Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 08832320109599055

Journal of Education for Business

ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20

Cartel (In)Stability on Survivor Island
Franklin G. Mixon Jr.
To cite this article: Franklin G. Mixon Jr. (2001) Cartel (In)Stability on Survivor Island, Journal of
Education for Business, 77:2, 89-94, DOI: 10.1080/08832320109599055
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320109599055

Published online: 31 Mar 2010.

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Cartel (1n)StabiIity on
Survivor Island

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FRANKLIN G. MIXON, JR.
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University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, Mississippi

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opular culture is increasingly
being used as a tool for teaching
economics principles (Becker & Watts,
1995, 1998). Watts and Smith (1989),
Kish-Goodling (1998), Trandel (1999),
and Tinari and Khandke (2000) have
offered novel uses of popular culture to
illustrate economics concepts. Watts
and Smith showed how literature and
drama can be used to develop economics principles, and Kish-Goodling
(1 998) has offered teaching techniques
using Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice
in a monetary economics class.
Trandel (1 999) pointed out that choices made by contestants on the (former)

MTV game show Singled Out help
explain the dominant strategy concept
used by game theorists and microeconomists. Tinari and Khandke (2000, p. 259)
offered economics lessons through
music lyrics. Their exercise involved
over 100 students at two separate universities and ultimately resulted in written
assignments conveying macro- and
microeconomics lessons gleaned from
over 75 songs covering several different
music genres. The benefits were summed
up by the authors’ presentation of student
assessments, which included such statements as, “It [the music project] was
helpful in allowing us to see economics
outside of the classroom context.”
The student quote above expresses a
common sentiment among economics

ABSTRACT. In this study, the author
investigates a recent phenomenon in
American culture-reality-based television-as fertile ground for pedagogical examples. Specifically, the author

examines cartel behavior among contestants on the 2000 edition of CBS’s
popular reality show Survivor. Using
anecdotes regarding contestant behavior on the show, the author examines
incentives to both form cartels and
cheat on cartel decisions.

students. It neatly summarizes the
importance of attempting to develop
teaching examples that students can
relate to and understand. Trandel’s
(1999) work is especially important in
this regard because it was based on a
game show developed by MTV, a very
popular media outlet among young
adults. Tinari and Khandke’s (2000)
more recent work is also quite helpful in
this regard. Finding other sources for
creating such lessons continues to be
important for modern-day economics
educators.

In this article, I highlight the usefulness of a more recent phenomenon in
American culture as fertile ground for
teaching examples. That phenomenon is
the emergence of reality-based television, much of which has proven
extremely popular with young adults.
MTV was the pioneer of reality-based
television development with the advent
of its popular shows The Real World and
Road Rules. Both shows, which began

in the 1990s, follow the real lives of
young adults (roommates) in various
locales.’ The CBS television network
has recently capitalized on MTV’s success by developing two new reality
shows. One of these, Big Brother, is
similar to MTV’s Real World, except
that the roommate participants are
vying for over $500,000 in prize
money.2
Another show developed by CBSSurvivor-is built on a survival theme.

In the 2000 edition of this show, 16
“contestants” were placed on a deserted
island where they formed two “tribes”
(Tagi and Pagong) that resided on separate sides of the island and engaged in
“contests” resulting in expulsion (as in
Big B r ~ t h e r )The
. ~ two tribes periodically engaged in two types of challenges,
reward and immunity challenges, which
often represented physical contests (e.g.,
obstacle courses, swimming, rowing)
between the two tribes. Reward challenges offered various “luxuries” as
rewards (e.g., food, wine, linens, etc.) to
the winning tribe. These were important
because the castaways otherwise were
forced to provide their own food and
shelter from the island’s resources. The
second type of challenge was also
important, given that only the losing
tribe would be forced to “vote” one of its
own members off of the island at a “tribal council.” In other words, all members

