The Power of Discovering Something for Yourself
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Dan Heath has an interesting post on Fast Company that talks about how a crazy rumor about Snapple supporting the KKK caught on. Here is the scoop:
”But the rumor kept spreading because it had some “evidence” on its side. People would say, “Look at the label—there’s an old wooden slave ship on the front. And on the back there’s a weird K with a circle around it—that’s the sign of the Klan.” And sure enough, if you looked, you’d see a ship and a circled K, and maybe you’d start to wonder. But the reality is less scary: The old wooden ship was a depiction of the Boston Tea Party—get it, Snapple Tea, Boston Tea Party? And what about the K with a circle around it? Well, it doesn’t mean “Klan.” It means “Kosher.” Whoops.”
Strong medicine for the cognitive designer. I’ve seen it work many times. If you can make it easy for people to discover important, interesting or provocative things by themselves, you have produce a powerful cognitive effect.
