Agile PLM - The CIO's Guide to Oracle Products and Solutions - page 21

He began to study the art of ad-libbing, and comedy in general, and
found that there is a unique association between the punch line and the
setup line. Related to both of these phrases is an assumed word or phrase.
It is this word or phrase that associates the setup line to the punch line.
When Fisher retired from Century 21, he began to study cognitive sci-
ences, which is a combination of linguistics and computer science. One
of the goals of cognitive science is to determine whether the mind can be
mimicked in the mysterious task of problem solving.
Fisher describes problem solving as the three Rs: recording, recall, and
reassociate. Recording of information is done spontaneously. Everything
we say, hear, smell, or touch is stored in the grandest of all databanks—the
human brain. Of course, once it's stored inside, it sometimes is quite dif-
ficult to get it back out. This is the task of recall or remembering. We have
this massive warehouse of information stored in our subconscious, and
trying to find something buried away is usually quite difficult. Once an
item of information is recalled, the third R is deployed. We reassociate,
or recombine, one or more items of information to produce an original
creative idea.
Of course, if we had instant access to everything tucked away in our mem-
ories, the road to creativity would be much less arduous. Unfortunately, as
we're reminded time and time again as we search in vain for the name of
the person that we just met in the hallway, this is usually not the case. Even
if all humans were possessed of the gift of instant recall, there's still that
third R to contend with: reassociation—the creative R, the R that gives us
creative leverage.
In the '60s, Fisher wanted to give humans a creativity shot in the arm by
publishing a topic of associations. By the time he was ready to do it, the PC
had become so ubiquitous that he decided to write it in software. This is
when IdeaFisher (now houghtOice: http://www.thoughtrod.com/idea-
software/ideafisher-upgrades/) was born.
The heart of IdeaFisher was the IdeaBank. This is where users look up
related ideas and concepts. The IdeaBank is an organized storehouse of
more than 65,000 ideas, words, phrases, and concepts. The software's
cross-referencing capabilities create more than 775,000 associations. Ideas
and concepts are organized by grouping related ideas. This method of
organization is patterned after the way we naturally store information in
the human brain. It explains the common experience of “one idea leading
to another.” IdeaFisher claims it can help us make something quite novel