An interview with Tony Buzan

Interview by: Alistair Craven

Tony Buzan has achieved the status of 'guru', an accolade accorded to very
few. He has worked with corporate entities and businesses all over the world; academics;
Olympic athletes; children of all ages; governments; and high profile individuals, in
teaching them how to maximize the use of their brain power.
He is the inventor of Mind Maps®, the most powerful 'thinking tool' of our times. The Chairman of
Microsoft, Bill Gates recognized its importance in his article entitled 'The Road Ahead – How
Mind-Mappers are taking our information democracy to the next stage' which recently appeared
in Newsweek Issues.
A prolific author, he has written – to date – 94 books, with sales in more than 150 countries; his
books have been translated into more than 33 languages. His latest titles are Age-Proof Your
Brain, published by Harper Thorsons in 2007; and The Buzan Study Skills Handbook, published
by BBC Active also in 2007.
One of his recent books, The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps, published by Thorsons in 2005, bears
testimony to his universally famous invention, and how their use can boost creativity and change
lives for the better.
The Pocket-sized Buzan Bites, published by the BBC in 2006, is a series of three distillations on
Mind Maps, speed reading and memory – perfect for busy people who want to learn these
exciting concepts and techniques quickly.
Tony's techniques are also taught via a global network of Buzan Licensed Instructors in Asia,
Europe, the Americas and Australasia. He is a familiar celebrity on Radio and TV, both in the UK
and globally, with a long list of credits to his name. His name is synonymous with all things
cerebral and his knowledge is widely sought after by a media and public perennially eager to
learn practical advice on how to improve brain function.

You developed the concept of the Mind Map in the late 1960s. How has your concept
grown and developed over the years?
Tony Buzan:
The first explosive growth for Mind Maps occurred in 1974. I had been teaching the new concept
in schools, Universities and businesses for six years, and the BBC, after investigating what I had
been doing, requested a half hour programme on the topic. After Mind Mapping the contents for
the programme, the Director of Higher Education at the BBC said that the Mind Map made it look
more like a 10-part series than a simple half hour programme. I agreed! In 1974 the 10-part Use
Your Head Series came out, accompanied by the Use Your Head book. This series was
repeated at least twice a year from 1974 to 1989. The book, according to the BBC, became a
“modern classic”, and now approaches sales worldwide of 2 million.
I have continued to travel around the world lecturing and appearing on radio and television, it
being recently estimated that more than 3 billion people globally are aware of the Mind Map
Concept. In China, in 2005, I presented a one-hour television programme on the brain, Mind
Mapping and Memory which was viewed by an estimated 350 million people. Six weeks ago, in
April 2007, a feature “Celebrity Talks” programme on Vietnamese Television, addressing the
same question, was seen by 80 million people.
A check last week by my webmaster on Google, unearthed 126 million pages referring to Mind
Maps alone. The growth and the development at the moment is, as you will have sensed,
meteoric!
How can Mind Mapping help in the world of business? Can you provide us with a specific
example?
Tony Buzan:
Mind Mapping is especially useful in the modern business world, which is increasingly becoming
a thinking, service and creative world. In business, the number of uses for Mind Maps is identical
to, and as multiple as, the uses for thinking. In business, Mind Maps are being used for project
planning, brainstorming and creative thinking, knowledge management, speech preparation and
presentation, strategic thinking, negotiation, continuing personal development (CPD), meeting
preparation, all forms of learning and problem solving. Indeed Bill Gates, in a recent NewsWeek
feature, stated that Mind Maps were “the road ahead – taking our information democracy to the
next level”.
There are many examples, the most recent of which is the May/June 07 issue of Time Magazine,
which features Al Gore on the cover. In the contents of the feature article there is a photograph
of Al Gore with his project Mind Map in front of him. The article points out that he uses Mind
Mapping to help him keep control of his thoughts.
You claim that in virtually every Fortune 500 company, there are a number of people who
are either doing Mind Mapping or helping others do it. In this setting it takes the form of a
note-taking technique. Can you explain a bit more about this?
Tony Buzan:
The Mind Map is the thinking tool that reflects the internal thought processes of the human brain.
When human thinking is externalized in its pure form, this becomes a Mind Map, and is a note
that reflects the brain’s own thinking processes. In the Fortune 500 companies, an increasing
number of individuals are using this technique for all the purposes I mentioned in response to
your first question. These thinking processes are now being greatly aided by the new Mind Map
software to which I shall return shortly.
Is Mind Mapping particularly popular within certain regions or cultures?
Tony Buzan:
Yes. This is not so much regional or type; it is attitudinal. Mind Mapping is popular in companies
or countries which are cutting edge, which are focusing much of their resources on learning and
thinking skills, and which have realized the significance of creative thinking and innovation in
gaining a competitive edge in the modern world.
These companies and countries, of which there are an accelerating number, include Microsoft,
IBM, Oracle, HSBC, Con Edison, Reckitt Benckiser, and Hewlett Packard etc. Among countries:
China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Australia, Germany, England, Scotland, Mexico and
the United States of America.
In the 1950s it was estimated that we used around 50 per cent of our brain capacity. Some
estimates today have reduced that figure to an incredible 1 per cent. Where do you stand
on this debate? Is the apparent under- utilization of our brains indicative of a general
failure somewhere in our education systems?
Tony Buzan:
I stand with the 1-per centers!
In answering, let me first clarify an area of public confusion. In daily life we are using much of our
brains much of the time. The “percentage debate” is not simply about which brain cells are being
used. The debate is fundamentally about how efficiently we are using the equipment we have.
This can be refined even further by linking the efficiency to the vital cognitive processes of
learning, creativity, and memory. It is easy to demonstrate, by measured difference, that
performance in these areas can be improved by a factor of 100.

