The ECHO Trip: A 10-day Road Trip and Creative Life Curation

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TALE500

24 min readJul 27, 2023

“Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement” for Everyday Life Innovation

I had a wonderful 10-day road trip with my wife and two little sons from June 24 to July 3. See the above map and the route.

During the busy trip, I couldn’t write notes with details. In order to record exciting moments and engaging experiences, I used short meaningful keywords to capture some insights while taking pictures.

These short meaningful keywords are Situational Themes of my life.

After returning to Houston, I listed 21 situational themes of the trip and conducted a “Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement” activity.

Thematic Analysis: I used 21 situational themes as data and analyzed the patterns of these themes.
Learning Engagement: It’s a great experience to connect situational themes with other themes of my life.

This article aims to introduce the outcome of the “Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement” activity.

1. The ECHO Trip
2. The “Experience — Story — Model” Schema
3. Meaningful Keywords as Situational Themes
4. Situational Themes and Creative Themes
5. Mapping The “Past — Present” Thematic Dialogue
6. A Typology of Situational Themes
7. Impact on Creative Work
8. Books, Boards, and Cards

1. The ECHO Trip

During the trip, I found several ECHOes between Immediate Movements and Creative Projects.

In Sept 2022, I conducted a case study of thematic dialogue, I found six ECHOes within a thematic dialogue between two knowledge frameworks.

The Themes of Practice Approach (2019, 2021)
The Project Engagement Approach (2021, 2022)

You can find more details in The “Activity — Opportunity” Thematic Dialogue and The Echoes of A Thematic Dialogue.

Eventually, I decided to use the ECHO Way model to reflect on the trip and conduct a case study of Creative Life Curation.

The above picture is the overview of the project.

Project (Actions) → Stories (Notes) → Model → Creative Work

The 10-day road trip was a project that includes a series of actions. After the project was completed, it became my life Experience.

I use “life as continuous flow” as a metaphor to describe Life and Experience. This metaphor is inspired by William James’ metaphor “Stream of Thought.” You can’t use a knife to cut a stream, you only can use a container to contain it.

If I do nothing with my subjective experiences of the 10-day road trip. It is only my memory. If I want to share it with others, I have to write notes, take pictures, record the trip, etc. In this way, I made Stories of the trip for social communicative context.

Though I didn’t write notes with details, I made 21 situational themes of the trip. These themes are Personal Signs which refer to my Subjective Meanings of the trip. These themes can be seen as micro-stories.

As a “Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement” activity, it goes beyond normal storytelling and social media sharing. It moves from the Story level to the Model level. I adopted the ECHO Way model as a tool to analyze the deep structure of these themes.

In this way, I can run a “Creative Life Curation” project and turn pieces of life experiences into meaningful Creative Work. I also used The ECHO Trip to name a possible book about the project.

From the perspective of Curativity Center, the Creative Life Curation project is part of the journey of building the knowledge enterprise of Curativity Theory. In 2019, I wrote a book titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice.

I have been working in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb which was an early tool for content curation (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity and developed Curativity Theory which became a book.

The new term Curativity refers to “curating pieces into a meaningful whole” which means general curatorial practice. The reason why I coined the term is that I was not satisfied with the specific view of curation such as “professional curation means art and museum.” I argued that there is a need to redefine “curatorial practice” as a general social activity and a universal experience. In other words, I was calling for an interdisciplinary view of curation or curatorial practice.

From June 2020 to Oct 2022, I worked on the Knowledge Curation project (phase 1) that aimed to connect THEORY and PRACTICE by turning Pieces into a meaningful Whole.

From Oct 2022 to Nov 2022, I worked on the Creative Life Curation project (phase 1) that aimed to connect Individual Life Experiences and Collective Culture. It refers to both personal innovation and cultural innovation.

As a “Creative Life Curation” project, The ECHO Trip used thematic analysis and thematic mapping to represent a thematic dialogue between Individual Situational Themes and Individual Life Themes.

2. The “Experience — Story — Model” Schema

The above plan echoes the model of developing tacit knowledge. You can find the “Experience — Story — Model” schema in the diagram below.

The above diagram is built with a metaphor that suggests a three-layer structure for understanding the context of Developing Tacit Knowledge. Both Situational Themes and Life Themes are related to Tacit Knowledge.

