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Higher Education and Toilet Paper, Part II

from Presenter Media

This is the first of several follow-up posts to the posts What does higher education have in common with the watch industry, the chocolate industry and toilet paper manufacturers? and Comparison of American Higher Education with the American Automotive Industry that I published six years ago. I have been thinking about reprising the idea after seeing the YouTube video, HoboTraveler.com The AskAndy Show, about toilet paper with no center core. Although Kimberly-Clarke introduced the “Natural Roll”  under the Scott Brand name about 8 years ago with much fanfare as to how it was going to reduce landfill, incinerator and recycling waste in the United States, it seems to be a colossal flop here, but it has caught on in Europe and Asia. Witness the following U.K. news article from 2014, Roll with the times: U.S. company takes the cardboard OUT of toilet paper for first time in a century in move to cut down on waste.

In the initial roll-out of the tubeless toilet paper, Kimberley-Clarke indicated that approximately 17 billion rolls are used world-wide, each year. That would be enough to fill the Empire State Building twice. Placed end-to-end, this many rolls would stretch around the Earth at the equator 40 times. They also represent 160 million pounds of waste, roughly equal to the weight of 250 Boeing 747s.  In an effort to encourage the use of the core-less toilet paper rolls, ScottBrand has published the following website for consumers to estimate how many rolls their families would typically use: How many tubes do you use?

Why would the core-less roll find a burgeoning market in Europe and Asia, but not in the U.S.? There is probably no one answer. Most likely, it is a combination of a number of factors. Most US consumers give lip service to going “green.” However, if it costs more or is a little less convenient, the US consumer seems to stick to the old way of doing things. Consider recent pushes for light bulb, battery and electronic equipment recycling.  In Asia and Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, consumer products are far more controled by central government decisions.

What’s all this have to do with higher education? Let’s go back to the 1890s when toilet paper rolls were introduced. Toilet paper rolls were a new convenient way to provide a sanitary way for people to clean themselves after the elimination of bodily waste. They didn’t catch on right away. Their use skyrocketed with the almost universal introduction of indoor plumbing, community sewer systems, and private septic systems that were built on the premise of the disposal of only biodegradable products.

www.madblog.org/2011/09/an-unexpected-catalyst-the-gi-bill/

Prior to the return of soldiers from World War II and the introduction of the educational benefits contained in the G.I. Bill (or Servicemen’s Readjustment  Act of 1944), American colleges could be divided into three models. The first model was the small, quintessential residential liberal arts college. The second model was the land grant college that grew out of the 1862 and 1890 Morrill Acts. These IHEs tended to be larger schools that emphasized agricultural education and research, and community service outreach programming. The third model was born out of the European research-based educational institutions that began in the US, around the turn of the 20th century, with the flourishing of the Ivy League institutions and the birth and growth of the University of Chicago and Stanford University.  With millions of servicemen and women looking for educational opportunities in the latter half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s, the existing IHEs didn’t have the capacity to handle such a load.

One very surprising solution to this overcrowding was the unexpected growth of for-profit institutions in the late 1940’s. Many of these institutions were labeled “fly-by-night” schools at the time. Sound familiar? There was a two pronged approach to tackling the problems created by these schools. The first was to increase restrictions by the federal government and accrediting agencies. Sound familiar, again? The second was the unprecedented expansion in the latter half of the 20th century of existing traditional colleges and universities in terms of enrollments, programs and facilities. These expansions created a secondary market demand for an increased number of faculty, which further drove the expansion of graduate programs. Since the early 1990s, the job prospects, in and out of academia, of recent doctoral graduates in almost all disciplines have tanked. In many disciplines we now have a surplus of PhDs. What are we going to do with all of them?

from Presenter Media

As all of this has been happening, there has been call after call for more education. Politician after politician has pushed for more college graduates to meet the unmet demand for qualified job applicants. To meet these demands, American society has turned to three sources. The first has been for-profit institutions, that many accuse of operating unethically. Sound familiar? The second source is an explosion of non-traditional programs emanating from the traditional IHEs. If you can’t beat them, you might as well join them. The number of traditional IHEs with “adult educational programming,” online programs and even MOOCs has exploded. The third has been pressure from multiple sources on the traditional IHEs to be “more efficient” in their traditional programming. Everyone has THE SOLUTION.

