Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page, here across
all 44 shows. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the hosts' own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q While you were in college, um, were you also working at the store?
A I was, yes, yes. I, I, I went to University of Minnesota, and I actually, um, I don't have a degree. I rejected taking a lot of the required courses. I took business courses, design, uh, Art-related courses. I knew I was heading into the business, and, um, it was a combination of I was being groomed, and I think my dad had worked really hard his entire life. He had, uh, purchased a home in Florida. He'd fallen in love with golf, and basically for six months of the year, he was gone, and so as I started working First as a salesperson, then picking up different management roles. Um, in a fairly short period of time, I was running the business.
AI assessment note: “I was, yes, yes. I, I, I went to University of Minnesota”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q All right, so you decide to give up on these other businesses, the, the kids furniture, and the, I guess the design studio, and, and really focus on room and board, and And I guess one of the things you do is move your store in Edina into a much bigger space, right?
A Absolutely. And it, the decision seemed pretty easy. We moved room and board into this much larger building, and part of what we did is we, we put room and board in, and then we created another department, if you will, which focused on Better quality. American made. At a considerably higher price. And I think the shock that hit us is our room and board customers, once they saw that, They bought it. They bought it readily and easily, and it just opened our eyes to the fact that this customer we were trying to appeal to, you know, out of college, not a lot of income, uh, they don't mind having the IKEA-like product. Well, now it's 10 years later, and they're established in their job, and they want more, not temporary furniture, they want permanent furniture, and they saw what we had, which was really Quite beautiful, American-made, and it sold way more than we expected.
AI assessment note: “Absolutely. And it, the decision seemed pretty easy. We moved room and board”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Yeah. You probably did not have much, much pull there, right? You didn't carry a lot.
A No, not at all. But, um, in 1972, I, I took a tour with a company to visit other retailers in the world, around Europe, primarily, and I went to Ikea. And at that point, I think they had a couple stores in Sweden and one in Germany, maybe. But as I, as I learned more about what they do, the design, I really was fascinated by the design and the whole process of lower cost product that's well designed. But what really fascinated me was their process in that they designed everything, and then they went to, at that time, Eastern Europe to have it made. So they kind of turned the process upside down. And, and they said, we are the creators of the product. You are going to be the manufacturer and manufacture what we determine for the value that we want for the period of time that we'd like you to continue to make it. And that really hit me as, oh, this makes a whole lot more sense from the retailer's point of view.
AI assessment note: “No, not at all. But, um, in 1972, I, I took a tour”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q Do you remember finding it stressful or challenging, or do you remember, do you remember it being, like, thrilling and exciting?
A Probably initially exciting, but over a relatively short period of time, I became frustrated with the process. Um, so the, you know, it was a process where the manufacturers really controlled the product. You went to a market, you went to different manufacturers that were well-known then, and you'd select, oh, I'd like to carry this or that or whatever, or they'd say, you can't carry this because Dayton's now has it or somebody else, and it was especially complicated because They didn't ever make the product for a very long period of time, so there was tremendous turn of product based upon the manufacturer's decisions to carry something or not carry it. If it sold well for us in Minneapolis, it may not sell for the rest of the country, and they would drop it, so you'd, you'd be starting over. So I, I became quickly frustrated with that process, and then the salespeople were all on commission. And I became very frustrated with that process because the truth is if somebody's working for you on a hundred percent commission, they're working for themselves. They're not working for you.
AI assessment note: “Probably initially exciting, but over a relatively short period of time, I became frustrated”
