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From [ Marc Abrams (2003.05.05.1119) ]
Purpose: In following my last post on “Final thoughts on the lexicon” I will follow that with this, my final thoughts on the “conventions” I suggested to CSGnet a number of days ago.
The purpose of “conventions”, in my mind, serves one purpose, and one purpose only. To help the TRANSITION people will need to make in “learning” PCT. Let me use the “Sales” analogy. People will not “buy” anything they do not want. With New products, people like to get samples, or otherwise “try on” the product before purchasing it. Will anyone dispute this with me?, Ok, PCT/HPCT is no different. People want to know why they should “buy into” this. It is a legitimate question. Not everyone will be interested, not everyone interested will actually buy and those that may need it the most may not be interested. Such is life. Good salespeople, and I mean real good salespeople, don’t spend a whole lot of time trying to “sell” something to people who are not interested. So real good salespeople find out very quickly who does, and who doesn’t want what they have to sell. Successful salespeople ( at least those that effectuate lots of sales ) talk to lots of interested people with products those people might be interested in, and spend as little time as possible with those where either I don’t have the proper product or they don’t have the proper interest. Now if in fact they do have some interest and I do have a product match, then I will try to persuade them that my product will in fact satisfy their need or want. Capesh? No tricks, no bullshit, no sleight of hand. Good salespeople work very hard. It is not an easy job.
Ok, back to the matter at hand. My suggestion for CSGnet “conventions” was not to set of “laws” we all must follow, or fear death The ONLY purpose was to ease and facilitate communication and to make it easier ( I did not say easy, I said easier :-)) to communicate and introduce new ideas. I present my thread with Rick as evidence of our " success". For the first time in 8 years I had a “conversation” with Rick on the net and was thrilled. Maybe in the future we will be able to talk about more substantive issues.I am looking forward to it. But it was not easy. It took some work on both of our parts to make it happen. It always takes 2 to “communicate”. It only takes 1 to blab away.
My suggestions for “conventions” were simple and few. Let me repeat them
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develop a lexicon and use caps to show Technical words and phrases. Technical, meaning, a specific meaning for the model
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utilize quotes to represent words that have a reference in the lexicon and are not used to describe an aspect of the model.
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Utilize a Purpose statement in our posts along with the traditional header. Look at this post for an example of same.
That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe others have some other ideas, or maybe they don’t like any of the ideas. Let’s here from you.
Marc