However, when we try to partially implement these solutions, the situation seems to get worse. Enrollment in higher education has reached an all-time high. However, so has the number of attriters who enrolled in programs but don’t complete them. The level of borrowing for education has reached all-time highs, as has the number of defaults. As more under-prepared students have enrolled, accusations of dumbing down the curriculum have escalated.

What lesson can we learn from the toilet paper industry? Once American society has become accustomed to a particular approach to a particular problem, it is very difficult to move it to try something new. It makes no difference that the new product or service may be less expensive in the long run, and a better use of natural resources. It takes overwhelming pressure to introduce a new behavior and have it take hold a significant segment of society.

For those of us who are old enough to remember the early days of cable television, we can’t forget the overwhelming pressure from the ubiquitous MTV ads that shattered our ear drums with the droll, repetitive chant “I Want My MTV!!!” MTV hooked the adolescent crowd with a constant barrage of their ads and free introductory offers of music videos . For those of us who were somewhat beyond the adolescent years, we had athletically inclined ESPN, the first 24-hour sports and entertainment network. Fortunately, there was more sports than entertainment. Who can forget camel races, ostrich races and Australian rules football? Once the American public was hooked, ESPN is now a staple on all cable and satellite systems, usually with multiple channels. What’s the secret? Start early and small with a product that people want, then keep feeding them the candy to get them addicted.

Is it too harsh to suggest that we need to get people addicted to education? We need to start hooking them on education early. Trying to get the late adolescent or an adult to see that they need education is too late. Talking to an early adolescent about the need to read can be like talking to a brick wall. We need to introduce children to books before they start schools. Kindergarten may be too late. This was the conclusion of the report STEM and Early Childhood — When Skills Take Root, commissioned by Mission: Readiness, a nonpartisan national security organization of more than 600 retired generals and admirals calling for smart investments in the upcoming generation of American children, and ReadyNation, an organization of more than 1400 business leaders who work together to strengthen American business through effective policies for children and youth.  If we were to follow the recommendations of “When Skills Take Root” it would mean that parents would be responsible for introducing books and learning to their children at pre-K ages. That’s a tall order in this society, when many adults have not read a book in years.

Trying to get the late adolescent or an adult interested in educational programming that forgot them years ago is nonsensical. Attempting to lure a late adolescent or adult into academic programming that uses approaches that they rejected years ago is a nonstarter. We need to go where they live and think like they think. We must bring the reticent adolescents and adults slowly into the light. We need to speak their language and use their media and methods as a starting place. I know this goes against grand educational traditions, It is NOT how we learned. That doesn’t matter. We are in a war for peoples’ minds and we need to use the most effective weapons. If we don’t have those weapons in our arsenal, we need to add them. I know that this doesn’t solve our immediate problems. However, I can almost guarantee that it will eventually bare fruit, both for the general public and for IHEs.

Pair of boots, service rifle, and helmet stand in tribute to fallen soldier; courtesy of largeart.com

This next two paragraphs are probably the strongest statement that I have ever made about the future of higher education. We are engaged in a war. As in any war, there will be casualties. Some of the casualties will be civilians, while others will be educators. We will not educate every adolescent or adult in society. However, we have a responsibility to try to save and educate as many civilians as we can. Some we will lose because they refuse to help themselves. If  individuals refuse to be educated, we can’t force it on them. Some we will lose because we don’t have the forces to reach them or we have deployed our assets incorrectly. We need to carefully study our battle plans to reach as many as we possibly can. We will lose some educators in the battle, because we haven’t trained, equipped, deployed or supported them properly. These loses are the most unfortunate because they could have been prevented.

We will also lose some IHEs along the way. We lost four within the past month with the announcements that St. Catharine College (KY), Dowling College (NY), Wright Career College (KS) and Burlington College (VT) will close their doors this summer and not offer classes this fall. Some IHEs will find themselves in untenable financial positions from which they can’t recover. The most unfortunate cases are probably those that we lose to friendly fire. If you are uncomfortable talking about the future of higher education in these terms, then I suggest that you might look for another profession. This war is only going to get messier. I am not a prophet of doom. Higher education will survive this onslaught and will regain some high ground. Will it recover all of its loses? It is possible, but not likely. However, the new emerging higher education will be different from the higher education of the late 20th century.

