isen.blog

Berkeley cognitive scientist George Lakoff points out that our perceptions and thoughts are organized by our cognitive frames. Frames presuppose facts and shape the words we use. Often the effect of framing is so powerful that facts that don't fit lose their meaning. For example, 40,000 U.S. automobile deaths a year are framed as, "The price we pay for mobility," and fatal car wrecks aren't usually covered, even on the inside pages of newspapers. Instead, these deaths could be framed as, "A horrible tragic attack on innocent Americans," and we'd be at war against the causes of auto crashes, and every crash would be front page news. But we use the former frame, so usually auto crashes are non-news.

According to Lakoff, "If you have been framed, the only response is to reframe."

The telecom revolution has been framed! Telecom financiers and incumbent telcos speak of the telecom "downturn" and the "recovery" they desire. They presuppose a frame in which a diseased patient will return to health. But maybe there's no round-trip ticket. Maybe telecom's so-called troubles are not recoverable-from.

There are other ways to frame the discussion. In SMART Letter #90, I mention biological development (caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly), disruptive product substitution (hand-held electronic calculators made slide rules obsolete) and evolution (dinosaurs to mammals) as alternative metaphors.

Steve Stroh (steve at strohpub.com), perpetrator of the excellent "Focus on Broadband Wireless Internet Access," (subscription required, and worth it!) has come up with another compelling frame:

I liken the fight against the telco view of the world to a scene from the movie 'Force 10 from Navarone'. They finally get into position inside the dam and detonate a relatively small charge of dynamite. Nothing happens and the helper is outraged that the dam apparently isn't damaged. The wise old demolitions expert says... patience... and pressure... will get the job done. Sure enough, the charge had caused some cracks in the dam that the relentless pressure of the reservoir eventually broke through and the dam finally crumbles, depriving the Germans of the damn's power, transit, and flooding the bad guys in the valley. If we little guys can drive ENOUGH wedges into the telcos... using CLEC fiber, wireless, VOIP, and avoidance of reliance on telco infrastructure... we'll win."

Denver Fletcher (denver at paradise dot net dot nz) presents yet another reframing:

[Telecom] resembles a formerly strong and successful man battered by simultaneous severe emotional traumas on multiple fronts. His wife has run off with his brother, his children have abandoned him, his wider family suspect him of some dark perversion, his job is lost, his dog dead, his home burned down, and his car crashed. The Police, the FBI, and the IRS are now hunting him. His increasingly unhinged efforts to reassemble his life into some familiar pattern are not yet informed by the recognition that his life has fundamentally changed and cannot be returned to him as it was, and no amount of human effort can possibly change that.

Wanted: additional frames for telecom that suggest a one way trip -- and a new beginning!