3.2 - Add a statement to the model
Now that you've got a model open, it's time to add some information to the model.
Remember, information in MindModel is stored as nouns and statements. Nouns are the people, places, things, etc. that are stored in the model. Statements are facts about those people, places, things, etc.
Suppose you just came from a business meeting where you discovered some information worth storing in MindModel. You learned that Bill Rogers knows how to design web sites. Our goal will be to store this information as a MindModel statement.
Most statements in MindModel are composed of subject nouns, verbs, and object nouns. There are fancier types of statements, but we'll stick with simple three-part statements for now.
The subject noun is the noun at the beginning of the statement. The object noun is the noun at the end of the statement. The verb links the subject noun to the object noun, showing the relationship between the two.
If we look at the sentence "Bill Rogers knows how to design web sites" we see that "Bill Rogers", a person, is the subject noun.
Since our model is empty, we need to add "Bill Rogers" to the model as a person noun.
Adding a Noun to the Model
First, you have to tell MindModel that the noun you want to add is a person, so select "people" in the Noun Types List in the Noun Types Window. The Noun Types Window is in the upper left-hand corner of your MindModel screen.
The Noun Types Window looks like this.
The picture above shows that "people" is selected in the Noun Types List. If the "people" noun type does not appear in your Noun Types List, make sure that "basic types" is selected in the Noun Type Categories drop-down menu at the top of the Noun Types Window.
The two buttons at the bottom of the Noun Types Window will change to match the selected noun type. Since you've selected "people", the two buttons read "Add a Person" and "Find All People".
We want to add a person, so click the "Add a Person" button.
MindModel brings up a dialog which allows you to enter the person's name and contact information.
Enter Bill's first and last name in this dialog. If you like, you can go back later and add Bill's contact information.
When you're done entering Bill's first and last name, the dialog will look like this.
Click the "OK" button to confirm that you want to add Bill Rogers to the model.
MindModel will add Bill Rogers to the model. Since Bill Rogers is a noun, MindModel displays Bill in the Nouns List, as pictured in the Model Window below.
You've successfully added Bill Rogers to the model as a person noun.
Once a noun has been added to a model, you don't need to add it again. So any time you want to refer to Bill in a statement, you can click on his name. The following sections will show you how.
In the middle of the Model Window, between the Nouns List and the Statements List, you'll see a pair of radio buttons labeled "Find" and "Add". These are called radio buttons because they behave the way buttons did on car radios in the 1970's and earlier. Pushing one button selected that button and deselected the other buttons.
Try clicking these buttons, and you'll see that they behave this way. You can select either "Find" or "Add" but not both.
Click "Add" since our next goal is to add a statement for Bill Rogers.
The Find/Add area will look like this:
Bill is selected in the Nouns List and the Find/Add radio buttons are set to "Add", so you are ready to add a statement for Bill.
Click the "Bill Rogers" button to the right of the Add radio button and the phrase "Statements for".
When you click the "Bill Rogers" button, MindModel will display the Add/Edit Statement Wizard (AESW), which looks like this.
Add/Edit Statement Wizard
This dialog may look a bit complicated at first, but we'll take it step-by-step, and you'll see that it's actually quite simple.
Remember our goal here is add the fact that "Bill Rogers knows how to design web sites" to our model.
We know that MindModel statements have three parts (subject, verb, object). We've already added Bill Rogers (the subject) to the model as a person noun. So all we have to do is tell MindModel which verb and object we want to use, and we're done adding this statement.
First, let's focus on the verb. The idea we have in mind has something to do with "knowing how to do things".
Rules of the Game
At this point, it makes sense for us to step back from the details of using MindModel for a moment, and explain a few "rules of the game". By "rules of the game" we mean facts about the way that MindModel works that you need to know to use the software effectively.
In a game of poker, you need to know that three-of-a-kind beats a pair. A lot of things change from game to game, but if you don't know this rule, you're going to run into trouble sooner or later playing poker. MindModel is similar in that there a few "rules of the game" that you need to understand to take advantage of the software.
Standard Noun Types
One "rule of the game" in MindModel is that every noun must have a type. This rule makes it much easier to find information than if nouns of all types were lumped together.
When they first encounter MindModel, many new users request the ability to define their own noun types. What they don't realize is how much other work has to be done on their part in addition to naming these new types. For proof of this additional work, consider any of the generic databases (such as Microsoft Access), and how long it takes to learn how to use them effectively.
Standard Verbs
Another "rule of the game" is that you must use the standard MindModel verbs. There are over 600 standard MindModel verbs. You cannot add your own verbs to MindModel. We get a significant amount of negative feedback on this point, so we know that this design decision is not intuitive to most people at first.
