[Successful communication] we now define concisely as “cooperative modeling”—cooperation in the construction, maintenance, and use of a model. [Indeed], when people communicate face to face, they externalize their models so they can be sure they are talking about the same thing. Even such a simple externalized model as a flow diagram or an outline—because it can be seen by all the communicators—serves as a focus for discussion. It changes the nature of communication: When communicators have no such common framework, they merely make speeches at each other; but when they have a manipulable model before them, they utter a few words, point, sketch, nod, or object.
Print the above eemadges.