The latest action-packed issue of everyone's favorite government technology journal, Defense AT&L, is posted online for your reading pleasure! This month, my co-conspirators and I contributed a sassy little article titled Metaphors Are Mindfunnels, an image we are sure will catch on wildly.
Actually, I must admit this article, inspired largely by Lakoff and Johnson's book Metaphors We Live By, is a bit more academic and heady than the stuff we've been writing lately. That was a deliberate choice, to sort of shake things up a bit. And because we went with Really Deep Ideas this time, we built the whole article around a framework based on The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves... 'cause the Matrix movies were so easy to understand, right?
Anyway, I hope you'll cruise on over to read the article. It blew our minds when we wrote it, and I hope it does the same for you. As always, we love to hear from readers. Oh, and if you check out the print version of our beloved magazine, you'll notice the inside is now printed in Technicolor - a very snazzy upgrade, I must say.
Also, don't miss the latest edition of our "13 Theta" comic series. It's another Great Moment In Acquisitions History (and I'm afraid it's only funny if you're in the business, but maybe you'll get a chuckle out of it anyway...)
3 comments:
I didn't read the article yet (though I will) - I just wanted to skip to the comic first.
But the link goes to the article...
Oops! I'll fix it when I get home, but for now, here's the correct link:
http://www.dau.mil/pubs/dam/2008_11_12/13THETA_nd08.pdf
Thanks for catching that!
Dan --
The writing of your crew is always enjoyable to see in AT&L - usually because it is so darn antidotal in context. After the crushing effects of process and standards in the lead articles in the AT&L "special edition", I needed a way out.
Consciousness raising is always a good thing, particularly when put in a fresh package that is inviting to a new readership. By earlier schools of thought, I believe "metaphor" is "preconceived notion", "mores", "party line", or even "point of view" - all with varying degrees of awareness. I just hope "metaphor" stays intuitive and is not taken up by some process zombies and made into a toolkit of "models", "templates", etc. against which the classroom cases are to be tested and refined. Perception gets skewed when it is reduced to colors and shapes.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
William Blake
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