Reading for 10/8

In these chapters of "Made to Stick" the Heath brothers explore the first two aspects of what makes an idea, or more specifically a plan, a "SUCCESs."  The first of these is to keep it "Simple."  The first few pages of the chapter work to clarify that by simple the brothers do not mean you dumb-down your plan or cut out complicated aspects, but rather to find the core of the plan, the main idea behind the plan, and put this forward as the most important aspect to be focused on.  I don't know about the majority of people, but I know for me that I need to understand the big picture before I can understand the smaller parts of a concept so this idea makes perfect sense to me. I need to be able to see the main point and the final objective before working on the details of a plan, and the Heath brothers explicate on that very thoroughly here.

The second component of a SUCCESsful idea is that it is "Unexpected."  One of the Heath brothers' examples they use to illustrate this idea of unexpectedness is through the use of mysteries in scientific writing. They talk about how a scientist writing for a non-scientific audience can employ the use of mysteries to captivate the reader's attention, but more importantly, to keep their attention. What's unexpected about the use of a mystery is that the reader is taken on an unexpected journey.  When reading a scientific document you expect it to be dense and filled with jargon and unfamiliar terms, and often it is, but if a mystery is introduced you find yourself unexpectedly invested in something you didn't plan to care about. This idea of being surprised and introduced to something we weren't even looking for in this first place is something that makes perfect sense as another reason why some ideas thrive, ironically, unexpectedly.