Brainstorming with Keynote Automation
Affinity Diagrams
An affinity diagram is a tool to organize a large number of ideas collected in a brainstorming session into categories- it is a clustering method. An individual idea may contain a partial attribute of a category. When collected with similar ideas, a more robust definition emerges for the category. This often leads to being able to summarize the theme of the category in a short label.
A large cluster of ideas might contain sub-clusters that can be uncovered with the same process.
The value in affinity diagrams is the ability to process large amounts seemingly chaotic data in order to identify relationships, themes and connections.
When you use Apple Keynote to capture your thoughts on the digital equivalent of Post-It Notes(tm), it is easy to get sidetracked by sizes, colors, fonts, placement on the slide. Rapid brainstorming can be brought to a screeching halt when distractions from software tools get in the way. Formating is critical to arrange the information for clear communication, but that should come at the end of the analysis process.
This article presents a simple AppleScript for Keynote that imports a text file with your brainstorm ideas into digital “cards” on a slide. Keynote can then be used to sort, group, format, and draw connections…
