Making Nancy's message sticky
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 02:08PM 
John Pederson offers up the challenge to make the ideas about filtering and Internet safety Nancy Willard writes about "sticky."
Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick; Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Random House, 2007) suggest that "sticky ideas" have some common characteristics and that all of us can make our ideas stickier. Sticky ideas:
- are simple
- have elements of the unexpected
- are concrete
- come from a credible source
- contain an emotional appeal.
- use stories to make an impact.
(For those of you who would like to review the concept of stickiness, see this post.)
Can we make Nancy's ideas "stickier?" Off the top of my head...
- are simple
The dangers from predators on social networking sites has been overblown, resulting in adult hysteria and Internet overblocking.
- have elements of the unexpected
More female teens solicit sex online than dirty old men.
Cyberbullying is causing kids more harm than sexual predators.
Middle School and High School girls were about twice as likely as boys to display cyber-bullying behaviors in the form of email, text, and chat. <http://www.kamaron.org/index.php/p/111/t/Cyber-bullying-articles-facts>
- are concrete
Iin 2005 there were only 100 known cases of child exploitation related to social-networking sites nationwide and that there was “not a single case related to MySpace where someone has been abducted." “Predators & cyberbullies: Reality check,” BlogSafety.com
A study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School (JAMA, 2002) examined how well seven Internet filters blocked health information for teens at settings from least restrictive to very restrictive. They found that at the least restrictive setting only 1.4% of the health information sites were blocked and 87% of the pornography sites were blocked. At the most restrictive setting, 24% of the health information sites were blocked with still only 91% of the pornography sites blocked. "Does Pornography-Blocking Software Block Access to Health Information on the Internet." JAMA, Dec 11, 2002. <www.med.umich.edu/fp/internet-filter-paper.pdf>
- come from a credible source
- contain an emotional appeal.
“What a person can accomplish with an outdated machine in a public library with mandatory filtering software and no opportunity for storage or transmission pales in comparison to what person can accomplish with a home computer with unfettered Internet access, high bandwidth, and continuous connectivity… The school system’s inability to close this participation gap has negative consequences for everyone involved.” Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture <www.digitallearning.macfound.org>
- use stories to make an impact.
David Knight's life at school has been hell. He was teased, taunted and punched for years. But the final blow was the humiliation he suffered every time he logged onto the internet. Someone had set up an abusive website about him that made life unbearable. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bullying/cyber_bullying.html>
I rather jokingly suggested we have a contest to see if who could write the "stickiest" bit about this topic. Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant said he'd promote the idea as well.
Submit your "sticky" idea here and win a free copy of Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. (I'll let Nancy be the judge of the best idea!) You will need to include your email address when you add your comment - addresses aren't published on the blog itself.
Contest closes November 1 so stick with it!