We listen sincerely and with an open mind to all the feedback (both positive and negative) that we receive from our customers. In fact, at the time this Getting Started guide was written, there have been 618 upgrades to MindModel. Each of these new versions represents our listening to customer feedback, and introducing revisions to improve the software.
There are two main reasons why we've come to the conclusion that standard noun types and standard verbs are the way to go. If you'd like to discuss this issue in more detail, please feel free to contact us directly.
1) Ease of Use
Adding features that allow the user to add his or her own noun types and verbs would complicate the software, making it much more difficult to use.
Some of these complications are not immediately obvious. If the user can add his own noun types, he would also have to specify their type: alphanumeric (words), real number (with precision), integer, currency, boolean, etc.
Once the user defined his own noun types, he would also have to define all the relations to other noun types that make sense.
MindModel is preprogrammed, so that all this work has been done for you. We've considered the possible combinations of noun types and verbs, so MindModel narrows your choices to those that make sense.
For example, if you start a statement with "Bill Rogers reads", MindModel offers you the following list of object types: book, document, magazine, newspaper, etc. MindModel knows that these are all things that people read.
2) You Can Get What You Want in Other Ways
When people ask for custom noun types and verbs, what they're really asking for is flexibility. People need the ability to store any type of information they want, and name things however they want. MindModel gives you this flexibility.
Rather than allowing you to name your own noun types, MindModel gives you the freedom to name your own nouns.
A quick example will illustrate how.
Q. I want a custom noun type for cars. There's no category for cars. What can I do?
A. You can use the "product" noun type to store cars. You can name the cars any way you want. You can store information on hundreds of thousands of different cars. You can group all the cars together using the "product type" noun type. Then you can store information on hundreds of thousands of trucks, and group those together by a product type called "truck".
Using this two-level structure ("product" and "product type") you can store information on as many different things as you want, and still keep your data organized.
There are many other MindModel features and techniques that allow you a wide range of flexibility and expressiveness in your databases. Please refer to the "Feature Guide" section of this documentation, the printed "User's Guide", or contact us directly if you have additional questions.
Back to Our Regularly-Scheduled Program
You'll remember that we need to choose a standard verb to express the idea that Bill Rogers knows how to do something.
If we take another look at the Add/Edit Statement Wizard (AESW), we'll see that this dialog has four tabs: Verb, Type, Object and Prepositions. We'll only use the first three for now.
There are two ways to use the Verb tab in the AESW, one for when we're learning a new verb, and one for when we already know which standard verb we want to use.
The first way makes it easy to learn new verbs. The second way makes it easy to find verbs once we know them.
Finding a New Verb
If you take a look at the Verb tab of the AESW pictured above, you'll see that the right-hand side of the tab contains a list of all the verbs that go with people: achieves the goal, adopts, advertises in, agrees with, etc. If you like, you can scroll through this list of verbs.
The quickest way to find a new verb is to use the Verb Categories drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the tab.
When you choose a category from this drop-down menu, MindModel fills the list on the right with verbs in that category.
Click and hold where it says "(all verbs)", and scroll through the list of verb categories.
Select the verb category called "skills". The AESW will look something like this.
As you look through the list of skill verbs on the right, you'll see the verb: "has the skill".
Click "has the skill" to select it as the verb for your statement.
Click the "Next" button at the bottom of the Verb tab to continue.
The AESW now looks something like this.
This tab (the Object tab) contains one entry area and one scrolling list.
The entry area is the area directly below the title "Select a skill or enter a new one".
The scrolling list is the larger rectangle below the entry area. The scrolling list is empty at this time, because you haven't yet added skills to the model. Once you've added skills, MindModel will fill the list with these skills, so you can select them as the objects of statements.
Enter the skill "web site design" (without the quotes) directly below the title "Select a skill or enter a new one", then click the Finish button.
If you look at the Statements List, in the bottom of the Model Window, you'll see the statement you just created.
Let's pause again for a moment and consider what you've just accomplished.
You've added a person noun called "Bill Rogers" to the model. You've added a statement "Bill Rogers has the skill web site design". By adding that statement, you've also added a new skill noun called "web site design".
Any time in the future, you can look up Bill Rogers, and find that he has that skill. If you look up that skill, you'll find that Bill Rogers has it. If you look up who has what skill, you'll find that statement.
You've also learned the standard verb "has the skill". Even though it may have been a bit of a chore at first, you now have the ability to create as many databases as you want, about any number of people who have any number of skills. You can query those databases by person, or by skill.
Yes, you had to use the standard verb "has the skill", but you named the skill ("web site design") yourself. This is the combination of simplicity and flexibility we discussed earlier.
Since you used a standard verb, you can share your databases (models) with other MindModel users. They will know where to look for people's skills.
Click here to continue.