Instead of being bogged down in high-level diplomatic talks and lofty statements by politicians, Fulbrighters work to make a direct person-to-person impact.
But "Learning Curve," a show that occupied a real, shuttered school and did more to impress upon adults the importance of public education than all the TED Talks and policy statements in the world, took things to a whole new level.
Using examples from radio talk shows and statements by politicians and scientists, he ruthlessly exposes logical flaws and sheer nonsense (there is an entire chapter, too, on management jargon) in likably angry and witty style.
At best, the hope was that a third day of the round might produce a written agreement on procedures for further, more frequent, talks and a broad statement of goals.
While he starts by dedicating not one, but two points to clarifying that he's not working on a sequel, he ends with talks of theoretical Metacritic scores and statements like "If you let me do those things, you will love the game".
But after months of talks and similarly high-minded statements, the data are unlikely to be released without stronger leadership that brings together operators, regulators and researchers.Dig deeper: Why the world must use mobile data to combat Ebola (October 2014) The science and politics of call data records and epidemiology (October 2014) The benefits of big data (February 2014) .
(I wrote about the talks and Mullah Omar's statement earlier this week).
In an American culture in which money talks and clothes are a statement, even a football grandstand can depict a constituency holding on, at least to an investment.
After negotiating through yesterday afternoon and resolving almost every detail of what would have been a $22.8 billion deal, Alcatel, the communications equipment maker based in Paris, and Lucent, the American telecommunications giant, broke off talks and issued a joint statement saying that the discussions would not resume.
"I tell them to schedule times when they can talk safely without interruption and follow basic rules of communication covered in our sessions," he said, "For instance, taking turns talking and making I-statements instead of you-statements".