I use “continuous flow” as a metaphor to describe Life and Experience. This metaphor is inspired by William James’ metaphor “Stream of Thought”.

In fact, James used a group of metaphors around the notion of “Stream of Thought.” According to Jeffrey V. Osowski, the following other metaphors or images were part of the stream family (1989, p.132): train, chain, path, current (both water and electric), channel, line (with segments), procession, kaleidoscope, and fabric. “By using these metaphors, James was able to capture the concepts of continuity, constant change, direction, connectedness, pace, rhythm, and flow, all of which were important characteristics of thought or consciousness.”

James used the stream metaphor to reject the British empiricists’ view of consciousness which refers to the chain or train metaphor. According to James:

“Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as “chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A “river” or a “stream” are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness or of subjective life. (vol. 1, p.239)

What James emphasized is the Subjective Life. I follow this metaphor and directly use Life as a continuous flow to describe a person’s subjective experience of his/her own life. You can’t use a knife to cut a stream, you only can use a container to contain it.

The water doesn’t have a form which also means a structure, but the container has a form. The form of our experience is perceived as an interaction between our immediate actions with ecological situations which refers to physical environments and social environments.

The Experience layer means the ground of Developing Tacit Knowledge and the source of Story and Model.

The Story layer refers to the level of social communicative context. At this level, a person could tell his journey of developing tacit knowledge with others. In order to make a clear statement, I make two types of stories. While Story 1 refers to the Actual Narrative, Story 2 is framed by Cultural Significance. Story 1 emphasizes the Architecture aspect of the Story layer while Story 2 emphasizes the Relevance aspect of the Story layer.

Story 1 refers to the real story which is not told yet. Story 1 is a set of immediate actions (experience) with a structure. The structure could be a planned project, a real project, and an imagined project.

Story 2 refers to told stories that are framed by Cultural Significance. Once a person starts to share his stories with others, he must consider Relevance in the communicative context. Thus, there is a difference between Story 1 and Story 2.

At the Story layer, a person could know the themes of his/her stories and the structure of his/her stories. However, this type of knowing is based on Synthesis. If he/she wants to explore the Analysis-type of knowing, he/she needs models.

A model is not a reality, but by modeling reality, we have a special way of knowing. By using models, a person could explore the knowing of Analysis. For example, I used the canvas of Thematic Space to review my “Activity” thematic space. The process, the result, and the value are totally different from the Story layer.

However, we should remember the model is not our destination. The model is a mediating instrument for producing our outcome of tacit knowing activities. We need to return to the Story layer from the Model layer. We need to transform insights from Analysis into actionable guides by Synthesis.

Finally, the actionable guides should transform into real actions in ecological situations and return to the Experience layer.

I also used the “Flow — Story — Model” metaphor to call the “Experience — Story — Model” schema. It is also inspired by James G. March (1928–2018) who was an American political scientist, sociologist, and a pioneer of organizational decision-making. He mentioned that there are three types of wisdom in his 2010 book The Ambiguities of Experience.

What are the three types of wisdom?

Models: a model is an abstract cognitive representation.
Stories: a story is a model too, but it is easy to understand.
Actions: you just do it, then you get it.

What March suggested roughly echoes three types of social sciences.

Models: Explanation (such as Systems and Rational Choices)
Stories: Understanding (such as Culture and Subjective meanings)
Actions: Intervention (Such as Critical theory and Action Science)

Traditionally, researchers tend to use “perception, conception, and action” as three keywords to discuss mind-related topics. From the perspective of Curativity Theory which is about turning pieces into a meaningful whole, I want to expand the foundation of mind-related topics from three keywords to four keywords.

From the perspective of Curativity Theory, ordinary people need to add “Curation” to develop their minds.

Originally, I called this notion “the Epistemology of Curation” and used it to refer to considering pieces of perceiving experience, pieces of concepts, pieces of actions at a level and moving to a higher level to curate these pieces into a meaningful whole.

For Life Discovery, this theoretical consideration leads to two meanings: 1) we can adopt Multiple Perspectives to understand One Thing, and 2) we can adopt One Perspective to understand a Group of Things.

the “Experience — Story — Model” schema and “the Epistemology of Curation” are the foundation of the Creative Life Curation method. You can find more details about them in Thematic Space: Flow, Film, and Floor Plan and Slow Cognition: The Curated Mind.