I began this post referring to a post in which I compared higher education to the watch, chocolate and toilet paper industries. In future posts, I will deal with the watch and chocolate industries. In the meantime, I would not recommend TPing anyone’s house or car.

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American Higher Education is a Sandy Beach

Who pays what in this new paradigm?” This is one of the provocative questions that I raised in my recent  post The Paradigm of Surviving and Thriving. However, since American Higher Education is a complex system, there are many questions that need to be considered before we should even draw the conclusion that the current system even needs changing. If it is in need of changing, we must then determine the appropriate changes and who is responsible for implementing those changes.

Some of you are already asking why in the world would I, as someone who has spent more than 50 years intimately engaged in higher education, suggest that we need a new paradigm for American Higher Education? What’s wrong with the current design? Before I get to the topic of changing American Higher Education (AHE), I should start by describing the current state of AHE. I begin with a picture. AHE is very much like a sandy beach.

Shifting sands at Tentsmuir; image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and geograph.or.uk
Sunset at Crystal Cove Beach; image courtesy of wikipedia commons
Eroded beach castle on unidentified beach; image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

What were your thoughts as you looked at these pictures? My thoughts were that a sandy beach is an excellent metaphor for higher education. A beach can be a safe and secure place. It is often a desired destination for sailors at sea looking for a place of rest and safety, and a place to replenish their supplies. I find a sandy beach an inviting place to sit, relax, stare across the water and reflect on many things, including my own existence. One thing about a sandy beach, which is also very similar to higher education, is that it is never the same from one day to the next. The winds that naturally blow off the waters toward land and the waves breaking on the shore from the action of tides and storms move billions of grains of sand each day. Those sand castles that are painstakingly built in the wet sand left as the high tide slowly ebbs into low tide, are quickly eroded away into a mound that bears little resemblance to the original. The participants in AHE can build their little castles and silos, but the shifting winds of academic disciplines, all levels of government, public sentiment and the general economy can gnaw away at those once beautiful edifices. Sometimes the changes come gradually, when they are caused by gentle breezes and the endless cycle high and low tides. Sometimes the changes come quickly, especially when they are caused by storms. Not all storms are the same, and not all storms have the same intensity. Gentle rain with almost imperceptible wind will produce small changes that can build up over time. A severe storm can wreck havoc in a very short time., leaving behind irreparable harm. We are reminded of this by Jesus as he taught the multitude:

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.  And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-28, KJV)

 

Storm damage from Hurricane Ivan at Pensecola,FL; image courtesy of Jocelyn Augustino, FEMA, and Wikimedia Commons

When you live in a storm zone, you make plans for many different eventualities. When a storm is imminent, you don’t have time to make plans. You may only have time to react. In the case of a catastrophic storm, you take the precautions necessary to save people first. We are reminded of this by David in the Psalms: “I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.” (Psalm 55:8, KJV) Property is secondary. Property can be replaced. You can rebuild in the previous location, or a new location. There have been a number of storms to hit AHE. I can’t say that we have always had good contingency plans. We have not always reacted in a timely manner to hazardous conditions. We have not always built our castles wisely in terms of location or design.

This is just some introductory thoughts that will lead to a series on the American Higher Education system, where it is currently, where it should go, how we’re going to get there, how many much it is going to cost, and who should pay for it. In the meantime, find a nice, deserted beach. On a clear morning, go down to water’s edge and take in the beauty of the sunrise. As you meditate there on the beach, you should also pray like David in the Psalms, “Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” (Psalm 5:3 KJV). Spend that time getting right with God, and being transported to another place. Then you can sit down, reflect on things like AHE, and enjoy the moment, with the only noise coming from the waves on the shore line or the mews, keows, ha-ha-ha-ha’s and huoh-huoh-huoh’s of sea gulls communicating with each other. Don’t be surprised if the keows of the gulls start sounding like the noise from that last committee meeting.

