Trying very hard to catch up after being out of the office last week...I still have Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) on my mind, and I'm struggling to use it with a name-generation project. As a creative process SIT is somewhat counter-intuitive -- somewhat charmingly referred to as taking "the path of most resistance." Instead of the "no judging" atmosphere of brainstorming, with SIT you start with a product and essentially drill down into it as you create, discarding ideas as you go if they do not "fit," which does lead to a more useful, focused outcome. Another counter-intuitive part -- you don't create by forcing associations with outside elements, you force associations with rigorous logic, using a set of predetermined patterns. (Read more about SIT here and here.)

The patterns I've learned so far are well-suited to product development, but less well-suited to naming. Could be there are other patterns to use. I have a very strong feeling that SIT *can* be used to create names, especially in cases like my project, where the name is supposed to be descriptive of the product. SIT would be less useful, I would think, in cases where names like Verizon and Agilent are created using some kind of linguistic hocus-pocus (no slur intended here! I have a master's degree in rhetoric, myself).

No, in this case the right name is *in* the product, and if that's the case, SIT should be able to help me get it out. Anyone have any experience using this creative process? Send all hints and suggestions to "renee at edit-work.com".