NovembedDecember 2001

09

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of the winning tribe were protected from
expulsion by “immunity” and thus
remained eligible for the show’s prize
money. As in Big Brother, these castaways were competing for money
(slightly over $1,OOO,OOO), most of
which ($1,000,000) would be awarded
to the sole “surviving” person.
The commercial success of Survivor
has been well documented (Peyser,
2000). Just under 330 million viewers
tuned in to the 13 episodes, including
approximately 40 million for the final

episode. Ten of the 13 episodes captured
the top spot in the Nielsen ratings, and
each of the last several episodes captured a larger audience for CBS than
that for the five other networks combined (Peyser). Advertisements for the
final episode sold for $600,000 each,
and the episode was estimated to have
earned as much as $17 million (Peyser).
Given that so many college-aged adults
were watching, can we use this cultural
phenomenon to convey certain economic lessons?

members of the Tagi tribe at the show’s
outset and the members of the Tagi cartel). They reasoned that an alliance
would enhance their individual chances
of reaching the final group of four on
the island, which would place each of
them on the show’s final (13th) episode.
Additionally, two of them would be
assured of winning the first- and second-place prizes. Because the Tagi tribe
lost the immunity challenge in episode

5, they agreed to cast their secret votes
for Dirk.
Economics principles (Mankiw,
1998; Parkin, 2000) and intermediate
economics texts (Perloff, 1999; Varian,
1999) often discuss the instability of
cartel organizations in chapters covering oligopoly/game t h e ~ r y . ~For
instance, Mankiw wrote that “sometimes squabbling among cartel members ... makes agreement among them
impossible” (Mankiw, 1998, p. 341).
Varian (1 999) concentrated on the
cheating aspect of instability:

group rewards often may conflict with
personal morals and convictions. For
example, this carteualliance necessitated lying (by cartel members) to other
noncartel tribe members and to the
show’s host, Jeff Probst, who often
interviewed tribal voters at tribal council meetings. Sensing the formation of
an alliance, Probst asked both Rich and
Sue about their possible participation in

such a scheme. Both denied any
involvement. According to Rich (during
a postshow interview), “I’m not sorry
for trying to build an alliance . . . I’m
not sorry for blatantly lying [about my
involvement with an alliance] to Jeff
[Probst] at the tribal councils (Peyser,
2000, p. 54).”6Kelly, on the other hand,
seemed to have a more difficult decision
each week at the tribal council. Kelly
stated the following:

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Cartels and Castaways

In Table 1, I depict the “tribal council” voting history (across the 13 television episodes) from the 2000 edition of
Survivor. The castaways evicted from

the island, in order of eviction, are listed across the top of Table 1, and the list
of voters forms the lefthand column of
Table 1. Table 1 requires some explanation. For example, the Tagi tribe lost the
immunity challenge in the first episode
(which aired 5/31/00), and all Tagi
members were therefore required to
vote one Tagi member off the island at
the tribal council. Sonja, the loser,
received four (secret) votes from Rudy,
Sue, Sean, and Dirk.4 Sonja, therefore,
was required to leave the island. This
process continued until two castaways
remained. The winner was then chosen
by a jury consisting of the final seven
castaways expelled from the island.
Beginning in Episode 5 (airing on
6/28/00), Rich led the formation of a
coalition or “alliance” among himself,
Sue, Rudy, and Kelly-all members of
the Tagi tribe and the eventual final four
contestants remaining on the island at
the time of the show’s final episode
(Figure 1 lists, in alphabetical order, the

90

The problem with agreeing to join a cartel in real life is that there is always a
temptation to cheat.... The firms need a
way to detect and punish cheating. If they
have no way to observe each other’s output, the temptation to cheat may break the
cartel. (Varian, 1999, pp. 484-485)

These passages are useful because they
can be related to cartel behavior of both
oligopoly firms and Survivor island
contestants. The “temptation” described
above results from the fact that individual outcomes are often more important
to cartel members than group results. As
such, the larger individual profits that
result from cheating by individual cartel
members (in business) often lead to
individual cheating and lower joint
profits for the cartel, especially when
detection and punishment of cheating
are difficult or costly. With the castaways, the secret ballot process made it
difficult to detect defections from the
voting cartel. Additionally, it may also
be difficult to identify any gains from
cartel defections. Any purely selfish
gain from defecting appears to be
absent. This might explain periods of
Tagi cartel stability. However, to illustrate how strong incentives to cheat can
be, one must also recognize that, with
the castaways on Survivor island, individual decisions that result in larger

I think it’s more important to be who you
are and think for yourself than to have a
safety net with an alliance. I mean, it’s
only money .... I thought it was going to
be more strictly survival-oriented as
opposed to people playing mind games. It
just made me feel crappy about myself.
(Peyser, 2000, pp. 56-57)