3. Meaningful Keywords as Situational Themes

I used a method called “Meaningful Keywords” to capture my ideas. Since my mother tongue is Chinese, I used four Chinese characters to name each idea.

Eventually, I made 21 four-character meaningful keywords as the “Situational Themes” of the trip. In order to conduct thematic analysis and thematic synthesis, I renamed these 21 themes in English. See the diagram below.

For one particular Situational Theme called “Route of Actions,” I wrote 2–3 text notes in order to record more details for further research. This theme is about the dynamic relationship between my mind, my route, and my environment during the trip.

The theme of “Route of Actions” appeared over several days (See the diagram below). I noticed that we really couldn’t act as our original plans. We often changed our plans due to different situational changes. This insight led me to name this theme and started collecting related evidence.

However, I didn’t intend to collect evidence for other themes.

Why?

It echoes my newest idea of “Ecological Formism” and the “Frame for Work” project.

The notion of “Ecological Formism” was developed for the Creative Life Curation framework in Nov 2022. Later, I used it to refer to a new idea about knowledge frameworks. You can find more details in TALE: A Possible Theme called “Frame for Work”.

My original plan for the Frame for Work project is only about Knowledge Frameworks. During the trip, I realized that the project can be expanded to other social practices such as road trips.

Frame: Weather, GPS, Traffic Regulations, Signs, Road Conditions, Hours of Operation of Places, etc… these things impact my route.
Work: the Road Trip is a project which can be seen as a work.

In the past several months, I read Ping-keung Lui’s book Gaze, Actions, and the Social World and wrote 15 notes which were edited as a 228-page book (draft). You can find more details in A New Possible Book: Knowledge Engagement. In these notes, I further developed the notion of “Ecological Formism.” I used the following terms to develop a framework for it:

Variant
Quasi-invariant
Invariant
Invariant Set

During the trip, I found that I can use the “Route of Actions” related experience to test this framework. It could be a case study of the Frame for Work project.

Moreover, I also found many connections between the 21 situational themes and my life themes and creative themes.

4. Situational Themes and Creative Themes

I created several Thematic Network Diagrams for “The ECHO Trip” project. One diagram is about ECHOes between Situational Themes and Creative Themes. See the diagram below.

The left column lists 21 situational themes while the right column lists a set of creative themes which come from my four knowledge projects.

The middle column uses a few words as clues of connections between Situational Themes and Creative Themes.

For example, the Ecological Practice Approach is my primary knowledge project. I list five creative themes about the approach. There are eight situational themes that connect to these five themes. See the diagram below.

We should notice that one Situational Theme could connect to more than one Creative Theme. Also, more than one Situational Theme could connect to one Creative Theme.

The above picture is the Thematic Card of # 6 Tree or Chair. It connects to the Creative Theme of “Affordance”.

The concept of Affordance was coined and developed by the ecological psychologist James. Gibson in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.

What’s Affordance? Let’s have a look at the original definition made by Gibson, “The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.” (1979, p.119)

The radical aspect of affordance theory is that it challenges the traditional view on the meaning of objects “concept first” and turns it to “percept first”.

Concept is about linguistic meaning and ordinary classes of objects. Gibson argued, “To perceive an affordance is not to classify an object…The theory of affordances rescues us from the philosophical muddle of assuming fixed classes of objects, each defined by its common features and then given a name. As Ludwig Wittgenstein knew, you cannot specify the necessary and sufficient features of the class of things to which a name is given. They have only a ‘family resemblance.’ But this does not mean you cannot learn how to use things and perceive their uses. You do not have to classify and label things in order to perceive what they afford.” (p.126)

In fact, affordance theory doesn’t only consider objects but considers objects as our environment. For Gibson, “objects, other persons and animals, places and hiding places” are our surrounding environment.

Before 2014, I spent most of my spare time in digital non-profit communities as a digital activist. From 2014 to 2015, I transformed my focus from nonprofit activities to theoretical learning. Since then, I have been spending most of my spare time learning Ecological Psychology, Creativity Research, and other related subjects.

After learning Ecological Psychology for five years, I wrote a book titled Curativity from Sept 2018 to March 2019. During the process of writing, I developed a new theoretical approach called the Ecological Practice Approach which aims to build an Affordance-based theory of action and adopt ideas of Ecological Psychology for analyzing various social practices.

