Save Your Valuable Ideas
With the SMART Board, information written on the Board's surface can be saved to a computer file. This functionality ensures that your ideas will not be lost and can be accessed and reviewed at any time. Saving your ideas to a computer file also eliminates the need for individual note-taking during the session and leaves brainstorming participants focused on idea-generation.

Record Ideas Quickly
Although we know the pace of brainstorming sessions should be fast, it's sometimes difficult to record the ideas as quickly as they're being generated. Using a pen from the SMART Pen Tray, the facilitator can write the group's ideas on the SMART Board. Even better, if there is a quick typist in the group, he has the option of typing the information onto the screen instead of handwriting it.

Keep Ideas Legible and Organized
The pace of the brainstorming session can be so quick that the facilitator has difficulty keeping the ideas legible and organized on the page. Because any notes written on the SMART Board are recorded as separate objects, the information can be easily rearranged or edited after the session. This makes it easy for a facilitator to clean up the notes before e-mailing or printing them for distribution to the meeting participants.

Access Brain-Stimulating Information
By using the SMART Board, you can access any computer-based information. This includes computer applications that you normally use at your desktop, multimedia materials and the Internet. This functionality is useful for brainstorming sessions since new information can stimulate new ideas.

SMART Meeting Pro and Brainstorming
Meeting Pro is meeting information management software that works with the SMART Board to help you collect, organize and archive meeting information. Rapid-Fire Brainstorming is a feature of Meeting Pro that's useful for intense brainstorming sessions. Enter text-based notes quickly and easily, and your ideas are ordered neatly on the page. Or, use the Auto-Shrink feature to automatically shrink your handwritten ideas so more ideas can fit on each page.

1. Edward De Bono, Inventor of the Six Thinking Hats Method