Online brainstorming tools are the new wave in online productivity. These tools allow you to create, share and discuss ideas with anyone, anywhere, and on any device. As a business owner, you should use brainstorming tools to keep on top of your ever-growing idealist. If you’re the CEO of a multi-national company, online brainstorming tools will help you develop relationships with your employees and help them generate innovative ideas. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll love the fact that these tools are available for free!
Now that you’ve got some ideas on how to get started with your thinking, here are some tools to inspire you.
Google Docs & Google Sheets
Google Docs, of which Google Sheets is a subset, is the modern scratch paper. The free collaborative web-based software makes it simple to upload a document, create a tracking table, and use all the other features with a team, sharing documents and collecting edits.
Slack
Slack is often viewed as a chat app, but its real value lies in its name: Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. Originally built to develop a video game, Slack’s value is that it keeps your chats, shared documents, and links permanently, so you can just search for the item you need instead of having to ask someone to share it again.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft’s response to both Slack and Google Docs is Microsoft Teams. The goal of Teams is to put everything you need to finish a project on one platform. It’s most powerful when paired with Microsoft Office, but robust third-party support makes it a useful tool for teams that have downtime at the airport or may only have a phone or tablet with which to work.
Lucidchart
Lucidchart offers a nice solution to help ease the ideation process by allowing users to collaborate in real-time. It not only offers a basic whiteboarding tool for brainstorming, but it also allows users to create more advanced process mapping and systems design.
IdeaBoardz
If you like to organize your ideas tangibly, like with pushpins and note cards, IdeaBoardz translates that experience to a browser. It allows members of a group to make virtual sticky notes and place them under chosen categories. A Like button serves as an informal polling mechanism among teams, especially if you’re managing a big group; as likes collect, the more popular ideas stand out.
Coggle
Coggle creates mind maps. Write down a term, begin free-associating, and add each association as a bubble with arrows and connections.
MindMeister
Available on the web and updating in real-time, MindMeister’s virtual whiteboard allows you and your team to collaborate and discuss no matter where you happen to be.
This video reviews Coggle, MindMeister, and Draw.io, three excellent mind-mapping software. They discuss the benefits and disadvantages of each brainstorming tool. Options like Coggle and MindMeister are easier to use, whereas Draw.io gives you a wider variety of options. Which one do you prefer?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9ETtFqR5ws
Visual Thesaurus
Visual Thesaurus generates association trees from any word you type in. For example, if you type in “car,” it’ll create trees not just for roads, but for train cars, sidecars, and so on. It’s useful for finding the right word to describe a concept, but it can also bridge creative gaps when you’re searching for a metaphor or a different approach. The tool also offers definitions and pronunciations of unfamiliar words, so you’ll learn something along the way.
Freeplane
If you’re comfortable with open source software, Freeplane offers a powerful alternative to typical collaborative software and will run on any system that can support the current version of Java.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5KH64Skpnc
Bubbl.us
Perfect for freeform structure and design, Bubbl.us lets you layout bubble charts with ease.
MindMup
MindMup is another free mind map maker online. You can easily access your mind maps from anywhere via any device. When you’re done mind-mapping, you can publish and share your mind maps online or present them to your colleagues by converting them to PDFs or PowerPoints.
Ideament
The freeform approach often necessary for brainstorming presents a problem afterward: organizing everything. Ideament turns mind maps, flow charts, and other flowing approaches into easily shared text outlines.
IdeaBoardz
Price: Free
IdeaBoardz is a web-based tool that allows you to set up a virtual board and invite collaborators. Create sections for the different areas you want to collect ideas for. Then have everyone add “stickies” with their ideas.
The vote function allows participants to give a thumbs up to the stickies they support. This can help with deciding which ideas to pursue or prioritizing the next steps. Sort stickies by the highest number of votes, view different sections, or filter ideas using the keyword search. In the end, export the board to easily store the ideas for later.
Google Documents
Price: Free
You can use Google Documents for more than file sharing and version control. They also make a simple brainstorming tool. The more familiar your team is with Google Documents, the easier it is to get started.
Simply create a new document, share it with the members of your team, and permit them to edit. Start building a list of ideas as a group. Everyone can either capture their ideas separately and then add them to the document or add them in real-time to inspire each other. You can see who’s writing what and leave comments on each other’s ideas.
Realtime Board
Price: Free
Realtime Board is similarly a collaborative, online whiteboard space utilizing virtual post-it notes. You can start with a blank page or use a template to structure your project. Add files, images, and documents from Google Drive or upload them from your computer to share information. Then you can turn it into a presentation or export it to a PDF.
The free version is good for up to three team members and three boards, but guests can also view boards. You can also integrate Slack. Upgrading to the $40 per month version adds on two more team members, unlimited boards, video chat, and more.
Solo Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a technique for visually organizing information. It’s especially useful for getting ideas out of your head and onto paper because it’s based on intuitive connections. Organizing your thoughts can help you get out of your head, spot gaps in your thinking, and prepare to share your idea with others. The following brainstorming tools are perfect for independent mind mapping.
Bubbl.us
Price: Free for up to three mind maps. For $4.91 per month, you can get unlimited mind maps and invite others to collaborate.
A web-based tool, Bubbl.us makes it easy to lay down a concept and start connecting subtopics. When you’re done you can turn it into an image to share with others. Collapse and expand branches of your mind map, add hyperlinks to bubbles, and customize the color and font as you wish.
