Made to Stick

For a book about making ideas stick I feel like very little has stuck with me. Though I know what was important because I highlighted it. Looking back the things I focussed on seem useful so it cannot be that this book is not very good. I simply feel it is over stuffed. There are too many stories and illustrations for my mind to cling to. All good stories and illustrations mind you, just too many. Before reading this book I thought repetition was something that helped an idea stick, but the book states otherwise. I had to sit and think on this, after all I use repetition myself. That was when it hit me, I use repetition yes, but for short term memory. It helps me for things such as tests and quizzes, but not in the long run. I need an idea that sticks so I will remember it, after all if I can't remember it why would the children that I teach? Simple has a negative connotation, when you think of simple in the church you do not think of the adult sermon. You think instead of what the children are learning. Simple is not, and should not be thought of like that. Instead of "dumbing" things down we should realize it is finding the core idea and give the idea quickly rather than draw it out. Not just for children, but also for adults. Ideas with profound compact meaning are seemingly the only important ones. You need to be able to pack a lot of meaning into a message. Much like the letter exercise, it was hard when the letters were gibberish, but easier when we could put meaning to them. For me it was like putting pictures to what I was supposed to remember instead of simply trying to recall the letters. Breaking a pattern is a great way to not only grab attention, but to make ideas stick. It leaves an imprint when you do something against the norm. Such as the "Enclave commercial" I can imagine watching the commercial as the book described it, shock and awe just picturing it. Curiosity is a great tool to utilize. From children to adults everyone has a natural curiosity that can be invoked. The book compared it to being a mystery, which is a great idea. Ask a question at the beginning, leave a few clues along the way, until you leave them with the solution. I am not saying this is an easy thing to do, but it can be very beneficial for you as the speaker and your audience to retain the information that you give them. Life for a novice and an expert are two totally different lives. They live and think so differently when it comes to their work. The novice sees concrete ideas as such, where as an expert can see things far more abstractly. Often times the two have a hard time communicating because a novice cannot comprehend all the words and ideas the expert may use. So how can we fix this? Bring the novices up to speed? Help them come to a middle ground? Oddly enough the answer is to bring the experts down. Details are important when you're presenting something. They give your ideas and presentation credibility. We love details as people, they make things relate more. If I talk about a ball, compared to talking about a tennis ball a person is more likely to remember the story about the tennis ball then the plain ball. They not only give you something to picture, but it can make a story more real. There are so many things we can do to get our ideas across. Many ideas can get across, but the goal is to make them stick. This book however I do not think this book was the best example of that. Instead of making things stick I received an information overload. In a sense the book was something not to do, simple was not there, details were there but overwhelming. I gained a few ways to make things stick, hopefully I will remember them.