The “Rule of Three”

It is said that humans hear and retain information presented in groups of three very well. A Blog reader (http://greatdemo.blogspot.com) offered the following article that explores this further:

http://www.presentationmagazine.com/rule-of-three-836.htm

(Thanks, Kevin!)

I certainly see the same effect and map accordingly in Great Demo! methodology. For example:

Questions:
- Great Questions (which we address right away)
- Good Questions (which we queue-up for later)
- Stupid Questions (which we also queue-up for later)

Bugs and Crashes:
- Cosmetic Bugs (which we ignore)
- Serious Bugs (we acknowledge, jump over and move on)
- Crashes (we acknowledge, direct attention away from the disaster, and move on)

General Great Demo! Method:
- Illustrate (show the Wow!, the main take-away, the end result)
- Do It (the fewest steps to get to that end result)
- Peel Back the Layers (in accord with audience depth and level of interest)

[And, of course, Learning:
- Adults learn by repetition (let me say that again…)
- Adults learn by repetition (one more time…)
- Adults learn… (yes, by repetition!)]

I’d be grateful for more insight into why the “Rule of Three” works so well – as well as other examples…

For more tips and articles on demonstration effectiveness skills and methods, email me at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com or visit our website at www.SecondDerivative.com. For demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, join the DemoGurus Community Website at www.DemoGurus.com or explore our blog at http://greatdemo.blogspot.com/.