“Most current methods of handling information are based on the 19th

Century linear, verbal and monotonic model. This worked comfortably for the
Industrial Age. It does not work comfortably in the age of knowledge,
creativity and intelligence.”

With reference to our education systems, it is important to realize that our formal education
institutions are on average less than 150 years old. They are, in the context of the evolution of
the human race, babies! Until a mere 20 years ago, information on the brain was in very short
supply, and therefore could not be properly integrated into educational systems. With the recent
sudden explosion of brain information, we are already seeing a very rapid uptake and application
of this information in education systems.
As an example, in the last 8 weeks I have lectured to educational groups fascinated by these
new advances in countries as wide ranging as the Philippines, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam,
Singapore and, most recently, in Scotland. I believe that within the next 10 years we will see a
global education shift in which all schools will have a mental literacy module incorporating
information for the student on the brain, learning, thinking, creativity, memory skills, speed
reading and study skills, and the application of these mental literacy skills to all subject-areas
and to all aspects of learning.
This will bring about a tectonic shift in education and the positive future of our planet.
You are quoted as claiming that the world is “historically mentally illiterate”. How did you
arrive at this opinion?
Tony Buzan:
Mental literacy refers to the knowledge of the brain’s physical and mental function, and to the
application of this knowledge to all aspects of life. Put in another way, mental literacy refers to
having the “correct formulae”, the proper operations manual for the brain. Historically we have
not known the correct formulas, and have gone down many brain cul-de-sacs and wrong
turnings.
One simple and recent example is the use of lined paper for linear verbal note taking as a main
method for enhancing learning and memory. Because the brain is based on imagination and
association, this method is diametrically opposed to what the brain needs. Being diametrically
opposed, it creates many of the learning problems and difficulties that virtually all students
experience today.
One of your books, Head First, claims that every one of us possesses “multiple natural
intelligences”. Can you elaborate on this?
Tony Buzan:
In the beginning of the 20th Century a French educationist, Alfred Binet, came up with the very
clever and new idea of measuring human intelligence. It gave rise to the IQ (Intelligence
Quotient) test. At the time IQ was based, and remained based for 90 years, on primarily words
and numbers. These intelligences do exist, and are very important. In the last 20 years we have
discovered that there are other intelligences, and these are the intelligences that my book, Head
First, introduces and discusses. The additional intelligences include:
Creative, spiritual, personal, social, physical, spatial, and sensual.
You have served as consultant to many multinational organizations, including Hewlett
Packard, IBM and BP. What has surprised you most about the way in which today’s
organizations deploy their Intellectual Capital?
Tony Buzan:
Nothing!
I had always thought that when the human brain acquired information appropriate to its more
successful use, it would make the best use of that information. The appropriate use of intellectual
capital is an accelerating global business trend and will lead, as John Naisbitt predicted in his
book Mega Trends 2000, to the growing realization that economic growth will be seen as
limitless. How is this possible? By the simple equation:
Business is becoming increasingly based on creativity; ideas are the ‘new products’; the brain
has an infinite capacity to create; therefore, business growth has an infinite future.
Your Buzan Centres worldwide form part of a global network organization designed to
turn blue chip companies into “Thinking and Learning organizations”. How do you set out
