Two minds and the nature of a rose

There is a considerable cross over between the work of the semioticians and relationship management theoreticians. Having used the rose as a metaphor to describe how we exchange tokens in networks as part of the process of building relationships I discover from Dr Reginald Watts (who offers us a concept “Towards a visual language – are we standing at the graveside of the written word?”) that Roland Barthes used it in a similar way.

The Relationship Value Model posits that the rose, as a token, has values that help us understand what is meant when it is gift (romantic, peace offering etc.) or represents an asset (to a florist a rose represents stock) or is a twig from a dying shrub depending on the Social Frame (network) in which it is presented.