3D mind-mapping App for Team Collaboration and Publishing to the Web.
“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one #in_sight.
Only where love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”
~Robert Frost
Our world is facing crises along multiple dimensions. We need better media for doing collaborative thinking in, which would allow us as a community of thinkers to achieve transformational thinking — that is to say thinking that causes a transformative alteration to the thinkers rather than merely thinking that arrives only at a compelling actionable conclusion. (I don’t mean to say that a compelling actionable conclusion is not also useful sometimes.)
Thortspace is a kind of “cognitive lego”. It works by “capturing your thoughts” … ie. you write your thoughts about something (a project or a study topic or an investigation or a problem) down on little disc-shaped icons (called “thorts”), and then assemble those thorts in alternative different configurations to see what variety of different ways of understanding the topic/project/problem you can make. This process gives rise to new perspectives and insights which make you more effective.
Thortspace aggregates the thinking of crowds, in a qualitative rather than quantitative way, to produce wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Thortspace supports visual analogies that “auto-coagulate” thorts to make groups, and make it easy to follow “Paths” through your thinking, from thort to group, thort to thort and group to group. Then as a second level, Thortspace makes it easy to link up spheres of such connections to make meta-strutures in a quasi-3D space and store multiple alternative configurations of “Arrangements” of thorts, groups, paths, spheres and sphere-networks.
I think of the whole thing as being a kind of “cognitive lego”. You get to play with your thoughts and your thinking structures and this yields meta-thinking and meta-insights which enable new openings for action to become apparent, and hence new and unpredictable effective and appropriate actions to happen.
Thortspace was not originally conceived as an organisational tool. It has only become one in responding to user feedback. Compare playing with lego: a lot of the things we make we don’t keep; we just take them apart again. So the value is not only in the magnificent structures we want to keep forever, but in the process of trying out different ways of building things.
By moving the thoughts-it-is-thinking from the 1st person chatter (I call mine “Radio Andrew”) to the 3rd person sphere, I transform myself from thinking within that network to thinking about that network — from being that subject, to it being my object.
Now I see that network of thinking as its whole and effortlessly transcend it. I notice assumptions it is making, flaws in its assumptions, disconnects, connections that are going unnoticed. I move from thinking inside it, to acting on it.
New compelling openings for action arise naturally, not as a todo list, but as actions I am now taking without needing a theory for them. The appearance of the world has transformed, and action is correlated unavoidably with that.
Thortspace Free App enables you to…
1. CAPTURE YOUR THOUGHTS — Thortspace enables you to throw your thoughts down in any order and then organise them once you see what you have got. Or you can organise as you’re going along.
2. SEE THINGS FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW— in contrast to a flat page, the surface of a sphere has no single centre. Thortspace is everything from the perspective of everything else.
3. BE PLAYFUL — thortspace supports experimental reflection and play . Contrast with being solely oriented around organising information.
4. MAKE BUILDING BLOCKS — Thortspace supports creating reusable chunks of thinking. Put together your chunks of thinking in the form of sphere-networks using embedded and linked spheres.
5. BE PROCESS-oriented — in Thortspace the journey matters as much as the destination. This is important, because the same is probably true about thinking.
6. USE SYNTHESIS and ANALYSIS. Thortspace helps you create wholes out of parts, as well as break wholes down into parts.
7. USE SCALING —Thortspace enables seamless movement between multiple scales. Slide fluidly between viewing your thinking structures from a whole range of different scales.
Thortspace services are Powered by Google App Engine
Thortspace Premium and Free services run on Google App Engine and your sphere data is stored on Google’s Cloud Data storage. Your data is as secure on our service as it is on any of Google’s native services.
Thortspace Free Service enables you to …
- PUBLISH Thortspace spheres permanently to the world-wide-web so they can be explored and shared by anyone via their web browser. Thortspace web browser version is powered by WebGL. Some ideas are just too good to want to keep them to yourself… Thortspace Free Service helps you to share your vision with the world. Click below to see an example of a Journey through Thortspace, published to the web. Go on a journey into Thortspace.
- COLLABORATE on public spheres with friends and colleagues. Thortspace free service allows you to collaborate free of charge, and sync changes between devices as long as you make your spheres public.
- Full-text SEARCH across the text content of all your private, shared and public spheres.
Thortspace Premium Service enables you to …
- All the facilities of the Thortspace Free Account service plus …
- COLLABORATE on private spheres, in real-time or asynchronously with users across multiple platforms. They say “two minds are better than one”… now how about three or four minds! More about collaboration in Thortspace Free App is here:
2. SYNCHRONISE all your sphere data across all your devices and platforms (iOS, Android, Windows and Mac desktops). Online or offline, work seamlessly between your home, your office and out in the wilderness. When you get back online, Thortspace Premium Service sorts it all out for you.
3. SHARE private spheres with just your team via a URL or an email address. Resolve differences of opinion with grace and ease. Establish a shared understanding of your project across your entire team.
4. PUBLISH ad-free Thortspace spheres and sphere networks to the web with no google ads on your public sphere pages.
5. BACKUP all your Thortspace data — zero setup. Sleep easily! All your great ideas are being kept safe for you, ready for you to return to them any time you want.
6. Add web pictures directly from inside Thortspace.
To Install the current versions of the thortspace editor app go to:
https://www.thortspace.com/main/get-thortspace-app/
For greater elaboration of Thortspace features have a look at:
Reviews of Thortspace:
Case studies — how people are using Thortspace:
Gooisoft’s Thortspace software is subject to international copyright law © 2008–2017 and also international patent law with Patents Granted in USA, UK and Australia, and Patents Pending in HongKong and Canada.
UK Patent GB2494520
Australia Patent 2012101951
USA Patent №9,684,426 and on Google Patent Database
Hong Kong Patent HK1183135
Patent Pending Canada : Patent Application №2847602
