The Omni Group

An outliner app has been my most frequently used writing tool since I bought my first computer in 1983. I've always been a words-type thinker (rather than a visual or picture thinker), so I'm drawn to tools that help me organize words fast and efficiently. I can't recall any writing project I've ever tackled that didn't start with some kind of outline. 

An outliner helps me keep a sense of control over both the process of writing, and all the content as I research and write draft text. Dave Dunham described outlining as being similar to building a ship: keel, framework, planks, deck, masts are assembled in a connected structure. Writing is starting with an idea or problem, adding questions or main issues to cover, doing research to address the issues, doing analysis and comparison on the facts from the research, deciding what it means, deciding what to say as a conclusion. If writing fiction, it's the same process only using plot points, characters, scenes, dialogue. The key thing I learned about writing is that you don't go from A to Z, stopping at every letter in turn. It's always a jumbled process of adding ideas, gathering bits of information, drafting actual text, and reorganizing, while jumping from one part of the project to another as needed. If I didn't have a writing tool that let me add, move, collapse, expand, sort, number, list, and stick in odd bits of things like pictures and links, it would take me much longer to do half as much.

I used Outliner as my research tool to collect articles and other online content, to record phone interviews and then transcribe the good stuff, and to write notes and comments to myself on what I thought of the material and how I might use it.

Then I used Outliner to create a full outline of the report with headings and key words. I started drafting the sections, starting with company profiles and working backward to describe the market dynamics and business drivers. I pasted in links to the articles I wanted the reader to click through to get more information about a particular company, event, technology, or another writer's point of view. I also pasted in images and graphics I wanted to use in the report. I moved sections around until I thought the report flowed logically from topic area to topic area. Then I exported the whole thing to .RTF and imported it into Microsoft Word for revisions, more writing, and formatting. The document was supposed to be 30 pages, and I found I had written 80+ pages in Outliner! Eventually I divided the report into two documents and they'll be published separately.