Features

Informal modelling, systematic design, idea generator or an effective research tool? It's up to you.

Notation

Model useful and harmful elements, goals and risks. Differentiate issues, choices, events, knowledge and actions. Add increasing and decreasing influences, relationships and effects. Differentiate sufficient, insufficient, excessive and dysfunctional elements.

Highlight potential, historical and focus elements. Specify which effects are necessary, inevitable, delayed, accelerated, questionable, or negated.

Features

At its core, Southbeach empowers users to capture a situation or system in a simple diagram or model, utilizing a limited set of symbols and a straightforward methodology. From there, users can refine the model, greatly amplifying its functionality. They can generate ideas based on both pre-installed and custom user rules.

The model can be accessed in various formats, whether as a report, script, or diagram, thanks to a suite of powerful, built-in tools and analytical methods. These tools are seamlessly integrated into the application, providing a comprehensive experience that caters to both generalists and specialists.

• Create visual models to stimulate creative thinking, ideation, problem-solving and design

• Maintain a library of abstract or concrete models, sub-models or modelling elements

• Export graphical models and entity relationships to text lists and spreadsheets

• Model problems and solutions, issues, events, decisions, actions, goals and risks

• Annotate model elements with tags and tag groups, both exclusive and inclusive

• Model over grids such as consulting charts (XY), swimlanes (rows), pools (columns) and labelled boxes

• Visual elements automatically inherit additional tags from the axis labels of charts, grids and boxes

• An extensive library of consulting charts and grids is provided, each modifiable or extended by the user

• Generate ideas from any visual model using the embedded rules engine

• Craft scripts for specific methods or applications using the creativity and reporting rules language

• Idea generation operates in two modes: interactively while modelling or on-demand to generate a report

• Keep additional notes, web links and file references with any model or model elements

• Refine models using a variety of built-in effects, relationships or user-defined arrows

• Refine elements and relationships using attributes such as insufficient, dysfunctional, questionable and more

• The rules language allows for the definition of matching patterns and macros against all visual details and tags

• Search the web, patent bases and other resources using selected parts of the model

• Configurable auto-layout functions include freeform, tree and graph mode

• Pin (fix) or clamp (user position) objects on the canvas so that auto-layout elements move around them

• Define a build sequence for the model and step through the logic of your design

• Highlight individual model elements and the critical problem-solving patterns

• Follow any highlighted element forward or backwards through the cause-effect chain

• Assist tools accelerate model building using tools such as elaboration, decomposition and improvement

• View, sort and edit the text of the model using list views of individual elements and relationships

• Capture model text live in a team meeting or client interview without the distraction of visualization

• Anonymize, shuffle or randomize any model or selection of elements to stimulate creativity

• A library of lists on a variety of business, engineering and social topics helps to kick-start the modelling process

• Add to the model, or paint over, existing visual elements from any list, subset of items or individual entity

• Copy/paste visual elements to/from the clipboard as text or images for inclusion in external reports

• Select elements on the canvas manually or according to their tags, attributes and shape

• Define sentence structures from which ‘cues’ are generated; seeds for the development of new ideas

• Use any generated sentence for lateral thinking or to craft new rules for the creativity and reporting engine

• Everything other than the standard notation is configurable: tags, grids, lists, creativity, reports

• Shortcuts and accelerator keys are available for essential functions and tools

• Create template models with default settings, initial content, notes, tags and their own specific creativity rules

Idea engine

Modeller comes bundled with 100s of carefully curated ideation scripts and rulesets. However, using any text editor, users can write their own rulesets or copy and adapt existing rulesets. A detailed guide to the rules language is provided for advanced users (MyCreativity Reference.pdf).

• Southbeach visual modeller contains an embedded rules engine

• The user writes rules that generate creative suggestions from any model

• Rules can be reused across any visual model, in any field of analysis

• Suggestions generated support the users' creative thinking and problem solving

• A rule is a pattern plus a sentence containing expandable macros

• Sentences can have embedded newlines to generate paragraphs

• Patterns and macros are formed using keywords from the Southbeach notation

• Every agent or effect attribute in the notation is supported by the engine

• Patterns and macros can also match any user supplied text in the model

• User text is any agent name, effect name or label, tag or grid position on the canvas

• A ruleset is a group of such rules intended to support the intent of the analyst

• Rulesets can be named and organized into a hierarchy for easy access

• Users turn on and off rulesets as they work through an analysis

• As the user clicks around a model, rules are matched to the model content

• Rules trigger within a defined extent / scope, set by the user at run time

• Where a pattern matches the model within the extent, sentences are output

• Macros embedded in the sentences are expanded as they are generated

• Creative suggestions (ideas) are listed in creativity panels within the application

• Ideas generated are saved with the model in panel in which they are generated

• Model-specific rules can also be embedded in the creativity panels

• Model-specific rules can be turned on or off by the user at run time

• In addition to the interactive mode, reports can also be generated

• A report is a template containing embedded rules and reporting instructions

• After any change to a model, reports can be re-generated and updated

• Reports extend the pattern language to allow for the processing of indirect effects

• Reports contain formatting instructions for bulleted, numbered and lettered lists

• Reports can be run over one or all models of a model file set

Summary

Whether an independent consultant or an in-house professional, Southbeach offers tools for workshops, client interaction, or personal brainstorming.

• Rich visual notation
• Productivity tools
• Knowledge reuse
• Additive modelling
• Creativity engine
• Tags and tag library
• Report generation
• User extensible