Freeplane
Price: Free
Freeplane is mind mapping and knowledge management software that offers sophisticated structuring tools. Intuitively add ideas without having to connect them. Then organize them using nodes, lines, metadata, and styles. You can also set up filters to make it easier to view relevant content.
From there, you can set tasks and reminders and present your mind map in a Prezi-style format. A Wiki guides you through getting the most out of Freeplane, an extensive community forum provides further support. If you’re advanced enough, you can even extend the functionality of Freeplane with add-ons and scripts.
MindMap
Price: Free
While free, open-source, and available offline, MindMap offers robust mind map editing tools. You can change fonts, add images and rich text, embed videos, and add URLs. Need to sketch out an idea? No problem, you can hand draw in your mind maps as well.
MindMap is a Google Chrome extension, so you only need to open a web browser to start mind mapping. It also connects to your Google Drive, making it easy to save your work. Alternatively, you can print or export your mind maps or share them through social media.
Popplet
Price: Free for up to 10 Popplets on the online version. $3 per month or $30 per year for unlimited popplets. $4.99 to download the app.
Popplet allows users to customize the color of each “popple,” aka the bubbles that house ideas. You can also include sketches, images, and links in your popples. It’s easy to edit the size of popples and disconnect and connect them as needed.
When your Popplet is done, you can share it on social media, send a link to others, email it, or embed it on your website. It’s available online, for iPad, and iPhone.
TheBrain
Price: Free
TheBrain positions itself as “the ultimate digital memory”. It’s nonlinear, and its functionality mimics the fluid movement of your thoughts. When you pull up a topic, the rest of the network shifts as well and shows you other concepts connected to it. The result is a comprehensive, robust, and searchable record of your thoughts.
The free version of TheBrain is available to download; it works on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android; and it syncs across your devices. It allows for unlimited usage, and you can use it to organize and store files as well.
Collaborative Mind Mapping
The collective power of a team is being able to have many thoughts at once. However, a group of people can’t talk all at once, so some ideas may not get shared. Collaborative mind mapping circumvents that issue.
It can happen remotely or during a working session. Everyone accesses a shared mind map and builds on the central idea in real-time. In the end, you have a collective visualization of the concept, project, or challenge.
Coggle
Price: Free
If you love neural networks, you’ll love Coggle. The tool helps you capture the nuances of a concept in intricate visual networks. Browse a gallery of public diagrams to see what others have done for inspiration and invite members to collaborate on your diagram with you. Add images, customize the colors of branches, easily “transplant” branches to a different branch, and draw links between unconnected branches.
The free version allows for up to three private diagrams and unlimited public diagrams. When it’s done, export your mind map as a PDF or PNG or share it on social media.
MindMeister
Price: Free for sharing and collaborating on up to three mind maps. $4.99 per month for unlimited mind maps and to export and print.
Create, share, and present mind maps inside your web browser with MindMeister. You can choose from mind map or organization chart layouts and upload your image to customize the background. Invite others by email to edit or view your map in real-time.
The collaboration feature includes an integrated chat function, and you can see who contributed what and when. Collaborators can also comment and vote on ideas.
WiseMapping
Price: Free
An open-source project, WiseMapping can be used online or installed on your server. It allows you to collaborate on mind maps, customize font and colors, add icons, and export mind maps when finished. You can also embed mind maps from WiseMapping on your blog.
This is a good option for teams. It’s free for businesses, unlike other tools that primarily support free use by individuals or small groups. It can also be configured to your server for increased security.
Mobile Apps
If you were boarding a plane, and inspiration struck, you could still capture your thoughts at that moment with a mobile brainstorming tool. The following brainstorming tools for use on your smartphone help you build an outline or mind map to help you capture, organize, and later present your idea.
Ideament
Price: Free
Ideament helps you draw mind maps, concept maps, or flow charts. You can then flip them into a text outline, or you can start by creating a text outline and turn it into an outline. If you have an email or text you want to copy from online as a starting point, you can also plug that into Ideament to get started.
If you want to show your idea to others, share it by email or upload it to Google Drive, Dropbox, or other cloud storage platforms. You can also save it as a photo to text or share or upload your mind map or outline directly to Facebook.
MindGenius
Price: Free
MindGenius is perfect when you need to collect ideas, take nonlinear notes, or create project tasks quickly and intuitively. Start with a diagram or output tree. Then, a quick keyboard shortcut adds branches for you as you type, so you can lay down several ideas in short order. If you realize an idea needs to connect to a different branch, you can easily move it over.
The explorer feature also helps you search for, find and hone in on one area. While you’re reviewing that portion, it hides the rest of the map. This feature makes mind maps more accessible on a tablet device.
SimpleMind
Price: Free
SimpleMind is similarly an intuitive mind map brainstorming tool. You can start with a blank layout and freely place new topics, or you can get started with an existing layout template. There’s no limit to the ideas you can add, and you can create multiple mind maps on the same page. You can add photos, voice memos, videos, and documents to a mind map and customize the design.
When the mind map is complete, you can manage how it’s viewed by collapsing or expanding, hiding, or highlighting branches. You can also search mind maps for keywords. You can also share your mind maps as PDFs or in a word document, print them, or turn them into a presentation. The app is available for iPhone or iPad, and it syncs across devices and with Dropbox or Google Drive.
Conclusion
In the days before the internet, people had to brainstorm by themselves or with a few co-workers. Online brainstorming tools make it easy to share ideas and facilitate idea exchange among multiple people. This makes for a more open process that can result in wilder, more creative ideas.