A 2x2 crosshairs pie chart describing four realms for how people process experience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been reading the 2023 book by James C. Maxwell titled The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication. On page 117, in a section of the sixth chapter titled Put the Body on the Bones, he displays a 2x2 crosshairs pie chart from another book, which is shown above in my colorized version. The text says that:

 

“B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, who wrote The Experience Economy, describe the way people process experiences based on whether they are active or passive and whether they ‘absorb’ the experience or are immersed in it. They describe what they call the four experience realms: entertainment, educational, escapist, and esthetic…  

 

Entertainment occurs when people passively absorb the experience, such as watching a concert or reading a book. An educational experience also focuses on absorbing an experience, but in addition, the participants are actively engaged in mind, body, or both. People learning skills in a classroom or on a field learning to play soccer have this experience. An escapist experience is both immersive and active, such as when people visit theme parks, gamble in casinos, or play computer games. Esthetic experiences are immersive but passive, leaving no physical effect on their environment. Examples include gazing at the Grand Canyon or viewing an art exhibit.

 

…The richest experiences encompass aspects of all four realms. These center on the ‘sweet spot’ in the middle of the framework.”

 

Those four realms of experience also are in the earlier, 1999 book, titled The Experience Economy – Work Is Theatre and Every Business a Stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they began with an article by Pine and Gilmore in the July August 1998 issue of the Harvard Business Review titled Welcome to the Experience Economy. But, back then, as shown above in my colorized version, the graphic was a donut chart rather than a pie chart. That was despite stating:

 

“Generally, we find that the richest experiences—such as going to Disney World or gambling in a Las Vegas casino—encompass aspects of all four realms, forming a ‘sweet spot’ around the area where the spectra meet.”

 

Love songs and Likert scales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At xkcd on December 20, 2023 there is a webcomic titled Love Songs, shown above in my colorized version of that 2x2 chart. The horizontal scale is for Do I Like You?, while the vertical scale is for Do You Like Me? Both scales have these five levels:

 

No!!                            [1]

 

No                              [2]

 

Unclear or Neutral    [3]

 

Yes                             [4]

 

Yes!!                          [5]

 

There is an article by Gail M. Sullivan and Anthony R. Artino, Jr. on pages 541 and 542 in the December 2013 issue of the Journal of Graduate Medical Education titled Analyzing and Interpreting Data from Likert-Type Scales. It says:

 

“Developed in 1932 by Rensis Likert to measure attitudes, the typical Likert scale is a 5- or 7-point ordinal scale used by respondents to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with a statement.”

 

Of course, there also is a detailed Wikipedia article, and a 22-page pdf article by Jan Losby and Anne Wetmore from February 14, 2012 titled CDC Coffee Break: Using Likert Scales in Evaluation Survey Work.

 

The love songs range from strong mutual disliking (You Oughta Know) to strong mutual liking (Teenage Dream). An article at EXPLAIN xkcd lists the artists for all 19 of them.

 

Mark Levin should not have called his book The Democrat Party Hates America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last year Mark Levin published a book titled The Democrat Party Hates America. The disparaging epithet in his title is unoriginal. In 2019 there was another book by Clarence Mason Weaver, The Democrat Party Hates America: The Truth Between the Lies. On March 5, 2021 I blogged about The Democrat party and the Poohblican party. I said:

 

“Names matter. Refusing to use the name of the opposing political party is arrogant. It also is stupid if you call the Democratic Party the Democrat Party. Democratic is an adjective; Democrat is a noun, and if you’re smarter than a fifth-grader then you know those are different parts of speech.”

 

Mark R. Levin is a loudmouth, assclown radio show host. There is a web page on Mark Reed Levin from January 18, 2014 at the Encyclopedia of American Loons. I can’t stand listening to his radio show for more than three minutes at a time. He sounds perpetually angry - like there is a cylindrical cactus stuck up his butt. And Mark still refers to his executive producer Richard Sementa just as Mr. Producer, although Richard worked there for over twenty years. Mr. Levin has a law degree from Temple University, so he once was taught how to use language carefully and precisely.

 

At the web site for his radio show Levin has used Democrat Party in the titles for recent articles. Two examples are:

 

December 28, 2023 - Levin: Hamas Wing of The Democrat Party Is A Problem

December 29, 2023 - Mark Levin: What Does The Democrat Party Love About America?

      

But when you look back further, he also has referred to the Democratic Party. Three examples are:

 

July 5, 2023 - Levin: Welcome to Totalitarianism, Democratic Party Style

November 7, 2023 - Levin: The Democratic Party Has No Soul, No Principle

December 14, 2023 - Levin: All Colleges And Universities Go Through The Democratic Party

 

Mr. Levin’s recent refusal to refer correctly to the Democratic Party (as the Republican Party Platform from 2016 and kept in 2020 does) reminded me of the famous country song You Never Even Called Me By My Name, performed popularly by David Allan Coe.

 

There is an article by Craig Shirley at the Washington Times on September 28, 2023 titled BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Democrat Party Hates America’. You can watch Mark discuss his book at the Ronald Reagan Library in an hour and twenty-minute CSPAN video on October 21, 2023.

 

My blacked-out cartoon donkey was adapted from the Democratic Party Flag at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Should we have a con- and pro- pair of Words of the Day at a Toastmasters club meeting?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toastmasters club meetings have a role called the Grammarian. As discussed on a page at the Toastmasters International web site, that person keeps track of language and grammar usage. There is an article by Kate McClare on page 13 of the October 2020 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled The Grammarian’s Gift.

