hypergogue

Even the newest infor­ma­tion has to be easy to grasp. The Home­ric poems were authored and recited for cen­turies before they were ever recorded in writ­ten word. These con­ta­gious epics were con­structed with cliched phrases and mnemonic devices that made it easy for the aver­age lis­tener to under­stand, remem­ber and re-tell.

The best way to incor­po­rate both nov­elty and intu­itive­ness into a sin­gle piece of con­tent is to use the “New/Old” tac­tic. Take an old piece of con­tent and fit it into a new structure–think the newest Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DeCaprio–or put some new idea into an old form–think steam­punk, fan­tasy laser guns made out steam age era technology

Cliched phrases and mnemonic devices are easy to satirise. If you try to keep something simple at work in a big organisation, the water cooler will buzz with sarcasm. If you try to hang your simple idea onto a catchy framework, you make yourself an easy target for cynicism.

I'm still reeling from a recent conversation about a company that halted work on a project for two weeks to 'completely overhaul all systems and processes'. And ended up with a 'hard-hitting' poster campaign.

The inherent problem of these '8 Elements' type things is that the subtleties get lost. To use the jargon, there's a synergy to getting the '8 Elements' right - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

One things for sure, though. There's no place for creativity in Instructional Design for behaviour change. Not that the end-users can see, at any rate.