06.30.08
Ideas that Stick
Why is it that Greenland has ice, and Iceland is green? And isn’t it funny that the German word for cookies is Keks, and for cake it’s Kuechen?”
That’s what Scott Edwards told the teacher in our eighth grade class. Scott always had some irrelevant, but interesting information to add. His factoids weren’t things we learned about in class, or even needed to know. But all these years later, I still remember his facts. I even remember the name of the kid who said them!
Why do some ideas stick with us, and others we forget? I’m reading a book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, “Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die.” The ideas that we remember usually have some element of the unusual–they either surprise, shock, or excite us in some emotionally-laden way.
Humor can provide the vehicle for making our message, our idea, stick in the minds of our listeners. The element of surprise, the exaggeration of some truth, the outrageous contrast. We can make our ideas stick, so that people will remember our ideas and US years after we speak our message.
