TALE: Thematic Scrapboard

A new type of diagram for Thematic Exploration and Thematic Card Sorting

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TALE500

6 min readAug 25, 2023

I often curate my mind by diagramming with pictures, text, and signs. In the past several months, I developed a new visual style of diagrams in order to connect Themes, Thematic Spaces, and Knowledge Models.

Today I am going to give it a name:

Thematic Scrapboard

The diagram below is an example of Thematic Scrapboard.

A Thematic Scrapboard has three different types of elements:

Thematic Cards (pictures)
Thematic Spaces
Mental Models

I used the following rules for this special type of diagramming:

Using Thematic Cards (Pictures) to represent Possible Themes
Red dots refer to Thematic Spaces
A Knowledge Model is used as a context for the diagramming
Making Personal Tacit Knowledge Visible
Loose connections between mental elements

You can find some related links about my practice of this type of diagramming:

TALE: A new network of possible themes (August 24, 2023)
TALE: A new network of possible themes (April 21, 2203)
TALE: Possible Themes v.s. Possible Books (July 14, 2023)
TALE: One 10-day Road Trip, 21 Thematic Cards
TALE: Possible Configurations of A Theme Network

This article aims to offer more details about Thematic Scrapboard.

Thematic Cards

I often designed a picture to close a project or highlight a theme. The pictures I made look like fake covers for possible books.

Making a fake cover for a possible book is a technique of Continuous Objectification.

Objectification means turning abstract ideas into concrete things. A theme is an abstract idea, you have to do any kind of action of Objectification in order to make it real, visible, touchable, grabbable…

In the past several months, I designed over 50 pictures for possible themes.

In July 2023, I decided to call them Thematic Cards. They can be digital. See below. You can also find a board about them in Milanote.

They can be physical. See below. You can find more details in TALE: One 10-day Road Trip, 21 Thematic Cards.

The above photo shows a set of Situational Themes of the ECHO Trip. You can see a number and “The ECHO Trip” on each thematic card.

I also added a logo to a thematic card. For example, I use logos to represent two knowledge centers: TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement) and Curativity Center. See the pictures below.

For TALE Center, “Value Circle” refers to a theme. For Curativity Center, “Value Circle” refers to a project. You can find more details in Value Circle #1: From “Mental Moves” to “Value Circle”.

Thematic Spaces

I use a red dot and a light blue circle to represent a Thematic Space. Each Thematic Space has a name that represents a primary theme.

For example, the above picture shows four Thematic Spaces.

ED: Early Discovery
EF: Ecological Formism
SC: Slow Cognition
FI: Fast Ignition

In the past several months, I worked on the Early Discovery of the journey of Knowledge Engagement. I consider Strategic Thematic Exploration and Conceptual Elaboration as two phases of EARLY DISCOVERY.

The theme of “Thematic Exploration” is located in the “Early Discovery” thematic space. On June 23, 2023, I closed the “Strategic Thematic Exploration” project with a possible book titled Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement.

On August 21, 2023, I made a possible theme called “The Territory of Concepts” which refers to the phase of Conceptual Elaboration.

I use the theme of “Slow Cognition” to refer to a large thematic space for my creative work. It means many things, for example:

The Slow Cognition project: Phase 1 (developing tacit knowledge) and Phase 2 (creative work study)
The 5A Slow Cognition Model
The Slow Cognition method (see the diagram below)

You can find more details in The Slow Cognition Project and related methods.

The theme of “Creative Life Curation” and related framework are located in the “Slow Cognition” thematic space.

Mental Models

Some authors use “Mental Models” and “Knowledge Frameworks” interchangeably.

Two months ago, I worked on the “Mental Moves” knowledge project and I decided to make a distinction between “Knowledge Frameworks” and “Mental Models”:

Knowledge Frameworks: Public objective knowledge
Mental Models: Private subjective knowledge

If we accept this distinction, we see a mediation between Knowledge Frameworks and a Project. See the diagram below.

The term “Mediation” can be understood from the perspective of Activity Theory. Lew Vygotsky claimed that human action and psychological functions are mediated by tools which refer to technical tools that work on objects and psychological tools that mediate the mind and environment.

A person has to learn and understand a knowledge framework in order to use it as a psychological tool for his/her projects. The learned knowledge framework is a mental model which is part of the person’s mind.

Why do we need this distinction? Because we can’t ignore at least the following four facts:

The learned knowledge framework may not be the actual knowledge framework.
A person also can curate several learned knowledge frameworks together and turn them into a new mental model.
A person also can detach several knowledge elements from some knowledge framework and attach them to some mental models.
A person also can invent his/her own mental models without adopting anything from others’ knowledge frameworks.

Since the difference between Knowledge Frameworks and Mental Models is large, I believe the distinction is needed for the Mental Moves knowledge project.

For the Thematic Scrapboard project, I want to keep this distinction and use Mental Models.

For example, the diagram below is the “Attach — Container — Detach” model which is the basic model of the Ecological Practice approach.

Several days ago, I used the diagram below to make a new Thematic Scrapboard.

The diagram below is the final Thematic Scrapboard.

You can find more details in TALE: A new network of possible themes (August 24, 2023).

Thematic Exploration and Thematic Card Sorting

Thematic Scrapboard is used for Thematic Exploration and Thematic Card Sorting.

According to the Thematic Exploration framework, a possible theme is a mental element of Early Discovery in the journey of Knowledge Engagement.

A theme or a set of themes could lead to a knowledge project.

A knowledge project could produce a book (draft) and other outcomes such as digital boards, thematic cards, etc.

A Thematic Scrapboard connects several theme spaces and a set of themes around a mental model. A Theme Network is a dynamic complex. We can perceive many possible configurations from a theme network.

If we perceive a configuration and believe it is very useful for the present situation, then we can turn this configuration into a situational framework.