Kelly’s feelings of remorse grew
stronger after Episode 6 , when the
remaining members of the Tagi and
Pagong tribes were merged (by CBS) to
form a new tribe called Rattana (Figure
2 lists, in alphabetical order, the members of the Rattana tribe and the members of the Rattana cartel). After the
merger, immunity and reward challenges became individual contests, and
immunity (reward) was granted to the
individual castaway who was victorious
in the immunity (reward) challenges.
During Episodes 7-9, Kelly developed
strong friendship bonds with two former
Pagong members, Colleen and Jenna.
Within the first two tribal councils after
the merger, the cartel (alliance) continued to stick together in voting for
Gretchen and Greg, the two castaways
voted off the island in Episodes 7 and 8.
In Episode 9, Rich, the cartel’s leader,
targeted Jenna. It is here that Kelly first
broke with the alliance by voting for
Sean, who was not a cartel member.’
Kelly rejoined the alliance on
Episode 10 by voting for Gervase but
defected again on Episode 11 when the
other cartel members had targeted her

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Journal of Education for Business

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TABLE 1. Tribal Council Voting History (by Episode)

Votersb

RICHARD
P-, RI
KELLY
[T, Rl
RUDY
[T, R1

SONJA
4
El

B.B.
6
E2

STACEY
5
E3

RAMONA
4

DIRK

JOEL

4

4

El

E5

E6

Voted ofP
GRETCHEN
GREG
6
4
E7
E8

JENNA
4
E9

GERVASE
5
El0

COLLEEN
4
El 1

SEAN
4
El2

SUE
3
El3

Stacey

Dirk

Gretchen

Greg

Jenna

Gervase

Colleen

Sean

Sue

Rudy

Dirk

Gretchen

Greg

Sean

Gervase

Sean‘

Sean‘

Sue’

Sonja

Stacey

Dirk

Gretchen

Greg

Jenna

Gervase‘

Colleen

Sean

Sue

SUE
Sonja
[T, RI
SEAN
Sonja
[T, RI
COLLEEN
F, RI
GERVASE
F,RI
JENNA
[P>RI
GREG
F,RI
GRETCHEN
F,RI
JOEL
[PI
DIRK
Sonja

Stacey

Dirk

Gretchen

Greg

Jenna

Gervase

Colleen

Sean

Stacey

Rudy

Colleen

Greg

Jenna

Gervase

Colleen

Sue

Sean

[TI
RAMONA
[PI
STACEY
[TI
B.B.

Stacey
Rudy

B.B.

Ramona

Joel

Richard

Jenna

Richard

Sean

B.B.

Colleen

Jenna

Sue

Jenna‘

Richard‘

Sean

B.B.

Ramona

Joel

Gervase

Greg

Richard

Ramona

Jenna

Joel

JennaC

Jenna

BIB.

Ramona

Joel

Rudy

B.B.

Ramona

Jenna

Stacey
B.B.

Rudy

RUDY
1

El3

Rudy‘

Sue
Co11een

Rudy
Ramona

Fl
SONJA
[TI

Rudy

aThe numbers below each name in the “voted off’ columns represent the number of votes the losing participant received at each tribal council. The episodes (e.g., El, E2) are listed below the losing participants‘ vote totals. bTnbe abbreviations (listed below each voter): T = Tagi: P = Pagong: R = Rattana. ‘Denotes vote cast by a contestanthoter holding “immunity” (as such, they cannot be voted against).

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FIGURE 1. Tagi Tribe Members and the Tagi Cartel

Tagi Tribe

I

Dirk

II

I

I

I

I

I

I

I

Kelly

Rich

Rudy

Sean

Sonja

Stacey

Sue

I

Tagi Cartel members

I

Note. Sonja and Stacey were eliminated at Tribal Council (Episodes 1 and 3) before the formation

of the Tagi Cartel.

I

I

To Join or Not To Join?