to achieve this aim?
Tony Buzan:
My Buzan Centres help create thinking and learning organizations in a number of ways:
Training
Through a global network of Buzan Licensed Instructors (BLI’s) we provide courses on learning,
thinking, memory, Mind Mapping on computer, creativity and innovation, project management,
and presentation and communication skills etc. These are done as either public courses or in
company courses.
Books
Buzan Centres have the full range of my own books, as well as training manuals based upon
those books.
Special Events
Buzan Centres arrange conferences based around the concept of the brain, learning and
creativity.
Memory Championships
These Memory Championships can be described as “decathlons of the mind” in which
competitors test their “memory muscles” in 10 memory disciplines. These Memory
Championships are often accompanied by a Memory Festival. For further information see:
http://www.worldmemorychampionships.com
Products
Buzan Centres worldwide provide and distribute a growing range of brain-friendly products,
including Mind Mapping materials, brain exercising games and Mind Map Software.
Can you tell us a little about your new iMindMap™ software?
Tony Buzan:
Ever since I invented Mind Maps in the early 1960s I have dreamed of a Mind Map software that
would allow anyone to produce a Mind Map on the computer that was indistinguishable from a
Mind Map produced by hand.
This turned out to be a task apparently as difficult as splitting the atom! I worked with many
companies and many iterations of proto-Mind Maps on computer, each time getting closer, but
never achieving “the real deal”. I was fortunate to make contact with an educational
businessman and computer expert, Chris Griffiths, who, this year, finally, with his “Manhattan
Project” Team, solved the insoluble! The result is Buzan’s iMindMap, software that I predict will
change the way in which the world thinks.
We often hear the term “information overload” in business today. How can your methods
help to combat this problem?
Tony Buzan:
Most current methods of handling information are based on the 19th Century linear, verbal and
monotonic model. This worked comfortably for the Industrial Age. It does not work comfortably in
the age of knowledge, creativity and intelligence.
As one example: standard linear and verbal organization techniques contain only 10 per cent of
information that is relevant for the brain in its thinking processes. This means that they are 90
per cent inefficient. Using Mind Maps and other mental literacy techniques, all thinking becomes
more efficient, condensed, refined, rapid and clear. One businessman said that before he had
learned Mind Mapping and mental literacy skills it was as if he were driving through his life with
the windscreen caked with mud. When he learned how to use his brain appropriately, he said
that it was as if a windscreen wiper had suddenly, with one sweep, cleared away the mud, and
for the first time in his life he could see clearly. Mind Maps and mental literacy techniques give
you that new clarity. They also give you a much greater control of your thinking processes, and
therefore a much greater control of your life.
Finally, what interests you outside of your professional life, and why?
Tony Buzan:
My main interests include:

• Art because it feeds my eyes, mind and soul.

• Physical activity and sports, especially rowing, swimming, running and the Japanese
martial art of Aikido. Each of these gives me extreme pleasure in the sheer activity and
play of the sport, as well as providing me, as a wonderful by-product, robust muscular
and aerobic health.
• Animals and animal intelligence. Ever since I was a child I have been enthralled by the
astonishing intelligences of our fellow travellers. They provide me with constant
bemusement, entertainment, amazement and awe.
• Astronomy. The beauty and dimensions of our universe provide a feast for my aesthetic
sensitivities, and a constant humbling perspective on my and our place in that Universe.
 • Friends. For every reason imaginable!

June 2007.