How To Make Sure People Will Remember Your Ideas | Hacker News Reader

How To Make Sure People Will Remember Your Ideas

zacharyburt.com

71 pointszackattack17 comments

That's a good insight about Dunning-Kruger meeting the criteria for a sticky idea. I think the fit may be even better than you say. Everyone knows somebody who overestimates themselves in an annoying way, and I think DK hooks up with these memories instantly. So while DK is not a story per se, it might as well be; it releases stories in the brain.

I'd add another reason for the surprising catchiness of the Dunning-Kruger Effect: it's easy to say. Seriously, say "Dunning-Kruger Effect" several times: it's easy to say and actually feels good, like you've said something really substantive. Sounds trivial, but I bet it isn't.

Edit: oh and here's another: it's self-flattering. Who, on hearing this principle, has ever thought, "Oh, that's just like me, always overrating myself"? No. We all identify with the competent hero, unappreciated even by himself.

Slightly OT, but from reading about the Dunning-Kruger effect:

"Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. "

I find myself wondering -- how do you (formally) test someone on their humor ability?

Good one. (sorry, if you didn't get the joke, you must be overestimating your humor skills.)

Zach, I like your articles.

Though, I think they could be made easier to read by adding sub sections, so the structure of the article may be understood at once. My 2 cents!

I agree, excellent content but a few headings would make this more readable.

Is this a meta-joke? I.E. because his post was less-readable maybe you began to forget his ideas in it?

Any content online should be clearly structured and scannable.

For example if you read a reference at the bottom of the page to something in the middle, it helps to have headings to quickly find what was mentioned.

This is important when people have attention spans of 3-year olds, as they do when reading online.

The Dunning-Kruger effect actually started to become known on the web in 2006 that is when I read it on Damn Interesting: http://www.damninteresting.com/unskilled-and-unaware-of-it

I think recently though it hit internet pop status.

Sounds like a case of the The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon

Dunning-Kruger perhaps not so simple...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1494732

Actually the analysis of DK in this article doesn't make the same mistake the author of THAT article is referring to. Both are good reads though.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes songs catchy. It's trickier than you might think (if you don't take the bottom of the barrel approach of endless repetition). One day I plan to have an algorithm for this.

Most of these ideas mesh pretty well with my theories on that. Of course, I'd love to see some predictive tests before I declare anything psychological fact.

Believe it or not, some work has been done in that area: http://news.discovery.com/tech/music-hits-algorithm.html

That's really interesting, I appreciate the link!

To clarify though, my ideas are geared towards actually generating the tunes to begin with, not analyzing them afterward.

It's too bad this thing isn't open-source and is stuck behind a paywall, seems like there's a lot to be learned from it.

Alternatively, just make everyone hate you with a burning passion, and you will NEVER be forgotten.

The villains carry on much longer in our minds. How many people who know Hitler's name remember Truman, Churchill, and FDR's involvement in the war?

Another important quality for a sticky idea is a cool name. Intriguing names is one of the qualities that makes TV Tropes so addictive.

For years I've had this theory that spondees make for more memorable names. One of my dreams is to have a lab so I can test things like this.

Interesting. Even if you actually scope it down to the name, some of these principles still hold true. For example, take flickr - its simple, and unexpected as syntax. Kind of when I think of it now, it might be part of the reason why I remembered it in the first place. Althought now with everybody in Web 2.0 using some sort of an interesting syntax.. it is not as unexpected, and thus not as memorable anymore.

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