Scapple - Great for Group Brainstorming

Recently, I have been using the Scapple (still in beta) application from the same company that makes Scrivener. Even though the software is still in beta, it is becoming an important piece when I want to do brainstorming, but do not want to be tied down to either ordered lists (outlining) or thoughts around a central idea (mindmapping). Recently, I combined Scapple, a MacBook Air, an 40 inch LCD TV, and an AppleTV to make possible some fast and great brainstorming sessions.

We had an all day staff retreat to think strategically about the next financial aid cycle and hosted it out of the office at my house. As part of the retrat, we had an hour of brainstorming, broken up into 15 minute sectinos with 5 minute breaks in-between to reset and change the note taker. Here was the setup:

• Scapple running in full screen mood on a 13-inch MacBook Air
• 40 Inch Sony TV
• Connected AppleTV to the TV
• MacBook Air Mirroring its display to the AppleTV

The results. The note taker for each 15 minute brainstorming session could double-click anywhere in the Scapple app and start typing notes. Since it was brainstorming sessions, an idea that followed another idea might have a connection to the previous one or no connection at all. Scapple allows for both. Also, Scapple does not have boundries, so the note taker does not need to worry about running out of space or going to the next page. Simply double-click in spot and the page keeps expanding.

At the same time, everyone in the brainstorming group could see the ideas as they were typed up on the MBA on the TV screen–no one had to worry about reading someone’s handwritting and since people can type much faster then write, the lag between ideas and being on the screen was greatly reduced.

After the brainstorming sessions were completed, our team went back to discussed the ideas, organized and grouped ideas, and finally selected certain groups and ideas to develop in teams. Since we were using Scapple, people could take turns moving ideas around, grouping, adding additional thoughts and ideas.

Finally, the export options are great.[1] I could print a PDF of the full Scrapple “page” of notes, and in a few seconds, load it on an iPad for one of the teams to use as reference. The other team could have done the same on another iPad or another computer, but instead just kept the Scapple document open on the TV screen.

The postives over traditional flip charts include the note taker can much more easly keep up with the stream of thoughts the group is producing. This allows the group to brainstorm at full speed and not have to worry about ideas and thoughts not being captured. The application also allows for the ideas to later be easily organized and deciminated. Using the AppleTV and screen minoring on the MBA allow for everyone in the group to see the ideas as they are captured and since it is all wireless the note taker can be quickly switched without worrying about cables and setup.

The postives over just doing the same setup but with something like Word (or a mindmapping/outliner) is the application allows the free-flow of ideas to be put on the canvas at the speed a larger group usually brainstorms at. Additionally, it can be rearranged and organized much easier later then is often the case with a mindmapping or outlining application.[2]

The downsides to this setup is the amount of tech required. The application, which while in beta (and as such, treat it like a beta and save often) is free. But having a computer (that allowsing mirroing), an LCD TV that is large enough for a group to see comfortably and an AppleTV is not always possible. Paper and markers will also always be more readily available and cheaper then this setup, but this worked really, really well. I plan to use it again in the future.

You can download the beta here.

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1. Scapple can also export OPML formates to make it fast to import it into outlining or mindmapping applications.  ↩

2. I do not mean to write that it cannot be done with some of the great mindmapping and outlining applications on both OS X and iOS, I have just found so far that Scapple is able to do this faster and with less barriers.  ↩

Kayak.com for Net Price Calculators

I bet on this happening at some point with the introduction of the Net Price Calculator requirement on college websites. College Abacus has launched their Kayak.com-like service for price shopping colleges. I was certainly not the only person to perdict this.

Right now they say they have over 2,000 schools available to search but it is not clear if the colleges agreed to be a part or if the service is simply scraping results from their sites (just like kayak.com has done in the past and run into issues with the airlines, see here and here).

If College Abacus is not asking permission of the colleges, what might the reaction be? Should be interesting to watch, especially that they try to tackle some of the more complex (some have over 50 questions) Net Price Calculators.

Random Notes, Links and Catch Up

The school year is in full swing and the puppy is now 11 weeks old with her second round of shots, so a few notes, links and catch up items.

1. As most are very much aware, feedburner is dead or at least on its last legs. I swtiched the RSS Feed back to a direct link from feedburner. Feedburner still appears to be pushing the RSS feed at this point, but at some point, it will die and no longer work, so I would suggest switching over to the direct link. Point your RSS catcher of choice to the new link http://www.scottcline.org/rss.
2. I signed up for App.net during its initial funding process and was slightly surprised when it met its funding deadline. They rolled out an alpha during the funding stage and more recently dropped the price from $50 to $36 a year (not a big difference). I found though that even as an early adoptor, I still was not using it compared to Twitter until TapBots came out with NetBot. Think TweetBot for App.net. Actually, it looks eactly the same, excpet the color of the app icon. I have found myself using App.net since it is now much easier to post from an iPhone or iPad and it easily allows you to find the poeple you follow on Twitter on App.net. If you are on App.net you can follow me at @scottcline.
3. David Sparks and Brett Terpstra released the second book in the MacSparky Field Guide series 60 Mountain Lion Tips. The book is full of Mac nerdiness for making your workflows and processes faster and more efficient. My favorites are copy an email address without the extra [junk] and print to PDF with keyboard shortcuts. I use both of these many times a day, every day. Well worth the 6.99 in the iTunes Bookstore.

OK, those were some odds and ends that needed catching up on over the past two weeks.

Soulver - Sure beats standard calculators →

Ben Brooks over at The Brooks Review making a great case for Soulver on the mac:

I’ve mentioned Soulver more than a few times on this site and I am going to go ahead and mention it again, because it is an amazing tool.

I have mentioned it before. I use it as calculator, scratch pad and place to keep random numbers at times. They also make a iPhone and iPad app that syncs with each other via iCloud. Doing some numbers on your iPad or iPhone at lunch and get back to yoru desk in the afternoon--the numbers are already there.

Simple and powerful, cannot beat that. Get it on their site or the Mac OS App store.

No more asking for social network passwords (under the law, instead of just common sense)

The lines are starting to be drawn around online privacy, not only in employement, but in higher education. From Timothy Lee at ArsTechnica:

[Governor] Brown also signed related legislation that prohibits universities from requiring their students to disclose social media passwords. The governor’s office cited a growing problem with universities snooping on the accounts of student athletes.

This does not appear to protect students (or employees) from acts that they do online from being held against them if it is open to the general internet/public. It might sound vain or egotistical to google yourself, but you can bet other people might. Would you rather have you know what they might find before they do?[1]

If you have a common name, that other John Smith, might get you wrongly slandered and you might want to know about it before a particular employer or admissions office does.

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1. Make sure to log out of your google account before you google your own name. Otherwise your results will be biased much more to you then a general google search might other be so. Also, google search results can be personalized based on your cookie history. Instructions to turn off both on google’s support site  ↩