Tony Goodson has a good explanation of how he used MindManager recently to respond to a tender ("tender" is described here by Wikipedia):
"I used MindManager to run the tender response," Tony says. "We brainstormed ideas using a projector on to a wall. We reviewed our progress every day as a group. We planned our response, and did lots of rearranging of all the info and ideas we’d gathered, across the MindMap. And finally, I wrote my part of the response in MindManager, whereby I’d write my response in the Notes section of each main Topic/Branch, whilst looking at all the sub-branches I’d gathered. Then I exported all the notes into Word – a complete response that needed nothing but formatting."
Tony also makes a reference to a discussion on Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passionate Users that is very relevant to mapping. Sierra, in talking about the need to "make products interesting," poses the question "If you were a brain, and you’d been evolving for a very, very long time… what would you find interesting?"
Clearly, the content itself has to be compelling. But will the average business person be willing to slog through pages of text to find the kernal of inspiration that convinces them of the value of your product or service? We have one customer who submitted a proposal for new business, was summarily turned down, and then resubmitted the proposal as a MindManager map. The client could immediately drill to what was most interesting to them, see all the detail they needed–and gave our customer a big chunk of business.
It is the message AND how it is delivered.