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The best packaged software I've ever seen for this kind of thing is called
IdeaFisher, available from http://www.ideafisher.com
This genre of software is tough to categorize, but sometimes called
"creativity software." With this package, you start either with a specific
term or a set of prescribed questions that jog your brain into more lateral
thinking. The company also sells special modules for naming companies,
creative writing, and so on.
As I understand it, IdeaFisher was created some years ago by a team of
librarians and researchers who racked their brains and jotted down every
allusion, cliché, chestnut and morale they could find and then organized
them into linked word lists, something like a thesaurus only much richer.
I've always had great results using it for marketing writing. I just used it
this week to come up with plays on words like "vision" and "sight" and
"image" for a set of advertorials I'm writing for a machine vision company.
I think a realistic expectation is that IdeaFisher will compress your
brainstorming time, so that 10 minutes with it will equal perhaps 30, 60 or
120 minutes on your own.
By the way, I tend to agree that "powerful, flexible and easy-to-use" are
pretty empty clichés. I bet your competitors can say exactly the same. If
you have time, I encourage you to make this expression work harder and
encapsulate what's different about your product. Good luck.
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Gordon Graham, Partner
Gordon & Gordon
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