Food For Thought

 

Computers work logically, humans don't. On the other hand, no one has yet credited a computer with original thought. If the machine's capacity for organizing, however, could be married to the human's ability to conceptualize, the result would be, at the very least, a measurable reduction in the frustration level. Such was the reasoning that produced ThinkTank (Living Videotext Inc., Palo Alto, Calif.; IBM Personal Computer version, $195; Apple version, $150), a software program that its creators have dubbed "the first idea processor."

The idea behind ThinkTank is astonishingly simple. The program is nothing more than a method for creating outlines -- the format that every schoolchild learns will help in writing compositions -- but doing so electronically. The various headings, subheadings -- even entire sections -- can be moved around with a keystroke or two, much more easily than the same material could be reorganized using a word processing program. So you can enter ideas in the random bursts in which they naturally occur and worry about arranging your material later.

In order to see key points clearly, you can make subheadings -- and any other text -- instantly disappear, leaving only the main headings visible. Then you can as easily expand the outline to view all the thoughts you have entered. A plus sign next to a line tells you that there is more data hidden underneath that heading; a minus sign indicates there isn't. Besides some word processing capabilities, which let you type whole paragraphs should you so desire, that's all there is. But those who have used it say the program does its job.

Mitchell Kapor, for example, president of Lotus Development Corp., the company that developed Lotus 1-2-3, likes to free associate and is not "really big on outlines or structured thinking." However, he finds ThinkTank extremely useful for working through such problems as new product development. The software is particularly effective, he says, for organizing complicated project plans that could involve 16 people from four different departments and a timetable that might break down into three or four logical sequences.

Once he finishes his outline, he passes it around as a memo or a short report. Before using ThinkTank, he says, "I would sit down at a word processor and type stream of consciousness, and it wound up being less well organized and less easy to communicate to other people."

Kapor does his work on the IBM PC version of ThinkTank, introduced in January, which has more word processing capabilities and greater capacity than the earlier Apple package. When Rick Meredith, president of The Chicago Multi-Media Co., a multi-image slide production house in Park Ridge, Ill., wants to print the ideas he has generated with the Apple version of ThinkTank, he generally converts his file to his Apple Writer II word processor by using a simple translating function that is built into the outlining program.

Meredith boots up ThinkTank when he wants to create proposals for clients, develop marketing ideas, or work on a manual detailing company operating procedures. He especially likes the fact that the program lets him collapse details, yet still see his main points. "It's not like trying to ramble through a whole word-processing program where every word is always on the screen," he says.

And thinking on the computer makes it easier for him to get down to work in the first place. "It all comes out clear, and I don't have 50 sheets of paper with handwritten scribbles all over them," he says. Besides, he adds, "it's fun."