Reading for Oct. 8

                The chapter, “Simple,” in Made to Stick makes a lot of sense when it explains how important it is to get the core message across when delivering any type of information. For the army, the Commander’s Intent is the most crucial message for soldiers because you can never know what the enemy will actually do. The only thing you can focus on is your mission, and that makes it simpler to carry out a plan. Simplicity is what people want. They want to get straight answers when they’re searching for information. I really like the part of the chapter that explains the upside down pyramid structure when it comes to news articles. When people read the news, they don’t want to read details upon details before they know what the story is really about. Having that initial lead is what really draws the readers in. Once they know the core idea of the story, they are more interested in actually reading the story from most important detail to least important detail.

                The importance of catering to what the audience wants is seen again in the chapter, “Unexpected.” On page 64, it is noted that people say, “You can’t make people pay attention.” However, as it discusses further, you can come up with ways to attract the attention of others, so in a way, you ARE making them pay attention. Once you break convention, you shock the listener and create curiosity (as the flight attendant does), which enables the audience to pay attention.  However, we can’t rely solely on surprise. After the initial shock, you must keep the listener tuned in by creating interest. For the flight attendant, she kept people’s interest by continuing to shock them. They probably didn’t know that she would use a car example for teaching how to put on a seatbelt, and they didn’t know she’d use a song reference for explaining that there are 6 exits on the plane. Her last sentence about the disco lights on the floor was another shock to leave the audience on a humorous note. She kept the audience interested the entire time, which is usually difficult when delivering information about safety precautions.

               This was a simple technique for the flight attendant because her announcement was short. There are other methods for keeping audiences interested when the information is put into a longer text. The example of the text on the rings of Saturn shows how creating a mystery for the audience is a good way to keep them reading. The author continuously asked questions, which got the reader thinking and wanting to know what the answers to those questions were. I think it’s always a great idea to start any text with a question because it immediately gets the reader’s attention if that question involves something they’re interested in.