Apple’s 1997 Think Different ad campaign celebrated creative people in all their rebellious glory. Part of that campaign was a manifesto, which is represented here in the form of a colorful mind map.
A contributor to BiggerPlate.com with the user name of “murname” recently uploaded a mind map of Apple’s famous “Think Different” manifesto, created in XMind. I’m in the process of reading Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography of the late Steve Jobs (which I highly recommend!), which includes the back story to this incredibly successful branding campaign, so this mind map really caught my attention. I thought it was “insanely great” that someone took the time to do this.
But it was a little too monochromatic for my taste. So I imported it into NovaMind 5, which enables you to easily create rainbow colored maps, and added the vintage Apple “rainbow” logo to complete the ensemble you see above (click to display a larger version with all of the branches open – it’s 1200 pixels wide, so you may have to make your browser window larger to see it at full resolution).
The “Think Different” branding campaign, launched in 1997 after Jobs had returned to lead Apple as its interim CEO, was designed to make the world’s creative people and entrepreneurs – misfits and rebels, all – feel like someone really understood what motivated them. I think that audience shares a lot of qualities in common with you, the readers of this blog:
- You’re not satisfied with the status quo of linear thinking. No, you’ve seen the future, and it’s definitely no-linear, visual and spatial.
- Problems today are complex and multidimensional, and you need a tool that can help you to view them at a system level as well as be able to dissect them into their elements. Mind mapping software fits that need like no other kind of software.
- You don’t care if your coworkers and managers think mind mapping is too frivolous.
- You enjoy being able to gather, organize, distill and reach clarity quickly on the mountain of information coming at you – faster than anyone thinks is possible.
- You love being able to discern patterns and opportunities that others aren’t even aware of.
- Your mind mapping software is part of your “aura” – those qualities that make you unique and enable you to contribute at a higher level in your work. It’s part of what gets you noticed, and gets you access to some of the coolest projects in the company.
You see things differently, and that’s good. The world needs people like you right now.
Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the original Think Different manifesto:
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
The post Apple’s ‘Think Different’ manifesto as a mind map appeared first on Mind Mapping Software Blog.
