Maybe used car salesmen and other peddlers of tangible goods know it, but do many of us self-nominated sophisticates appreciate the value of physical props (toys) in selling ideas, deals and the like? I think not: when it comes to toys, not only will boys be boys, but often men will too. So use it!
A couple of examples, in this blog and the next one, may titillate you. Back in the late 1960s when the development of portable energy sources rose high on the list of US Government interests, priorities even, thermoelectric generators (T/Es for short) – namely devices that produce electricity from heat, with no moving parts – were being disinterred from their previous obscurity. The basis for their possible resurrection was two-fold: more efficient active materials – semiconductors, of course – and long-lived heat sources, like radioactive isotopes that emit only easily stopped alpha particles that heat what stops them, but don’t produce those nasty gamma-rays, the bodily absorption of which is cancer-causing, for a start.
On the basis of a crash course in thermoelectrics – not literally, I’m glad to report, since the expertise was acquired by reading the thankfully short classic text on the subject during a flight from Boston to Washington DC – I proudly presented to various funding agencies there a ‘novel idea’ (are there any other kind emanating from us techie hucksters?) for the development and construction of an efficient T/E generator. The reaction? Well, as a Royal might say to a plebe: “We are not amused.”
Back to the drawing board, from which emerged what we thought was a rather fetching design for a compact, efficient T/E generator that no serious evaluator could fail to recognize as such. Ha! Based on the frequency and consistency of rejections from those self-designated pundits in Washington, however, we might well have given up on thermoelectrics and sought a text on, say, fuel cells instead. But wait… I felt a rush of neurons that could signal an inspiration. “Build a model”, spake the proverbial still small voice – which I interpreted literally, not being an economist or an academe.
Our in-house jack-of-all-trades built this beautiful model of the T/E generator, using various colors of transparent plastic, held together by brass screws, nuts and bolts. A red velvet-lined teak box housed the necessary tools to eviscerate and reviscerate it. (Apologies to Webster’s and the OED.) Gorgeous!
So off I went back to Washington DC to confront the severest critic of our previously paper-only proposal, but the man (boy?) with the license to dispense funds summarily for projects of his choice. He sneered at me, as his version of a welcome, but focused on the package that I peeled the way Gipsy Rose Lee used to peel herself. Without a word, he reached over and captured the model and the teak box.
With something approaching animation – a quality not before exhibited by this guardian of US Government funds – he lovingly disassembled the model, reassembled it, and once again did both. In response to a signal he must of sent via an under-the-desk button – this was, after all, the US Atomic Energy Authority – a minion appeared, whom he instructed : “Write this man a contract”. To me: “You can go now”, his hands encircling the model and the tools in a manner that quite effectively discouraged me from requesting their return.
Not many weeks later, we received official approval for our proposal, in the full amount requested. (Of course, the project never achieved its goals, but the Final Report was masterly!)
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