Overview

     The  brain-webbing process is based  upon and  draws upon left/right brain  techniques  to insure  that  ideas generated  include  both  the logical/technical and the emotional/intuitive. 

     Your  own  horizons  will  expand  as  you begin to understand what brain-webbing can  do, and  as  you interpret the many  applications  to your own life and work.

Terminology

     Brain-webbing is the preferred terminology of  the authors of this book. Several other  systems, with somewhat the same purposes but  with different applications and techniques, have existed for many years.

     Clustering also has been called thundering, storming, tornado diagraming, balloon diagraming, concept mapping, and think-linking.

     Brain-webbing, with different approaches, has ties to idea trees, raying, creative  dawning, centered association, fishbone analysis, mindmapping, spider-web diagrams, and decision trees.

     They  all  owe a debt  to Alan Osborne's brainstorming,  a  technique first  introduced  in 1939--a process which produced long lists--based on the important concept of non-censoring  free-flow thinking. 

     Free-flow thinking used before imposing judgmental  thinking  is the heart  and  soul  of brain-webbing. It is this two-step dimension that was omitted in the earlier techniques  mentioned above. Though the impulses of the left and  right brains do crossover, the intent of  brain-webbing is to concentrate  on   free-thoughts during clustering, then to bring judgment and organization to the brain-web.

     Clustering and brain-webbing neither look alike nor function in the same way.

Step One: Clustering
Focuses on brainstorming and free-associations randomly placed on the paper--time is not taken to "organize" material, which inhibits free-flow thinking. (Inevitably, some organization occurs almost subconsciously.)

Step Two: Brain-Webbing
Focuses on webbing--organization of the ideas entered on the cluster. (Inevitably, some brain-storming occurs as the material is organized.)

The Web

     Brain-Webbing  helps  you  to  better  use your information--to reach for ideas and applications,  and to organize them in a useful  fashion. The  "web" is a dynamic form of  outlining  that replaces and far surpasses the old "I. A. 1. a." outline style that most of us learned in school. 

     Where the old outline format covered pages and pages, the brain-web is a one-page form of "notes" for anything from speeches to workplace projects to personal arguments. It's ease of use is like the difference between using a tricycle and using an automobile.