In April 2020, I wrote a book titled After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action and introduced the second version of the Ecological Practice Approach. Then, I didn’t know what the next project should be in May 2020.

One month later, I wrote an article about “Ecological Complexity” and used it to frame a “Trilogy”: Studies in Ecological Complexity.

Affordance Analysis: From Potential to Actual
After Affordance: From Attach to Detach
Curativity: From Pieces to Whole

You can find more details about “Ecological Complexity” here.

I have mentioned the Affordance Analysis Project in Knowledge Discovery: The Concept Dynamics Framework and Lifesystem: The Notion of Affordance Analysis.

The Affordance Analysis Project was designed with the following two parts:

Empirical Analysis
Conceptual Analysis

The Empirical Analysis focuses on my five years of observation of my two sons’ childhood. I have been watching them for many years in various environments. They often use objects in “unofficial” ways. From the perspective of ecological psychology, they are “officially” taking affordances of objects. I took many photos to record these “creative” moments in our life.

The pictures below are an example of my observation about Affordances. I took these photos during the trip.

The Concetua Analysis focuses on my reading of academic papers about the concept of Affordance since it has been influencing many psychologists, philosophers, artists, architects, designers, interaction scholars, information system researchers, etc. Many followers have been developing affordance-inspired concepts and forming a web of concepts that I called Concept Ecology.

5. Mapping The “Past — Present” Thematic Dialogue

While Creative Themes are related to my present Knowledge Projects, some Situational Themes echo my past life themes. In order to represent the details of these connections, I adopted the ECHO Way model as a tool for the project.

In fact, the ECHO Way is an Abstract Model because it is based on a meta-diagram: the three-container diagram.

The concept of Container is the core of the Ecological Practice approach. By adjusting the quality and quantity of the Container, we can create advanced frameworks for discussing complex phenomena. The quality of the Container can be potential and actual, and the quantity of the Container can be one or two. If we develop a new framework with one potential container and two actual containers, the outcome is the above diagram.

I named the potential container (Container Z) Echozone which refers to a creative space containing echoes between Container X and Container Y. The term “Echo” of “Echozone” refers to a dialogue between two containers.

The ECHO way is defined as a practical framework for guiding research, design, and development in the real-life world. As a knowledge framework, it has three components: diagrams, concepts, and methods. You can find more details in The ECHO Way (v2.0).

How can we make a Concrete Model with the ECHO Way? We need to connect it with our situational challenges. For the ECHO Trip project, I made the following conceptual:

Container X: Past (30 years of creative life experience)
Container Y: Present (A 10-day Road Trip)
Container Z: The ECHO Trip (ECHOes between life themes and situational themes)

This is my initial model for the ECHO Trip project. Then, I applied the model to my data (21 situational themes).

However, the Model — Data match process didn’t work well. Eventually, I changed my mind and found a new way to connect the model and the data.

By using the same diagram, I developed a new version of the model.

What’s the difference between the initial model and the new model?

If I follow the initial model, I have to place all of the 21 situational themes in the right container and place related life themes in the left container.
The new model just places 21 situational themes in all three containers. In this way, I made a typology of situational themes.

This change redefined the purpose of using the model for representing the “Past — Present” thematic dialogue. The new model aims to discover a typology of situational themes for further research.

I can still work on the “Past — Present” thematic dialogue by using other models.

6. A Typology of Situational Themes

The new typology of situational themes is represented in the diagram below. We can see five types of situational themes.

The core idea of the typology is a distinction between the following two types:

Priori Themes: triggered by my past experience.
Posteriori Themes: triggered by my immediate experience.

This distinction refers to the Source of situational themes. Some situational themes are triggered by my past experience while other situational themes are triggered by my immediate experience.

I also noticed that some situational themes only appeared once while others appeared frequently. I name the latter “Possible Practices” from the perspective of “Themes of Practice”.

Let’s highlight the typology from the above diagram. See the diagram below.

Priori Themes are divided into two sub-categories: Life-related themes and Work-related themes. For example, the #5 theme (Once Upon A Thai Coke) refers to a life-related theme.

