
TheBrain helps people by linking together networks of information visually so it can be understood and shared more easily. Harlan Hugh: Our userbase is growing since more people are working remotely and looking for effective ways to organize, communicate, and collaborate. How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping? You have to invest in long-term foundational technologies that will be potential game-changers. It is often tempting to focus on fulfilling requests based on demand, but ironically I believe doing this exclusively or even primarily leads to stagnation. We are fortunate to have a strong user community that does not hesitate to tell us what they want. Once you have a product out there, I think one of the key challenges is striking a balance between doing what your customers ask and giving them what they don’t necessarily know they want. Another example is our primary user interface, which leverages animation techniques that are common in video games and employs them in a productivity application. For example, the core premise of our system combines the principle of a social network with notes that are typically stored in a linear fashion. Harlan Hugh: One aspect of innovating is in combining existing technologies in unique ways.
#Thebrain organize thoughts software#
The software lets you connect all your digital content in a way that makes sense to you and presents it in an interactive visual graph with powerful note-taking and file syncing capabilities so that you can have access to anything at any time. So, with that in mind, I looked for a better metaphor for organizing information, and the brain was an obvious choice. Likewise, when you think about a project, you might also think of the various tasks within that project, the stakeholders, budget, and so on. When you think about a person, you might also think of the place they work, who they know, who introduced you to them, the projects they are working on, and so forth. Real-world information is connected in networks of associations, and this is how you think. The human mind is capable of so much more… Intricate relationships can never be expressed by the hierarchies that folders impose.

It occurred to me that the metaphors used in computer user interfaces were at the core of the issue – desktops, files, and folders are not exactly the most inspiring and flexible ways of organizing information. Since I was a child, I always thought that most people underestimated the power of computers to change the way they think and work.

Harlan Hugh: I am a self-taught software designer and programmer. Tell us about you, your career, how you founded TheBrain Technologies. As a result of the crisis, we have had to make some major adjustments to help close relatives who have been adversely affected quite dramatically by the social restrictions put in place to slow the spread. Harlan Hugh: We are doing well, all things considered. First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? We talked to Harlan Hugh of TheBrain Technologies about organizing information like the brain.
