Friday, May 1, 2009

Why 181 Tips for Visual Modeling?

Our company's name is Sente Corporation. The word sente is Japanese and refers to the game of GO. Western Chess is a metaphor for warfare, where the objective is to eliminate your opponent's pieces from the board (or specifically, to eliminate one particular piece, the king). The game of GO is more of a metaphor for market share, where the objective is to surround and control more territory at the end of the game than your opponent. The game is played by alternating placement of black and white stones. The board is a grid of lines: 19 horizontal by 19 vertical. Sente means having the initiative or the advantage in a sequence of moves. If black makes a move white is forced to respond to in such a way that black is free to make another move of his or her choice, then black has sente.

I mentioned that the standard GO board has a grid that's 19x19. Since GO stones are played on the intersections of the lines, that means there are 181 intersections, or places to play on the GO board. So I thought it might push me creatively a bit to imagine that there are 181 ways to play or to think about the art of Visual Modeling. I'm still formulating them and have well over 100.

But not 181. Yet.