I have over twenty years of work experience which can be divided into three stages: the creative stage, the strategic stage, and the innovative stage. At the creative stage, I worked for the advertising and media industry as a creative copywriter and designer. At the strategic state, I worked for pre-IPO stage enterprises as a business strategist and fundraising consultant. At the innovative stage, I worked on making brand-new digital tools and platforms as a researcher and designer.

On June 26, we visited the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. I took many photos at the museum of an iconic beverage brand. One photo echoes my memory of my early career as a creative copywriter and designer.

In 1997, I took a trip abroad for the first time in my life. I visited Thailand with my colleagues. As a passionate creative copywriter, I was attracted by creative ingenious print ads and TV ads in airports and hotels. One day, I bought a can of soft drink at a grocery store while we took a tour of the Mekong River.

I looked at the can and find there is an elephant-like logo with a ribbon. I initially thought that this could be a local soft drink brand that imitates Coca-coke. Later, I realized that I was wrong. It's not an imitator. What I saw is the real Coca-coke, they just translated the name to Thai.

That was a fascinating and exciting moment in my early career. I was surprised by the perfect match between local culture and a global brand. I believed that this was the greatness of the creative mind and I should pursue the same greatness!

Why did I place the #5 theme (Once Upon A Thai Coke) in the category of life-related theme? I am currently working in the field of advertising, however, the theme refers to my mindset of pursuing creative greatness. It became a sign of my life narrative.

In contrast, I used Work-related themes to describe some themes relating to my current projects. For example, the #12 theme (Weaving the Mind) echoes my projects on Curativty Theory.

I have worked in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb.com which was an early tool for content curation (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity for discussing general curation practice. In 2019, I wrote a book (draft) titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice.

After 2019, I worked on several projects about Curativity Theory. One project is called the Curated Mind (1, 2).

On June 27, We visited the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. I saw a large unfinished basket that represents the Cherokee Weaving history. I immediately recalled my childhood when I was living in a small village where people tend to weave baskets. I also thought about Tim Berners-Lee’s 1999 book Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web.

I realized that there is an interesting difference in spatial structure between a basket and a web though they share the same weaving technique. A basket is a Container while a web is a Network.

So, I came up with a new theme: Weaving the Mind. I used it as a metaphor and associated with the Curated Mind project. More specifically, I wanted to use it to represent my own approach to developing an interdisciplinary epistemological framework.

Posteriori Themes are divided into two sub-categories: Natural/material-related themes and Cultural/social-related themes.

For example, the #14 theme (Turn and Dip) was inspired by the road conditions of the Great Smoky Mountains. The source of the theme comes from the natural environment.

The #18 theme (Quapaw Swirl and Yingyang) is used to represent the category of Cultural/social-related themes. The source of the theme comes from local culture and social communications.

On June 28, we visited Riverfront Park at Little Rock. I noticed a picture with a swirl in the park. The note of the picture tells me a fantastic story: “Polychrome Quapaw bottle decorated with interlocking but unconnected red and white lines that form the classic Quapaw swirl.”

I immediately associated it with Yinyang (Yin Yang) which is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. The picture below is the Yin and Yang symbol. You can find more details on Wikipedia.

The fifth category of situational themes refers to themes that appeared frequently. From the perspective of “Themes of Practice”, I named this category “Possible Practices”.

What does “Possible Practices” mean?

I started developing the concept of Themes of Practice in 2019 for Curativity Theory. The purpose of the concept is to connect “life themes” and “cultural themes”.

Anthropologist Morris Opler (1945) developed a theoretical concept called “themes” for studying culture. Career counseling therapists and psychologists also developed a theoretical concept called “life themes.” If we put cultural themes and life themes together, we see a great debate of social science: “individual — collective”.

The concept of “Themes of Practice” aims to connect experiences and actions. You can find more details in Themes of Practice (2019–2021).

The term “Possible Practices” refers to the mission of the Ecological Practice approach. See the diagram below. I often associate it with “Creative Actions”. You can find more details in The NICE Way and Creative Actions.

The #1 theme (Guest and Guess) is an example of Possible Practices (Creative Actions). I used the theme to refer to a new game that can be played at restaurants.

On June 24, we visited New Orleans and had dinner at a restaurant called the Lost Cajun. While we are waiting for the meals, I took photos at the restaurant. It was my normal habit. However, I made a small change to the habit and turned it into a new game.