FIGURE 2. RattanaTribe Members and the Rattana Cartel

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Rattana Tribe

---I

~

Colleen

I

I

I

I

1

I

I

I

Gervase

Greg

Gretchen

Jenna

Kelly

Rich

Rudy

I

I

Sean Sue

At least two additional cartel plots
unfolded on Survivor Island during the
13-week production. These involved
decisions made by Gretchen and Sean.
Consistent with the explanations of
Frank (1987), Sean seemed to exhibit
the need to (a) play “fair,” and (b) be
seedviewed as playing fair by all of the
other castaways. To these ends he chose
an “alphabet system” of voting in the
tribal council meetings (beginning with
Episode 7 through Episode 9; see Table
l), and he made a public pronouncement
of his voting strategy. In postexpulsion
interviews, Sean defended his voting
strategy, stating, “The proof of the pudding is that I never won [individual]
immunity, I didn’t ally with anybody
and I beat out everybody else except the
alliance” (Peyser, 2000, p. 59).
The question for principles and intermediate economics students revolves
around whether Sean actually was at
least a de-facto cartel member and
whether he was allowed to survive by
Rich’s cartel. By the second round of
Sean’s alphabetical voting (Episode 8;
see Table l), Rich’s cartel began to use
Sean’s system to their own advantage by
voting for Sean’s alphabetical target.
This cartel strategy helped insulate its
leader, Rich, against possible defections.” During Episodes 8 and 9 (see
Table 1), this cartel strategy helped
expel Greg and Jenna, despite Kelly’s
defection from the cartel in Episode 9.
Sean’s feelings of remorse (see Frank,
1987) after Jenna’s expulsion led to his
abandonment of this strategy. In any
event, Sean’s announcement of this
strategy made him a de-facto cartel
member. His need to be seen as fair,
based on aspects about his utility func-

I
Rattana Cartel members

friend Colleen. It is interesting to note
that by episode 1 1 the other cartel members (Rich, Sue, and Rudy) recognized
that they needed to expel their defecting
member (Kelly) but were prevented
from doing so throughout the remainder
of the series because Kelly emerged victorious from each successive immunity
challenge. One irony is that Kelly’s
immunity challenge victory in Episode
1 1 sealed the fate of her friend Colleen.

Selecting Reliables
Postshow interviews have focused a
great deal on Rich’s analytical prowess
and his ability to play the game. In interviews with The Early Show’s Bryant
Gumbel, Rich pointed out his recognition of the need to form an alliance as
early as possible.8 This, he suggested,
necessitated selecting reliable partners.
As Frank (1987) pointed out, commitment devices are essential when forming partnerships. One such commitment
device, according to Frank (1987), is a
conscience. A person with an overriding
conscience will honor commitments/
promises even if material incentives
favor breaking them. It is precisely this
capacity of emotional forces to override
rational calculations that makes them
candidates for commitment devices. Of
course, merely having a conscience
does not solve the commitment prob-

92

According to Frank (1987, p. 602),
concerns about fairness often play an
important role in the utility function.
Sometimes people walk away from
profitable opportunities because they
would feel worse if they did not. These
personal traits and utility considerations
exhibited by both Kelly and Sue in
many of the above passages were useful
to Rich in forming two separate cartels
and maintaining, to some degree, their
cohesion.

Journal of Education for Business

I

lem; one’s potential trading partners
must also know about it (Frank, 1987, p.
595). Physical symptoms (e.g., clues to
deceit) and personal traits help identify
such potential reliables. Such traits led
Rich to select Rudy very early. Rudy,
being a 72-year old retired Navy Seal,
allowed Rich to surmise that honor and
integrity would be overriding concerns
in most decisions Rudy would contemplate.’ Many times, both on the island
and in postexpulsion interviews, Rudy
was questioned about his loyalty to
Rich. His answer almost always
involved phrases such as “I gave my
word, and I never go back on my word,”
or “My word is my bond.” These personal traits became useful to Rich as the
days passed on the island.I0
The personal traits of Sue and Kelly
also aided Rich in selecting them for
inclusion in the cartel. Sue often exhibited physical symptoms of lying (see
Frank, p. 1987), which were evident to
others. According to Sue, “I thought I
lied awful. When Jeff [Probst] asked me
about the alliance the first time, I looked
like a deer caught in . . . headlights”
(Peyser, 2000, p. 59). In one instance,
Sue made a secret subcartel pact with
Kelly only to recant and confess this
transgression to Rich. Rich used this
information to solidify his commitment
with Rudy to form a subcartel between
the two.

