Brainstorming Blog

The Search for Salience...

No, that's not a misspelling of "silence".

It's about information that catches your attention. Our own ThoughtOffice software defines Salient as "having a quality that thrusts itself into attention".

What ThoughtOffice does for your words and ideas is to find the combination of lateral and vertical references that will catapult your ideas to the next level. That will solve big problems in unique, effective ways.

Connect the dots.

That's the power of lateral thinking (aka Associative Thinking).

October 14 - The final days before ThoughtOffice ships...

A lot has happened since last Sunday. We've begun adding key-combo's to speed up common mouse-functions.

We've fixed any bugs. We're wrapping some new skin on the thing to ensure that the interface is clean and easy to engage with. (Working to reduce first-timer overwhelm, while ensuring that when you download the demo, you don't look at a blank slate and thing "now what do I do?").

This is the current interface, with a Session loaded. The Session came from eXpertSystem, so this is the dialogue you receive when opening a legacy Session:

More on these new design updates, below....

What Do You Get Out of Brainstorming?

Or, in this case: what's the output of your brainstorming solution?
At ThoughtOffice, we asked 1,631 of our users what they wanted to see as their final document. The forum they used to share ideas with others, or used as the "meatspace" piece by which they perused their ideas.

Here are a couple of the ways ThoughtOffice gets your ideas out of the machine:

I guess this one is still actually INSIDE the machine, but it's one way to view your brainstorming session: Our integrated SlideShow Presenter.

Putting More Thought into ThoughtOffice...

In addition to a complete makeover of the Topics Browser, we've also aded a number of new features that our clients have been begging for: Rhymes, Lyrics and Famous Quotes. Nothing like standing on the shoulders of giants as you brainstorm, eh?

Here's the new IdeaBrowser in Quotes mode:

I used that little explored subject of love, and found a raft of available quotes on the subject...

But wait! There's more!

ThoughtOffice is ALIVE!

OK, ok, settle down. It's not LIVE, but it is ALIVE.
Massive progress over the last few days makes me HAVE to post multiple times, just to cover it all.

Let's start here, in Brainstorming Heaven:

Thinking from a Designer's Viewpoint

I'm not sure if you know what goes into the development and design side of a software program. I've been playing this game since 1990, and it still amazes me as I get into discussions on code and interface and viability and user experience, what issues arise.

I mention this because ThoughtOffice is especially lucky/blessed/fortunate to have Chipp Walters behind every line of code that makes this program whirl around your creative world. Chipp is a well-known rock star in the industrial design space. And we're fortunate to have his talents applied to our software apps.

Here are some quick eamples of his genius at work:

See that? Now you can edit right in each Entry on a Session. And each Session is spelled out right at the top of the page, just like a good application should. But wait, there's more!...

What Would IdeaFisher Look Like Today?

You know, I've often thought about that.

Working with Marsh Fisher for that time, and looking at how Lateral Thinking works today in the interconnected web... I'd HOPE that what we're building here at ThoughtOffice Corporation would be a natural extension of Marsh Fisher's mindset.

With that in mind, here are some of the most recent advances in our Beta ThoughtOffice product:

Creativity to Productivity....

This is such an important topic, that in the time I have tonight to address it, no justice will be served.

Here's the gig: Creatives (or people in a creative mode, or those folks on your team dubbed the "Idea Hamsters") often lack sufficient skills or interest to take their raw idea to a completed product.

So they get 20%-30%, maybe 70% complete with the project, then move-on to something more engaging... like another creative project.

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing.

Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
  - Frank Tibolt

Oh how true! How many times have we been struck by the paralysis of analysis, when a little action would get us moving into our creative mode?

Hopefully you can see the benefit of having a creativity-driving solution only a mouseclick away. Here's a guaranteed way to get your mind moving:

Question Everything! Questions inspire the mind to action...

ThoughtOffice Doesn't Think For You...

...it thinks WITH you.

Powerful brainstorming software takes your input, your kernel of an idea, and makes it into an Orville Redenbacher microwave treat (extra buttery, please).

How?

By effortlessly bringing you lots of fresh associations (words, phrases and images) that are one or two steps away from your starting point... and then getting to six-degrees of separation, where that magical element lives that takes your inspiration and makes it rock.

You "play" with ThoughtOffice... and ideas spring forth by the dozens.

Brainstorming Breakthrough with ThoughtOffice...

More progress on the ThoughtOffice Brainstorming software front. Chipp and crew have made some serious tracks and created a cool program enhancement. Now the IdeaBrowser can be expanded with Custom Content Modules. Just plug them in, and they show up as a Tab on the browser.

We will be delivering new Topic Modules as well as Content Modules on the release of ThoughtOffice.

Here are a few of the new interfaces for you:

This is the new ThoughtOffice interface. You assemble all of the components here: questions from ThoughtTopics Modules, creative input from the IdeaBrowser, and your own thoughts, links and images from your brain and your hard drive.

This new interface allows you to just start adding text immediately... no Session need be created.

It's a visual outliner on steroids, with some easy to use organizational tools, and the integrated IdeaBrowser and ThoughtTopics browser.

OK, let's take a look at the eXpertTopic browser: