Concept Modeling

Concept modeling is what The New York Times described as “a process for getting to the bottom of things.” Practical in its mission, concept modeling, founded by Winston J. Perez, is said to enable practitioners to discover and deepen their understanding of underlying concepts and how they interrelate with other concepts, and by extension, the abstract and physical worlds.
As a practical result, Perez states that concept modeling may lead to greater success in fields such as business, science, technology, art, music, and film by offering foundational knowledge and methodologies to perfect ideas, initiatives, products, services, arts, and entertainment.
Application of Concept Modeling in Business, Technology, and Film
Application in business
In a 2013 interview on NewsChannel 8 in Washington, D.C., (now part of WJLA-TV) anchor Morris Jones led a discussion with Perez on the practical applications of concept modeling in businesses (one example: Starbucks and coffee aroma in stores), and technology (Sony’s Walkman versus Apple’s iPod), commenting that it is about “helping your business succeed.” As another example, concept modeling applications in business investing was featured at LD Micro Main Event, 2019, with Perez as speaker at their arrival/welcoming sessions.
Application in entertainment
A 2017 Deadline.com article titled “If Bugs Bunny Met Immanuel Kant, It Would Be In Winston Perez’s New Book On ‘Concept’” highlighted the use of concept modeling for the deconstruction of movie studio intellectual property in the form of Bugs Bunny. Deadline.com, which is a breaking-news source for the entertainment industry, revealed how the famous animated movie character could be analyzed using Perez’s approach. The concept modeling work captured the character’s surprising relationship to the concept of fear and the character’s use of attitude to overcome fear—offering a way for the character to successfully connect to young children and adults alike.
Concept modeling has been featured at Digital Hollywood, “Hollywood Magic: Perfecting Content, Concept and Concept Modeling” with Perez as speaker.
Application in technology and film
In a 2010 article titled “Enough With the Elevator Pitch, What’s the Concept?,” The New York Times explained the success of the concept-based technological innovation known as the coffee sleeve. Now ubiquitous, it was a step into the future missed by paper coffee cup manufacturers, which meant a significant financial opportunity lost. The piece featured an interview with Perez, who explained that the introduction of the paper sleeve (invented and patented by an outsider, Jay Sorensen in 1991) replaced the foldout cup holder. That holder—what The New York Times called an “earlike protuberance”— basically mimicked the form, but only part of the function, of a ceramic coffee handle. The older cup holder was apparently developed without consideration of the deeper concept that defined its essence: technology designed to keep the hand cool while letting the coffee cup remain hot. The article went on to discuss a concept-based deconstruction of the movie The Shawshank Redemption, as detailed by Perez.
Application in sports history
Another practical-use case study is encapsulated in the podcast The Obvious Isn’t … In Baseball, hosted by Perez. As of March 2021 he was getting close to publishing a book tied to the podcast: The Obvious Isn’t … in Baseball: Why Baseball Comes from the USA. Not Europe. The author uses concept modeling to deconstruct baseball through, first, the development of a concept model on the sport, and, second, the application of the concept model in examining currently accepted notions about the origins of baseball. Perez’s analysis provides evidence that baseball came from the United States, contrary to what baseball historians presently claim.
History
The core of concept modeling resulted from a eureka moment on February 6, 1989. The moment is recounted by Perez in his book Concerning the Nature and Structure of Concept, which was released in 2020. It was a semifinalist in the BookLife Prize and was awarded Best Visionary Book by Book Publicists of Southern California. It was described in a review from BlueInk Review in February 2021 as providing “a theoretical treatment of Concept Modeling, defining the key terms, introducing neologisms, and laying out the discipline’s principles.”
Some of concept modeling had as its source a how-to book on newspaper publishing and marketing written by Perez in 1987 as part of a specialized University of Maryland, University College program.

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