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tion, made him a reliable de-facto cartel
member to Rich, the eventual Survivor
winner. These points help students
understand that cartel (in)stability
depends, in part, on the extent of noncartel competition (Perloff, 1999).
Rich’s voting cartel developed an interesting method for dealing with some of
the noncartel competition (i.e,, Sean) on
Survivor Island.
The second plot involved Gretchen.
Upon being told about the impending
tribal merger, Colleen, Gervase, Jenna,
and Greg-all
Pagong membersagreed to form a “Pagong alliance”
within the new Rattana tribe. When they
approached Gretchen with this idea, she
refused. Had she agreed instead, their
alliance would have been (a) equal in
size to the remaining Tagi tribe and (b)
larger than the Tagi alliance (Rich, Sue,
Kelly, and Rudy). However, after
Gretchen’s refusal, the other Pagong
members failed to solidify a cartel
among themselves. Instead, during Rattana’s (the combined tribe’s name) first
tribal council vote, each of these five
cast votes for different contestants, and
two votes were cast against (former)
Pagong members (see Table 1, Episode
7). On the other hand, Rich’s cartel singled out Gretchen for expulsion and was
successful. The larger irony here is that
Gretchen was the sole member of
Pagong to refuse to form an alliance
within the larger Rattana tribe, which, if
successful, would have offered her protection; instead, she was the first
merged tribal member to be expelled.
Secondly, Gretchen, a former instructor
at the Air Force Survival School, was
polled as the most likely winner by
CBS. It is useful to point out to students
that “economics skills” often supersede
“survival skills” in an effort to “Outwit
. . . Outplay . . . Outlast.” Perhaps this
understanding led Rich to make an “on
camera” proclamation that he would
emerge victorious during the 1st day on
the island.

nomics. First, cartels are inherently
unstable organizations, usually because
of individual incentives to defect (or
cheat) on cartel agreements. These
incentives are only strengthened when
output is unobserved (as with voting)
and detection of cheating is thus costly.
The fragile commitments to the Tagi
cartel by Kelly, and to a lesser extent by
Sue, only highlight these ideas. Second,
because of these obstacles, the formation of cartel partnerships require substantive commitment devices. According to Frank (1987), one such device is
a conscience and/or concerns about the
fairness of potential outcomes. Of
course, one’s potential partners must be
able to detect these concerns before they
can be used as commitment devices.
Physical symptoms and personal traits
aid in this regard and significantly
enhanced Rich’s ability to pick cartel
partners and ultimately win the game
(and $1,000,000). To these, ancillary
lessons were added through the Survivor series, such as the need to minimize the threat from noncartel competition and the efficacy of threats of
violence in enforcing cartel agreements.
These lessons are evident from the cartel’s use of Sean’s public voting strategy
and Rudy’s veiled threats toward suspected cartel cheaters. These lessons are
also paralleled in the commercial arena
by OPEC’s holdings of much of the
world’s oil reserves and by threats from
New York City’s Italian bakeries to
enforce cartel pricing (see Perloff,
1999).
Of course, integrating the Survivor
lessons, which may be time consuming,
into classroom discussions can prove
problematic. Here are some suggestions
for doing so. First, in my own principles
classes, relatively little time is devoted
to cartel theory in the traditional areasthe monopoly and oligopoly sections.
However, I do spend some time covering the game theory chapter in both the
principles of microeconomics and intermediate microeconomics courses that I
teach. Here, along with the familiar
“prisoner’s dilemma,” I spend most of
my effort discussing cartel (in)stability
and incentives to cheat. As such, I can
easily remove older examples and
replace them with more timely and intuitive examples (from the students’ per-

spectives) such as the cartel story from
Survivor Island. The examples should
prove useful to instructors who also follow this pattern. If not, this cartel story
can be introduced in traditional sections
(monopoly/oligopoly) by those who
spend less time covering the game theory portions of the text (principledintermediate).
The real value of the Survivor lessons
may be their ability to be integrated into
(a) undergraduate game theory courses,
(b) undergraduate industrial organization courses, and (c) graduate (MBAlevel) managerial economics courses.
Here, the instructor generally has more
time to devote to anecdotes that reinforce the textbook treatment of topics. In
each of these three courses, monopoly
and oligopoly models require significant
portions of the semester, thus offering
instructors ample opportunity to once
again substitute more timely and intuitive economics examples for traditional
textbook treatments and examples.

