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Disco
Disco: DX
Definition
The concession or sacrifice by a player of an element of its platform in order to preserve or advance its overall agenda or argument. The central tenet of a Disco is that forward progress cannot be achieved by the player unless or until the player first moves backward (i.e., one step back, two steps forward.)
Jam
Jam: JM
Definition
The attempt to disable or disorganize a rival's activities or communications. A Jam is typically intended to obscure, slow, or stop the delivery or acquisition of ideas or information of a rival.
ET Phone Rome
November 12, 2009
The Holy Grail of Discos
Four centuries ago the Vatican ran a play on an astronomer of considerable notoriety. The man's name was Galileo and the Pope's play was a Jam on the star-gazers theory that the Earth (and by insinuation, the Vatican) weren't the center of the universe.
This week, the Pope's chief astronomer conceded that other intelligent beings could exist in outer space. The move is - in the parlance of an influence strategist - the Holy Grail of Discos. By conceding faulty judgment, the Vatican can now credibly go forth and convert aliens to Catholicism without appearing hypocritical.
Would Galileo be pleased? It's hard to know for sure. But we think if he were alive today, he'd run a Bear Hug + Call Out on four-hundred years of obstinacy. Or perhaps, in his old-age and wisdom, he'd simply run a Fiat and say: Better late than never.
Posted by: John Koval and Alan Kelly
Photo Credit: AP/20th Century Fox
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