Brainstorming tools

Posted by steveylang
Dec 15, 2021 at 06:22 AM

Larry_in_Bangkok wrote:

>Where to begin?
> > How to begin?
> > Where to go next?
> > And then what?
> >
>This post was inspired by steveylang’s comment (on a different
>thread):
> > >nothing beats the appeal of a freshly
> >sharpened pencil and blank page for thinking through an idea.
> >What is the software equivalent of that pencil and blank page?
>The software equivalent of a friend or colleague who asks, again and
>again, “What about ... ?”

I’m glad you brought up my post! I think pencil and paper (or whiteboard and markers in a group setting) work so well for 2 different reasons.

The first is that they require absolutely zero thought or attention to use, such that your focus can almost always be 100% on your ideas (whether its brainstorming, gathering thoughts, developing ideas, etc.) Imagine if occasionally your paper notepad ‘crashed’ and all your work disappeared, or if you had to hold your pencil in a specific way for it to write? Or if none of the marker pen labels matched the actual colors of the ink, so you had to stop and figure out every time you wanted to write in a specific color on the whiteboard?

There’s of course a lot of great user-friendly software in the world today, but for me the directness of physical tools is still often a tangible benefit. I think around 20 years ago we started seeing electronic whiteboards that allowed you to make printouts or perhaps digital files of your whiteboard work. They sounded great, but invariably seemed to introduce little hiccups in the whiteboarding process (maybe it took some time to power up, or you had to find the special markers for it or whatever), and I think for that reason I don’t see them around any more. The advantages didn’t outweigh the disadvantages, even though we didn’t even have smartphones with cameras to quickly record our work.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
I don’t think I quite understand the question, because it seems to me
>any outliner should help brainstorm like a pen to paper, with some
>limitations, but also with some advantages.

The second reason has to do with the advantage of working with information in a spatial orientation. Generally our brains are oriented towards this, and for me jotting down ideas in a sort of map/diagram just feels much better than doing it in a outline or list. It’s not just for brainstorming, any time I’m trying to get a ‘sense’ of things I like arranging my thoughts/ideas in a 2-dimensional space (of course YMMV.)

There’s many computer applications that can also do this, and they all offer many more features than pencil and paper. But if they’re not really, really easy to use, they’re not for me. I gravitate towards this type of spatial thinking in mainly the formative stages of a task, after that it’s on to Word, Powerpoint, or a outliner/PIM application for refinement, output, or archiving. Or maybe it’s later on but for a very specific task or issue, so it still doesn’t involve having to transfer a ton of work from analog to digital.

In the last few days I have been enjoying trying out the iPadOS application, Muse which I learned about from jsamlarose here:
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/40879

You can read about some of their design goals and process here:
https://www.inkandswitch.com/muse/#unification-with-the-users-corpus
https://museapp.com/memos/

I guess it’s probably not for everyone, but the ideas and thoughtfulness that have gone into the app are really interesting to me and can be seen in the app. A minimum of interface ‘chrome’, and non-modal interface (meaning not having to switch pen ‘modes’ via a button toolbar, etc.) are 2 of their major design goals and I think those help deliver some of that ‘directness’ that I feel using pen and paper. I have been finding myself wanting to open the app and just start working on anything…we’ll see if that feeling continues.

In the past I’ve always sought to find that one app that would handle all aspects of information management, from creation to development to organization to archival. But I realize that’s not necessary nor desirable for me. After Muse/Scapple/pencil and paper, it’s then on to Notion for me as far as information management goes.

(I am also CRIMPing around with Obsidian right now, but that’s a different story.)