As a ‘frequent supplier’ of information to audiences via reports and presentations, it sometimes feels that we give away information too cheaply when we present fully formed results, data and numbers. The audience can even convince themselves that they “knew the answers already” even though previous hypotheses of the group were often different when we look back.
So the presenter learns it’s often better to keep back some results and start a discussion about what the impact or conclusions will be if results come out one way or the other – before sharing them.
On reflection this makes sense – in life we value what we have worked for or created ourselves far above what we are given for free.
Here are brilliant quizzes from the Guardian, testing your knowledge of basic data about your own country and population or the NHS . Just visualising all this data ‘for free’ would have been interesting, but forgettable, and surely the boffins at the Guardian would have done some lovely charts. But this version is better, it doesn’t give you any information at all for free. It makes you work for every piece of knowledge. It’s clear that the information engages you and sticks in your mind far better.
Take a quiz and see how you do – second time around you may find you are right at the top
How well do you know your own country?
If we only remember 10% of what we are given for “free” then surely we retain much more when we have to work for it and really engage our System 2 thinking?
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