The Ultimate Brainstorming Tool

About Braincat

Braincat was created by Jon Ward to help people think better. He says about the program:

“Brainstorming software has to be simple. When you’re brainstorming, whether alone or with others, you need to move fast, with the least possible friction. In a team, you want to invite the widest diversity of input, with the least contamination by dominant voices or groupthink. Alone, you want your mind to open wide to every relevant possibility.

Braincat is unusual as a tool for brainstorming because it requires zero organization at the point of input. Most tools nudge you to structure your data as you’re typing it in, whether in columns, or maps, or boxes… They’re based on a familiar logic: first create the framework, then add the data. Braincat works the other way around: first add the data, then discover the framework.

As an idea-generating tool, Braincat relaxes the mind. You can input whatever comes into your head. Is it great? Is it silly? Is it useful? Is it irrelevant? You don’t have to ask those questions! Just capture. A relaxed mind is an expanded mind. The less stress you experience when you’re brainstorming, the more original and creative your ideas can be.

Today, surprisingly, people still use physical sticky notes for brainstorming. This is fun and colorful — you can step back and look at all the mixed up ideas plastered over a wall. The trouble is, someone usually has the job of typing all that stuff into a computer, so it can actually be used.

Even then, the question is: What next?

Brainstorming without a next-steps process is like praying for rain without a bucket to catch it. You’ve given yourself a stressful problem to solve. That means you need a different kind of brainstorming software. With Braincat, you know exactly what to do next. After you’ve input all your ideas, you categorize them. In other words, you sort them into buckets. This can be done by one person, or as a shared process. Either way, gathering your ideas under headings gives you an intimate knowledge of what you’ve created.

Once you’ve categorized, you can create a sequence, showing yourself how one thing leads to another. Now you have even more mastery of the material. And one step further: you identify your Big Idea, the one concept that pulls everything together.

Finally, Braincat presents the results to you in a format that’s easy to survey — an outline or a simple mind map. This means you can review, discuss and assess the ideas, and turn them into an actionable plan.”

Jon is a writer, editor and brand consultant. He is a Strategic Consultant to Calroy Health Sciences and an Adjunct Consultant to the Sheffield Group. He is editor of the recently published book MC24, by design thinker Bruce Mau.