notes', 'spidergrams', etc.
There are also ramblings from some quarters that Leonardo da vinci was the true progenitor, but I have yet to see any of his sketches or drawings with the effect.
Obviously all these pot shots - I believe probably sparked off by Bok Pike in the 80's - boil down to the fact that Americans just can't accept a Brit for the discovery or invention of 'mind-mapping'.
For me, it's fair to say - in fact I hold this view - that Tony Buzan had certainly taken a very brave stance by sticking his neck out to formalise what is now known to the world as 'mind-mapping', with some refined rules, starting in the seventies or so.
Frankly speaking, any further deliberation in this area is likely to end up as an academic exercise.
After all, the most important thing about it is what works & what doesn't.
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