Unexpected:

What do you mean by unexpectedness in an idea? Why is simplicity not enough to stick?

In the second chapter of the book Made to Stick the author elaborates about another important
quality of an idea to have stickiness. The element of surprise. The element which shatters the
barriers of the norm or common sense. This quality is important as it is closely associated with
human behaviour.

Humans tend to phase out the day-to-day activities which are going on around. As if they tend to
lose interest if something is getting mundane and predictable. However, if something which is
breaking the usual tendency, turns everybody’s attention.

For example, if a maths professor starts every class with an interesting story, the students would
tend to come early so that they don’t miss the beginning of it.

The first step for an idea to be unexpected is to seek people’s attention. According to the author
there are two elements to it – surprise and interest. Conspiracy theories are a very good example of
this. You can also get people’s attention by challenging their preconceived notions or predictability
machines. Our brains tend to deduce the next steps of any situation. When that deduction is
challenged people pay attention. You can then repair their schemas or re-program their opinion
about something.

While making an idea unexpected, one needs to be careful not be conceived as dramatic. Over-
selling an idea can also make people loose interest. Also, just about enough drama can make an idea
get stuck.

As authors suggest: The best way to get people’s attention is to break their existing schemas directly.

Once you get the attention of people, how to keep them engaged?

One the ways is through “Mystery”. Mystery is very powerful. People watch hours and hours of bad
movie just to know the end. If an article or a class or a conversation is started with a mystery,
people tend to wait patiently to know the ending or answer to the question it started with.

Now the question arises, what makes people interested?

Interest is generated through curiosity and curiosity happens when we have a gap in our knowledge.

Gaps creates itch to know what is missing, which in turn grabs attention.

As authors suggest: To hold people’s interest, we can use the gap theory of curiosity to our
advantage. “A little bit of mystery goes a long way”.

However, the gap theory relies on the fact people need to accept that they lack knowledge in some
or the other way. One humanly complication arises due to the tendency that people think they know
a lot. Until the notion is challenged, people do not change this opinion and hence a gap is not
recognized. One of the examples is where the Journalism professor tasks the students to write a
headline and then proves their existing schema failed.

Furthermore, gap can be created if there is a presence of knowledge. We might think that as a
person acquires more knowledge, the chances of creating gap will decrease. But the opposite holds
true. More a person is curious, more the chances of creating gaps.
One more way to create knowledge gap is to, first educate the audience just enough, about a certain
topic so that they become curious to know further about it. Then engage and involve them. For
example, how Roone Arledge educated the audiences about various games and then broadcasted
those on his channel. There is value in sequencing information.

Ideas, if carefully planned and nurtured, can lead to powerful impact.

Name: Pallavi Chaudhary

Roll no: PGMPW-20-16

Assignment: Unexpected