The Not-Always-Digital Age

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A new report came out today from Indiana University with some stop-the-presses news (not really). Ready? It turns out, software tools designed to migrate brainstorming and idea-development processes from live, flesh-and-blood (or maybe dialed in) interactions to the computer haven't worked out the way some people had hoped. It's not that no one's using their computers to share and develop ideas. They are. It's just that they haven't stopped all that other sort of brainstorming in the meantime. Bottom line: We're doing twice as much work.

By now, most of us are pretty familiar with the fact that all this new technology -- computers, the Internet, cell phones, BlackBerries, you name it -- has not exactly replaced whatever it was we were doing before (and what was that, anyway?). Instead, it has, generally, made our lives busier and more complicated.

But in a so-called "information society" with "knowledge workers," migrating that process to a digital environment, where its value can be captured and stored, seems a pretty important thing.

What has your experience been? Can you have productive online brainstorming? Which tools work best?