Concluding Comments
Toward the end of the series, holding
together the cartel consumed hours of
time and normal daily activities for each
of the four original cartel members.
Each member kept constant vigil over
the others’ interactions with cartel and
noncartel participants alike. In a traditional business setting, such policing
efforts would have consumed resources
that otherwise could have been devoted
to production. All of the cartel-like
activities that took place on Survivor
Island-many
of which have been
detailed above-offer useful supplements to other methods of teaching this
important aspect of microeconomic theory (see Caudill & Mixon, 1994). The
fact that use of these examples integrates popular culture, which is familiar
to most students, only heightens their
value.

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Lessons Learned: Synthesis
and Integration

The lessons learned from the 2000
edition of CBS’s Survivor series are
many, and they are consistent with textbook treatment of cartel theory in eco-

NOTES

I . The Real World involves young strangers
brought together as roommates who live and interact in front of television cameras. Road Rules
involves young strangers who live together (in
front of television cameras) in a recreational vehicle. In this format, the young adults travel from
locale to locale and perform “missions” (e.g., athletic contests, mental challenges, etc.) against
each other or other contestants. In its 2000 ver-

Novernber/Decernber 2001

93

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sion, MTV introduced a monetary reward system
for its Road Rules contestants.
2. Big Brother usually aired 4 nights each
week (on CBS) and in 30-minute edited episodes,
although the general public could view live camera feeds via the Internet () at any time of the day. Every 2
weeks, each roommate nominated two other
roommates to he “voted out of the house. The
two roommates with the most nominations were
then “marked for banishment.” and the general
public decided which roommate was “banished”
by participating in a phone poll. The phone poll
spanned the course of the full week between
roommate nominations and the banishment
announcement. The entire show spanned approximately 3.5 months. The last remaining roommate
was awarded $500.000.
3.The Summer 2000 version was filmed on
Pulau Tiga in the South China Sea. Thirteen edited television episodes appeared on CBS in the
spring and summer of 2000. The two original
tribes were named Tagi and Pagong, each comprising teams of eight “castaways.” After the first
six episodes, the remaining 10 members of the
two tribes merged to form a tribe called “Rattana.”
After the merger, the game was played, by participants, on an individual (as opposed to a team)
basis. This is explored in more detail later in the
article.
4. Sonja. like all castaways, was able to discover the voting outcomes only upon departing
from the island. All castaways were discouraged
by CBS from disclosing information regarding the
winner of the contest by signing $4 million liability contracts.
5.The main difference between the Tagi
alliance and business enterprises ( e g , OPEC
members) is that the Tagi members are not producing and selling a tangible product. However,
other writers have described cartel behavior in
nonmarket settings (Caudill & Mixon, 1994;
Fleisher, Goff, & Tollison, 1992), including voteproducing congressional alliances (Mixon &
Ressler, 2000).
6. Rich often pointed out in postshow television and print interviews that the show’s producers created the theme “Outwit . . . Outplay . . .
Outlast.” According to Rich, this gave contestants
a rationale for strategy and forming allianceskartels.

7. The remaining three cartel members-Rich,
Sue, and Rudy-had some indication that one of
their members had defected because (a) Jenna, that
week’s loser, received only four total votes, and (b)
Sean had previously announced an alphabetical
system for tribal council voting and he pronounced
that Jenna was next on his alphabetical list.
8. The success of Survivor spilled over to The
Early Show. On Thursdays, when every “survivor” (except Greg) appeared on The Early Show
for his or her first postexpulsion interview, ratings
for The Early Show were up over 25% (compared
with 1999 ratings). Additionally, the median age
of CBS’s prime time audience dropped 4 years
since Survivor debuted (Peyser, 2000, p. 59).
9. These traits were so important to Rich that
he concluded a subpact with Rudy to form a second cartel between the two should the final four be
represented by the original four cartel members.
Rich’s ability to coordinate the formation of the
two cartels and select reliables is suggested by his
background. He (39 years old) had spent most of
his career as a corporate trainer, conducting seminars on conflict management, team building, practical negotiation, and public speaking
(