Sunrise at Virginia Beach, VA; image courtesy of Rae K. Hauk and Wikimedia Commons

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Spiritual Tenacity: Examples from Scriptures

I introduced the topic of spiritual tenacity by referencing a recent sermon by our Associate Pastor, Rev. Richard Hall, at Calvary Baptist Church of York, PA. This post digs a little deeper into the topic by looking at several examples of tenacity from the Bible.

As I noted in the first post in this thread, my visual image of tenacity was the image of holding onto someone or something for dear life. It is a picture of hanging on with all of one’s strength, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

The first image that Pastor Hall painted for us was the image of the martyrs, the righteous saints of God dying for their faith. This image came right out of the letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelations, chapter 2:

 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (Rev 2:10, KJV)

If a follower of Christ is faithful unto the death, besides the crown of life what awaits them? In Revelations chapter 6 we are told that they will be given white robes.  They will also remain at the altar and rest in the Lord until all the company of martyrs is complete.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held…And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Rev 6:9 & 11, KJV)

Therefore, what awaits  martyrs? Besides eternal life in heaven, there are three specific things. The first is a crown of life, which they gladly give back to the Savior. The second is a white robe which signifies being clean and free from the dirt of sin, and which stands in stark contrast to the deep crimson of the Savior’s blood which is the cleansing agent. The third thing is rest under the altar of God, which is in complete contrast with the state of their lives on earth leading up to their martyrdom. They are free of concern and pain.

If tenacity is the act of hanging on in the face of opposition, then there are two examples of tenacity that just jump off the pages of scripture at me. The first is the picture of Jacob wrestling with God, in Genesis 32:

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Genesis 32:24 – 30 KJV)

In the middle of the night Jacob is alone waiting for Esau who is coming to meet him. Since Jacob is worried that Esau is coming to destroy him and his family because of all that he had done to Esau, Jacob sends his family to the safety of the other side of the river. While waiting alone a man approaches and starts wrestling with Jacob. Is it real or a dream? For Jacob the exertion and the results are real.  Jacob showed the tenacity to hang onto God for a blessing, and God rewarded him for it.

The second picture is the picture of the eternal security of those in the hands of God. In the gospel of John, Jesus replying to a direct question from unbelieving Jews as to whether He was the Christ, says,

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. (John 10: 27-30, KJV)

Paul reinforces this teaching in his letter to the church in Rome.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 35 – 39, KJV)

This idea of the tenacity of God, holding onto His sheep or children is not just a New Testament idea. We also find it in the Psalms. Psalm 73 is labeled as a Psalm or song of Asaph, the first music director of the temple singers. Asaph’s name means the gatherer. Asaph could have been the author, transcriber or just the collector. In this Psalm we read

Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works. (Psalms 73:23-28, KJV)

Again we see the picture of God tenaciously holding the hand of His children and followers. David echos this picture in Psalm 139:

Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. (Psalms 139:5-10, KJV)

The picture of God tenaciously holding onto His children and His children tenaciously holding onto Him is all throughout the Bible. Returning to Pastor Hall’s sermon, he used a second word to describe the reciprocal relationship that God desires with his children.

That word was resolute. Pastor Hall used the example of Abraham Lincoln in his resolute desire to end slavery and to preserve the union. I had my own pictures of resolute. As I mentioned in the first post in this thread,  I have spoken about resolve in earlier posts, “Aphasia is not the end of the world”  and “Epilepsy is not the end of the world.”  

In these posts I told the story of the H.M.S. Resolute that was caught in the ice in Northern Canada in the bay that was later to be known as Resolute Bay. It was a story of determined survival. For me, the word resolute carries with it the picture of determination, persistence, and especially determined persistence. In my next post in this thread, I will further address this concept that is closely related to tenacity.

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Which Came First: Visual Thinking or Aphasia?

Does the old conundrum (“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”) really have an answer? One can argue sequentially that to have an egg there must first be a chicken to lay the egg. However, from where did that chicken come? All of today’s chickens come from eggs that were laid by other chickens. The most recent announcement (October 2009) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claims that no chickens have been cloned. Thus, we can still ask, “Which came first, chicken or egg?”