I showed these photos to my two litter sons and asked them to find items in the photos in the restaurant. This was a fun game.

During the trip, I played this game with my sons three times. See the diagram below.

Why do I associate “Creative Actions” with “Possible Practice”? Creative Actions refer to unique immediate actions or individual novel actions, so they only can be understood as “Possible” Social Practice.

An established social practice can be found in many people’s life. The “Guest and Guess” game is not a popular game, it is just a “Possible Practice”.

Creativity researcher Keith Sawyer argued that creativity is a common part of everyday life, “Everybody in a culture participates in its reproduction and its evolution — not only special figures like musicians or storytellers but everyone. Cultural creativity is found in the practices of everyday life — eating, sleeping, everyday conversation — not only in a ritual or shamanic performance. Creativity is a common part of everyday life; culture can’t survive without continued improvisation and embellishment.” (2012, p.138–139)

Creative Themes and Creative Actions are the two sides of the same coin.

7. Impact on Creative Work

The final section of the ECHO Trip project moves from individual themes to the whole trip. I associated the trip with my present creative projects and found several inspirations. See the diagram below.

The above diagram is an expanded version of the diagram below.

I often curate my mind by diagramming with pictures, text, and signs. On June 14, 2023, I made the above diagram to represent my recent mental focus.

The diagram represents a network of recent projects. The diagram was made with four thematic spaces, four themes, and one framework. The framework is the basic model of the Ecological Practice approach which features the following concepts:

Container / Containee
Event
Offers / Acts
Attach / Detach

The “Attach — Event — Detach” schema echoes a time structure: Before — Event — After. It connects to the following thematic spaces:

Attach: Early Discovery (ED)
Detach: Slow Cognition (SC)
Offers: Ecological Formism (EF)
Acts: Fast Ignition (FI)

We can also find four projects in these thematic spaces:

The “Frame for Work” project > Offers
The “Strategic Thematic Exploration” project > Attach
The “Creative Life Curation” project > Detach
The “Mental Moves” project > Acts

In Nov 2022, I finished a book (draft) titled Creative Life Curation: Turning Life Experiences into Meaningful Achievements.

In Jan 2023, the “Frame for Work” theme was born (1, 2).

In Feb 2023, my mental focus was “Developing Knowledge Frameworks” (1, 2) which led to the “Strategic Thematic Exploration” project.

In March 2023, I started working on the “Mental Moves” knowledge project (1, 2).

In June 2023, I edited a possible book titled Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement.

The 10-day road trip inspired me to develop a further plan for my projects.

Creative Life Curation -> The ECHO Trip
Frame for Work -> Frame for Work
Mental Moves -> Social Moves
Thematic Exploration -> The Territory of Concepts

The whole trip can be reflected with the “Creative Life Curation” approach, the new project is called “The ECHO Trip”. This article is the introduction to the project.

The “Route of Actions” theme refers to a case study for the “Frame for Work” project. The above discussion mentioned this insight.

I am currently working on the “Mental Moves” project which focuses on the concept of Attachance. Following the project, I’d like to expand the concept of Attachance to social practice. I have used “Social Moves” to name the new project.

The “Road Trip” activity can be seen as an example of “Social Moves”.

The “Road Trip” concept can be seen as an example of “Spontaneous Concept” too. I consider Strategic Thematic Exploration and Conceptual Elaboration as two phases of EARLY DISCOVERY of the journey of knowledge Engagement. The further phase is Continuous Objectification which aims to turn a concept system into real things.

Though Part 5 of the book Thematic Exploration is about “Spontaneous Concept System”, it can be expanded into a new possible book titled The Territory of Concepts.

You can find more details in Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (book, v1).

8. Books, Boards, and Cards

I considered multiple forms of the outcome of the ECHO Trip project.

Books
Boards
Cards

The ECHO Trip could be a possible book about the “Creative Life Curation” method and “Thematic Exploration”. This article is an introduction to the project. I would write more details about each situational theme, creative theme, and life theme. Also, the possible book could collect related articles about the Creative Life Curation method and the ECHO Way model.

I made a series of Thematic Network Diagrams on a Miro board.

I also made a series of cards for 21 situational themes and created a board on Milanote.

Finally, I made a set of physical cards for fun. Now we can play the card sorting game.