Last night I dreamed that I was giving writing advice, based on the book Made to Stick, to a friend of mine that I haven't seen in about 2 years and who had a baby about 4 weeks ago! Strange.
So, I figured I should share a few more comments about the book. The basic premise is SUCCESs in sending your message:
S - Simple (Core)
U - Unexpected
C - Concrete
C - Credible
E - Emotional
S - Story
My dream was actually about point 1 - talking about the core issue. I often have so many thoughts that it is hard to choose just one. They all seem important to me. We have also seen this difficulty with our intern pastors at church. In the ELCA during seminary a year of your studies are as an "intern" pastor in a local congregation. This is a great concept. Our pastors learn so much and enjoy their time amongst us. However, they only give sermons about once a month. So often they try to cram all that they have learned in that one sermon. It often leads to too many points to remember and feels very overwhelming (and long). My husband has been on the intern committee that oversees these young pastors and they always have to talk about focusing the sermon. It's just hard when there are so many ideas floating around.
This is also made more difficult because the more "expert" you are on a subject the more details seem relevant. This is what they call the "Curse of Knowledge" but we'll talk more about that next time. For your idea to stick -you need to pick just one - not many. As my mom always reminded me as I'd leave for essay tests - "KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!" I'm still working on it mom.
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