I’m asking this question because I have noticed that there is a one-to-one correspondence between my struggles with words and my thinking in terms of pictures. On the other hand, when I am operating in a verbal thinking mode, I have much more facility with and memory of words.

In my sequential thinking mode, I find myself asking the question,”Which comes first: visual thinking or aphasia?” In this sequential thinking mode, I am really asking the question: “Does one condition cause the other?” In my visual thinking mode, I am trying to construct a story board. So which picture panel do I include first in my story?

I realize that my case is very unusual. My brain tumor was in the meninges in the right frontal lobe area. The small hole in my brain and the scar tissue caused by the removal of the benign tumor are in that right frontal lobe area. Although it is known as the executive brain, it is not the normal area associated with language.

Immediately after my surgery I noticed a decreased facility with words. I generally understood what people were saying. Almost all of the time, I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the right words to use. This deficiency was much more pronounced in oral exchanges. When I was writing, I had more time to come up with the right word.

When I would mention the battle that was going on in my mind, many people would remark that they could not see that difficulty in my responses. However, I knew it was there. I also knew that I was answering questions by using a preconstructed story board and a previously prepared script. Ad lib responses were slow and not always on point.

For six months following the surgery, I went through extensive speech therapy for the aphasia. Month by month, I noticed slight but continual improvement until I finally reached the point that therapist’s evaluations showed that I was in the above normal range for my age group. This meant that the insurance company would no longer pay for therapy.

However, three months after the speech therapy stopped, I had a serious setback. I experienced four tonic-clonic seizures within a 30-minute time span. I lost consciousness the moment of the first seizure, and I did not wake up until four days later in the hospital. When I did regain consciousness, I immediately knew several things were different. I had lost many of the gains in the use of words that I had achieved through the speech therapy. I also realized that I was vacillating between two modes of thinking. The first mode was a verbal, analytic, quantitative, sequential mode, which had been my normal mode prior to the surgery. The second mode was a visual, metaphoric mode which was brand new to me.

It was immediately back to speech therapy. This time my progress was spotty. Some days were much better than others. It all depended upon which thinking mode I found myself in. When I was in the verbal mode, my performance on the therapist’s assessments was good enough, so that five months after the seizures my insurance company again said that therapy was no longer necessary.

Shortly after the therapy stopped for this second time, the tremors and hallucinations started. One year after the first tremors and hallucinations, the dysesthesia started. I realize that my aphasia is far from the usual forms of aphasia. For more than one year, I have been battling the aphasia, tremors, hallucinations, dysesthesia, and visual thinking. These conditions are not universally present. However, when they are present, I have noticed that verbal, analytic, quantitative, and sequential thinking is much more difficult. Complicating things is that the tremors occur almost at random. They are not associated with either thinking mode, or the aphasia, hallucinations or dysesthesia.

Again, the question: “Which came first: visual thinking or aphasia, hallucinations and dysesthesia?” However, in reverting to analytic thinking for a moment, are these factors occurring simultaneously because there is a third factor that is causing these two observable factors?

In the meantime, I know that if I am fighting hallucinations and dysesthesia, the visual thinking is not too far behind, and vice verse. Although I know that I can write in either mode, verbal or visual thinking, it is easier when I’m in verbal mode. Sometimes I can’t wait for the verbal mode to show up, so I plow ahead writing in the visual mode.

 

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Living in the World of Visual Thinking

I can’t believe tha it’s been almost two years since I published the post Living in a Metaphoric World and Trying to Communicate with the Academy.  Although many things have changed, many have remained the same. In October 2011, I was living almost exclusively in a metaphoric and visual thought pattern world. Over the two intervening years, I have worked very hard to regain some of my life in the verbal, analytic, quantitative, and sequential thought world. Today in August 2013, the best I can say is that “Some days are better than others.”  This, of course, drove me to the U2 song, Some Days Are Better Than Others, particularly the verse

Some days it all adds up
And what you got is not enough
Some days are better than others.

When faced with any question, situation, or problem, my thinking still immediately goes to a picture or a scene. Prior to my TBIs, I would have attempted to formulate a verbal description, before piecing together a verbal, analytic, quantitative, sequential explanation or solution. Today, I begin with a picture around which I build a scene. I will then put together a storyboard, and eventually a script. It is as if I am scripting and directing a movie.

