RobMan 1. You wrote, "If we can agree that the exemplar can be either a model or an abstract design goal..." We don't agree here - the definitive quality of having a genius - a specific person and their behaviors - as a stable reference point with the accompanying guarentee that the patterning represented by them in their consistent behavior is a far cry from, as you wrote, "an abstract design goal" - there are orders of magnitude of difference between the two. 2. You wrote, "Design a pattern that "enables the user to easily and quickly develop and recursively test effective strategies for accessing their chosen models until they achieve that goal - e.g. Modelling Phase 1"." Apparently, this is an example of your "abstract design goal" - I fear that it is so abstract that I have no idea what you are referring to. Given the blank that I draw when I read your description, I cannot comment on its equivalence to phase I of the modeling sequence as Carmen and I developed it in Whispering - namely, the selection and gaining of access to the genius who will serve as the exemplar. 3. You wrote, "It seems to me that this is sorta what your Erickson example was...as you didn't actually have access to the real model...so you used a collection of externally expressed f2 based models of his work to design a useful Phase 1 strategy...and it worked..." Of course we had "access to the real model" - that really was Milton H. Erickson that Bandler and I modeled. What I suspect you are referring to is the fact that in phase 4 - well after we had reached criterion, we had to make a series of relatively arbitrary coding decisions to make the mapping from the tacit knowledge base that we had achieved (criterion) and that Dr. Erickson himself represented to an explicit model. Note the use of the term "relatively" modifying arbitrary coding decision. The "relatively" modifier points to the constraints introduced by insisting that the incorporation of the now explicit model in learners had the consequence that they displayed behaviors quite similar to the original reference point - Dr. Erickson himself. Note that neither Bandler or I suggested that the model we created of Erickson's patterning is a faithful representation of Erickson's internal maps, only a precise description of his behaviors and explicit procedure for learning to generate these behaviors in appropriate contexts. This is tha old AI split - write programs that mirror the behaviors of humans or simply write programs that are functionally equivalent to the behaviors of human being - two quite distinct endeavors. 4. You wrote, "I also think it's seriously relevant because many people who read and accept your modelling model in Whispering may struggle with gaining access to their chosen model.  For example I may want to model how Bill Gates has repeatedly been able to build apps that create world wide monopolies, but I doubt I'll be able to easily gain the required level of access to this specific model." Look RobMan, we never said that it was easy to model geniuses only that it is an adventure of the highest order. Have you actually attempted to gain access or is this whining I hear? Look, the difficult nearly alway looks, sounds and feels impossible until you make a full commitment and get off your butt and do it. 5. You wrote, "I'm left wondering if your focus on modelling is simply one of your useful pedagogical distortions and if the Phase 2/3 loop is really the heart of most design..." You lost me again - I would be happy to comment if you could offer me an effective clarification on what you intend here. Clearly the 2/3 phases in Whispering's 5 stage model is the heart of acquiring the patterning (with suspended f2 mappings and all that) - however the pattening captured does not become a model until it is mapped onto an explicit representation (a model) in phase 4 and tested for effectiveness in phase. Let's agree that the first 3 phases of modeling as we present it in Whispering are a learner's delight and that phases 4 and 5 are the process of making explicit and available to others the fruits of the first three phases. It is perfectly appropriate to do the first 3 phases only - it simply is not a publically available set of patterns (a model). All the best, John