Bringing closer to the E-Prime and emphasizing the value of experiments with the language e.g. of product artifacts.

1. ProductTank #15

2. 2
??? %
of the communication
is non-verbal

3. 3
most communication
is non-verbal
but when putting into paper
100% becomes verbal
This slide:
Prof. Albert Mehrabian’s defined the
7-38-55 rule (7% only is verbal), but
I think this is a myth because of the
assumptions Mehrabian had.

4. Product Tank, Krakow, November 2018
Piotr J. Przygoda
pprzygoda@virtuslab.com
piotr.j.przygoda@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/piotrprzygoda/
E-Prime

5. see a bigger picture
5
INTERCONNECTIONS
This slide:
E-Prime is just a tool. Let’s focus
on a bigger picture. Think about
the subjectivism e.g. the Ebner’s
philosophy.

6. 6
This slide:
We can try E-Prime in any
marketing type, where the focus is
on verbal messaging.

7. be aware of standard pitfalls
7
MIRAGES, GIGOs
& EXPERIMENTS
This slide:
Sample equation to realise we set
the assumptions everywhere
II ⊕ II = ?
GIGO := Garbage In Garbage Out

8. 8
my customers read release notes
developers read user story
descriptions carefully
anybody reads
my customers understand
the product features
I know who use / will use
my product and how
I can prepare acceptance
criteria in 5 minutes
This slide:
The assumptions I had and I failed.

9. 9
It is not an experiment
if you know it is going to work.
— Jeff Bezos (?)

10. 10
Jeff thinks we cannot call a series
of actions as an experiment, if we
know in advance the outcome
revealing what really works.

11. to-be or not-to-be?
11
E-WHAT?
A map is not the territory it
represents, but, if correct, it has
a similar structure to the
territory, which accounts for its
usefulness.
— Alfred Korzybski
Additional note:
E-Prime, like general semantics, works to
achieve a useful congruency between the
verbal maps we make of experience, and
the actual territory of experience itself.

12. E-Prime history
12
Alfred Korzybski proposed to get rid from
the language the identity relationship
defined by any forms of the verb “to be”.
1933
D. David Bourland Jr. published:
A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime,
and proposed not to use “to be” at all
1965
D. David Bourland Jr., Paul Dennithorne Johnstonn:
To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology
D. David Bourland
Jr., Paul
Dennithorne
Johnstonn:
E-Prime III: a third
anthology
1991
D. David Bourland Jr. / Paul
Dennithorne Johnstonn:
More E-Prime: To Be or Not II
1994
1997
Robert Anton Wilson
Cullen Murphy:
“To Be"in Their
Bonnets
1992
Albert Ellis

13. English without the verb “to be”
Source: E. W. Kellogg & D. D. Bourland Jr., Working with E-Prime, Some Practical Notes.
13
E-Prime encourages, even forces, the user to write, speak,
and think more clearly and accurately. On the surface,
the term E-Prime refers to an English language derivative
that eliminates use of the verb “to be” in any form (such
as “am”, “is”, “was”, “are”, “were”, “be” and “been”).
E-Prime allows users to minimise many “false to false”
linguistic patterns inherent in ordinary English, and to
move beyond a two-valued Aristotelian orientation that
views the world through simplistic terms such as “true-or-
false”, “black-or-white”, “all-or-none”, “right-or-wrong”.
Additional note:
The structure of the language use influences
the way we perceive “reality”, as well as
how we behave with respect to that
perceived reality.

14. 14
HWA
A
U
M
unknowns…
clarified.
This slide:
Samples of the most “natural” language.
Clear and well understood, but what “more”
verbal we can propose instead?
(interlude in the presentation)

15. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Whether?
• There IS no solution to this problem => I do not see how to
solve this problem yet…
• We ARE going to Krakow => We plan a trip to Krakow…
• He IS drank => He looks drank… so I may need to call an
ambulance immediately…
• This feature IS dead => Nobody uses this feature, or We won’t
invest in this feature anymore, removing it in the next
release…
• He IS a computer scientist (“is of identity”) => He works as a
computer scientist, or He holds a degree in computer science
15
Note: every good story answers these questions

16. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Whether?
• The leaf IS green (“is” of predication) => Because of my
daltonism, my eyes consider this leaf as a green object…
• Two multiplied by three IS six => We believe that two
multiplied by three gives six…
• “A” WAS larger than “B” => … ???
• She IS friendly => … ???
• Our search IS extremely fast => … ???
• A spike story IS a discovery => … ???
16

17. it often requires
using more words
17
but check on your own
E-Prime PROS & CONS to me
it avoids premature
judging and labeling
it makes language
more colourful,
with interesting verbs
through longer sentences we
may miss the objective
it supports non-violent
communication
it enhances creativity in problem solving
it brings the user back to the level
of first-person experience
it reduces hidden assumptions,
although it does not necessarily
exclude them
it enforces providing the
meaningful context
it does not help in expressing
mathematical statements based
on equivalence and equality
challenges with expressing sarcasm

18. it often requires
using more words
18
but check on your own
E-Prime PROS & CONS to me
it avoids premature
judging and labeling
it makes language
more colourful,
with interesting verbs
through longer sentences we
may miss the objective
it supports non-violent
communication
it enhances creativity in problem solving
it brings the user back to the level
of first-person experience
it reduces hidden assumptions,
although it does not necessarily
exclude them
it enforces providing the
meaningful context
it does not help in expressing
mathematical statements based
on equivalence and equality
challenges with expressing sarcasm
Additional note:
identity-in-the-language is not
the same thing as the far more
important identity-in-reaction
(identification)

19. 19
from experience
PRACTICAL NOTES
Image source: https://morguefile.com/p/713287

20. Observations & hints
20
The more you use E-Prime, the more your skills
improves, and the more it becomes natural to for
you to focus on the first-person experience.
It works better for a novice user to simply try to
minimise instances of “to be” at first, as much as
one feels stylistically comfortable.
Try avoiding passive voice, also not only the “to be”
forms but also any words like “seems”, “appears” which
acts as “to be” substitutes on many occasions.
You cannot rewrite texts to E-Prime, you can only
translate them or just write from scratch again.

21. Sample A/B test, conversions
by proposition language
STANDARD = customer proposition through “to be” forms, like e.g. ‘winter
electric bills are reduced by 15% based on feedback from our
customers…’, ‘product is comfortable and easy to use…’.
EPRIME := customer proposition in E-prime, e.g. ‘our customers claim the
XYZ reduced their winter electric bills by 15% last year’, ‘many households
consider the product as comfortable and easy to use…’.
# of conversions:
total 4,893
eprime 49.7%, standard 50.3%
Average time spent (0-7s sample):
eprime 3,387ms, standard 3,386ms
Sample interpretation of the results:
(1) Too small sample size for ultimate conclusions, probably too large standard deviation for the sample
too, (2) Quite difficult to judge the text quality, its overall clarity to end users, (3) The same number of
conversions for both options, (4) The same average stay on page for both options, (5) The earliest
conversions for e-prime occurred later than for the standard text. Opportunity for on-page ads and cross-
selling, (6) We may require some other attributes for the insights, e.g. how the customer feels (happy/
frustrated/etc), whether the customer already know what he is looking for once entering the page, etc..

22. let’s remember few things
22
SUMMARY
focus on first-person experience, so put
yourself in your customer shoes
let’s think about the expected outcomes,
choose the strategy and the tools later
challenge any assumptions and clarify the
doubts through experiments
you may try E-Prime as one of many
options available, not the only one
ask yourself how you communicate,
how you think, speak and write.
ProductTank

23. • A Non-aristotelian System and Its Necessity for
Rigour in Mathematics and Physics, Alfred
Korzybski, Published 2004, https://
www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Non-
aristotelian-System-and-Its-Necessity-for-in-
KORZYBSKI/
c29161b8e0971844c0919ea070f6868d28df7a
df
• Speaking in E-Prime: An Experimental Method
for Integrating General Semantics into Daily
Life, E. W. Kellogg III, Article, https://
www.jstor.org/stable/42579334
• Boulard, An E-prime antohology (1991), More
E-Prime: To Be or Not II (1994), E-Prime III: a
third anthology (1997)
• Alfred Korzybski, http://
www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/
uploads/2011/05/articles/etc/47-4-kellogg-
bourland.pdf
• E-Prime, Dr. Daniel Zimmerman, https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl4UZDLFNT0
23
References

24. or let’s have a hootenanny
ask questions in E-Prime
24
THANK YOU