Some of my movie productions are visual travelogues, focusing on the scenery. Other productions are closer to documentaries, where I attempt to present a verbal description of what I see. In these I attempt to translate the pictures into words.  However, to use words, you have to have a ready supply of words. Here is where I experience the down side of aphasia. Sometimes I must struggle to find the best word. I know what I want to say because I see the pictures. Nevertheless, the right words don’t leap out at me as they used to do. It takes me back to one of my first posts, Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs.

One criticism of living in a movie, is that one is always living in a fantasy, a make-believe world. It is not real. Having lived in this fantasy land now for more than two years, I would counter that living in a world of words, analysis, numbers and sequence, is not living in the real world either. The words, analysis, numbers and sequences are only representations of the real world. If analogies congeal into dogmas, metaphors and pictures are easily mistaken for reality. C.S. Lewis said that the danger of using a metaphor is not that it may be wrong, but that people forget it is an analogy and not necessarily reality.

Which is the better description of reality? Having been a resident of both worlds, my answer would have to be, “It depends!” James Geary, New York Times Bestselling author of “I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World” gives us an answer. The answer is that it depends upon the audience. In his book Geary introduces us to the concept of expectancy bias. Individuals bring their own biases to bear upon any communication. Those differing expectations will cause individuals to create their own interpretations of your story. However, you can help lead individuals in particular directions by the  words, analyses, numbers, sequences, pictures, and metaphors that you select.

What’s left to say? Quiet on the set! ACTION!

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What is a Hallmark?

In a very unscientific survey, I asked 20 people what was the first thing they thought of when I said the word, “Hallmark.” Almost everyone (95%) said a “card” or “greeting card”, which I assumed to be the same answer. The one person who answered differently said, “A television channel.”  We can guess what this individual most often watches on television, and it’s probably not sports on the ESPN network.

Hallmark Cards, Inc. has had a huge impact on American society. It is a brand name that has become almost synonymous with its main product. Its branding phrases are used far beyond the realms of the use of its products. The phrase “Life is a special occasion” summarizes an upbeat, philosophical point of view that is used at joyous occasions and as a celebration of life at those time that may not be completely joyous.

The phrase, “When you care enough to send the very best” has been Hallmark’s official slogan since 1944. It became a pass phrase for excellence, and drove Hallmark to the position of being the number one card company in the world. With the demand for greeting cards it helped develop, this one phrase may have also changed the whole industry of greeting cards. It opened the door to other niche card companies to become successful as well.

What is the original of the name and word Hallmark? There are two primary dictionary definitions of the word. The first is a “signature characteristic.”  What does that mean? A signature characteristic is that one distinctive trait that “says it all.”  It describes the essence of the object or organization. The second definition is a “mark or indication of excellence, quality or purity.” It is the sign that guarantees the purity, origin or genuineness of an object.

I found the etymology of the word very interesting. It all began with the “Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths”, first chartered in London in 1327. In addition to being a livery company, they were also entrusted with the task of ensuring the quality and purity of gold and silver objects that were sold in Great Britain. The Goldsmith’s Company has operated out of the same location since they built the first of three  Goldsmiths’ Halls in 1339. To show people that a particular object had been tested and its purity and origin were verified, a seal of approval was stamped into the object or attached to it. That seal became known as the Hallmark.

Five years ago, I would have loved these word games associated with the term Hallmark. Today thinking visually, I have my own definition of Hallmark. FIrst, what’s a hall? It can be a large building that can serve as a meeting place for large groups of people, or for special purposes such as a classroom building on a college campus. However, a  hall is also a passage way within a building to allow people to go from one area to another.

Although I can envisioned a hallway in a college classroom or administration building, the hall to which I was drawn was a hall of a large castle. If one walks down a hall in a castle, what does one see? Scattered on the walls are portraits of family members or ancestors of the family that owns the castle. These portraits celebrate the people of the family and their greatest accomplishments. The second thing one sees as one walks down the hall are mementos of the family celebrating the great events of the family. The portraits and mementos are hallmarks, celebrating the origin, the quality and the excellent achievements of the family of the castle. This is my visual definition of the term hallmark.