 

To improve vocabulary, the Grammarian optionally can introduce a Word of the Day (or Week) for members to use, and keep track of its usage. Another article by Mitch Mirkin on pages 28 and 29 in the July 2015 Toastmaster magazine is titled What’s the Word. A second article by Kalle Lundahl on page 29 in the April 2017 Toastmaster is titled A Word of the Week to the Wise. And a third article by Bill Brown on page 12 in the March 2021 Toastmaster is titled A Word About the Word of the Day. The easySPEAK software for Toastmasters clubs has a web page providing a Word of the Day.

 

At some clubs, like my Pioneer Club in Boise, the role is combined with that of the Ah-Counter and called the Ah Grammarian. That person introduces a word of the day, which is shown on a sheet of paper in front of the lectern.  

 

On April 20, 2018 I blogged about Playing with words: PRO or Con? That post suggested we might broaden to having a pair of potentially opposite words prefixed with pro- and con-. The table shown above lists twelve pairs taken from a list that began by writing down twenty. Those shown in red didn’t make it into dictionaries.

 

The 5Ws and 1H (or Kipling Method) for planning public speaking or other communication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some ideas are so old they have gotten different names. For example, there is a Wikipedia article on the Five Ws (really Five Ws and one H) questions shown above which says they can be traced back to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics:

 

“For in acts we must take note of who did it, by what aids or instruments he did it (with), what he did, where he did it, why he did it, how and when he did it.”

 

That also is known as the Kipling Method, based on his poem The Elephant’s Child from the 1902 book of Just So Stories which opens with:

 

“I keep six honest serving men: 

(they taught me all I knew).

Their names are What and Where

and When and How and Why and Who.

I send the over land and sea, I send them east and west;

but after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest.”

 

Those six questions are in an article by Carma Spence at PublicSpeakingSuperPowers on December 1, 2010 titled The 5 Ws and an H of Public Speaking. They also are in a second article at Speak2Impress on June 10, 2019 titled The “5 Ws and 1 H” of Public Speaking. And, they appear in a third article by Danish Khan Yousafzai at LinkedIn Pulse on February 22, 2023 titled Mastering Communication with the 5W1H Rule.

 

Wikipedia has another article on the Five Whys for problem solving, which came from Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Corporation. There is yet another article by Jon Miller at THE MANUFACTURER on November 17, 2009 titled The Kipling Method vs the Ohno Method.

 

Recent emails that falsely claimed to have come from Netflix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the past month I have received a couple dozen fairly clumsy phishing emails that claimed they were from Netflix and warned me that “Your account will be suspended!” – unless I clicked a box to UPDATE ACCOUNT NOW. Of course, I did not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via an example, they did not have the correct logo (all capital letters with a curved bottom). Also, rather than Netflix they came from obviously incorrect addresses, ending in .org rather than .com.

 

Netflix has a Help Center web page where you can get instructions on where to forward such phishing emails. On August 28, 2020 I blogged about Another fraudulent ‘Nutflix’ email, and on November 12, 2019 I blogged about Not a warning from Netflix.

 

The Tully Message Box is a 2x2 ‘Us versus Them’ Table

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my previous post on January 3, 2024 I described Using a Message Box for planning a presentation. When I was searching for articles, I ran across another Message Box, prefixed with the name Tully. As shown above, it is a 2x2 “Us versus Them” table. An article by Joe Fuld at The Campaign Workshop on  May 7, 2020 titled Tully Message Box: Use it for your political campaign discusses it. Paul Tully was a strategist for the Democratic Party. There is an obituary for him by Robin Toner at the New York Times on September 25, 1992 titled Paul Tully Is Dead at 48; Top Democratic Strategist.

 

The earliest reference I found about the Tully Message Box is on page 54 of a 2004 book by Bradford Fitch titled Media Relations Handbook: For Agencies, Associations, Nonprofits and Congress – The Big Blue Book. It also is discussed on page 51 of a 2008 book by Jeff Blodgett and Bill Lofy titled Winning Your Election the Wellstone Way, which can be downloaded for free.

 

There is a long article by Joanna P. Kimbell and Alison Berry on pages 311 to 336 in the Fall 2018 issue of the Southern Law Journal titled The Tully Message Box as a heuristic for modeling legal argumentation and detecting covert advocacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retitled as the Perception Box and presented even more tersely, as shown above, it appears in yet another article by Ian Marovic at Beautiful Trouble titled Perception Box Methodology. You also can download his 2018 book The Path of Most Resistance, where it appears on page 51.

 

I also found the Tully Message Box discussed by Mike McCurry at The Washington Post on July 27, 2012 in an article titled Book review: ‘The Candidate’ by Samuel Popkin. He says:

 

“A good campaign begins, Popkin says, with the development of a message box, a big piece of paper divided into four quadrants. The upper left is for what the campaign/candidate will say about itself; to the right is what the campaign/candidate will say about its opponent. The bottom half is the reverse – what the opponent says about its own campaign/candidate and what it says about you. This box is familiar to every Democratic campaign operative, although we traditionally associate it with the late and legendary Paul Tully, who taught the technique to most of us.

 

Political director for the Democratic National Committee during the 1992 campaign cycle, Popkin is a veteran of most Democratic presidential campaigns going back to Robert Kennedy’s in 1968. Curiously, he does not credit Tully with making the box a standard feature of campaign strategy, but I suspect there is a longer story there. It could be that Popkin introduced the box to Tully, although the author makes no such immodest claim. That is worth some follow-up, given how ubiquitous the message box is in current campaign strategy, at least on the Democratic side. (I have heard that Republican campaigns have their own version of this, too).”  

 

The Republican version was discussed by Patrick “PC” Sweeney at LinkedIn Pulse on January 12, 2017 in still another article titled What can libraries learn from using a Message Box like Kellyanne Conway?