Lake Rice: How to make your ideas stick

  Do you want your ideas to stick around and be remembered?  Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a community leader, a youth leader, an entrepreneur or a politician, we all want people to remember our messages, we want them to by our ideas and to engage with what we say or write.  And more […]

 

Do you want your ideas to stick around and be remembered?  Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a community leader, a youth leader, an entrepreneur or a politician, we all want people to remember our messages, we want them to by our ideas and to engage with what we say or write.  And more importantly, we want our words to linger for a very long time.  This is not new- it’s a desire that has been with man from the beginning of time.  Even our revealed books are scripted by the Almighty in a way that would be easy to understand and remembered.  The Qur’an says: “And We have certainly made the Qur’an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?”Q54:17.

 

What are the elements embedded in the Qur’an and other revealed books that make them easy to remember?   How do we figure out what exactly make political messages, business campaigns, school lessons and parental nuggets sticky?  Chip Heath and Dan Heath purposes to answer that question by writing a book, “Made to Stick: why someideas survive and others die” and the book went on to become a best seller.

 

In Made to Stick, the authors stated that some ideas are inherently interesting while others are inherently uninteresting.   “So how do we nurture our ideas so they’ll succeed in the world?Many of us struggle with how to communicate ideas effectively, howto get our ideas to make a difference. A biology teacher spends anhour explaining mitosis, and a week later only three kids rememberwhat it is. A manager makes a speech unveiling a new strategy as thestaffers nod their heads enthusiastically, and the next day the frontlineemployees are observed cheerfully implementing the old one,” they wrote.

 

It’s my opinion that the partnership between Lagos and Kebbi State which resulted into a product called the Lake Rice is quite a sticky idea.  Therefore, I’m going to use the framework from Dan and Chip Heath’s book to unpack what made Lake Rice sticky.  By doing so, it is hoped that our government officials at all levels would know how to effectively engage our people with successful messages and ideas.  By using Lake Rice as an example, it is easy to believe that our campaigns can be crafted locally and still be successful.

 

Chip Heath and Dan Heath stated that if we desire to make our ideas and messages sticky, they should fulfill the following criteria:  Simple, unique, concrete, credible, emotional, story.  This list of six, forms the word “SUCCESs.”

 

So let’s apply this to Lake Rice.

 

In December2016, Governor AkinwumiAmbode of Lagos and Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State launched the Lake Rice.  LAKE, was coined from the first two letters of the names of the states.  The occasion was a culmination of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on production and distribution of rice signed by the two states in Lagos on March 23 2016.

 

During the signing of the MoU, Atiku Bagudu said:  “Nigeria cannot afford to continually depend on imported rice. So, what we are doing is to pioneer a collaboration that will bring other states on board.” Let’s now follow the six criteria one by one.

 

Is the idea of Lake Rice simple?

 

Lake Rice is not only simple, it is ridiculously so.  Lagos has the market.  Kebbi has the product.  You have what I want, I want what you have.  So let’s partner.  It’s so simple that other governors would kick themselves for not thinking about this.  Gov. Ambode said his state “is the largest consumer of food commodities in the country by virtue of its large population. The state has the market, with the required purchasing power. The state has an estimated consumption of over 798,000 metric tons of milled rice per year which is equivalent to 15.96 million of 50 kilogramme bags with a value of N135 billion per annum.”

 

Kebbi State on the other hand has been blessed with 1.2 hectares of land. Simple.  Even a donkey would get it.

 

Is it unique?

 

Records show that even Gov.Dakingari, Gov. Bagudu’s predecessor had some trade arrangement with Lagos. But what Ambode and Bagudu did was unique because no two states had done that before – at least not in rice production.

 

Is it concrete?

 

What makes the idea of Lake Rice concrete?  The product called Lake Rice itself!  It’s in the bag.  You can see it, you can touch it, you can sniff it and you can cook it.

 

Is it credible?

 

If not because of the greed and the incompetence of many of our political leaders, people in authority are normally thought to be credible.  In this case, the two governors are largely perceived to be credible people.  Ambode has the “hurry sickness” to develop Lagos State beyond where Gov. Fashola left it.  Bagudu on the other hand,   immediately he became governor, helped the people in BirninKebbi to enjoy almost 24 hours of electricity.  Therefore, the owners of the idea are credible.  Which lends credibility to the idea.  Additionally, the partnership has an element of uniting the North and the South.  People like that.

 

Is it emotional?

 

What is emotional about Lake Rice?  Lake Rice was launched in Lagos just before Christmas when citizens were frustrated with the rising price of rice.  Everyone was worried and sad and wondered how they were going to celebrate the holidays.  Then the Lagos State government said: “Here’s a solution.  It’s called Lake Rice and it’s cheaper than what you can find in the market.”  So the people welcomed it with happiness.  Therefore, you can see that this idea also fulfills the emotional requirement of sticky ideas.

 

Is there a story here?

 

Sure.  Once upon a time, farmers in the North were subjected to a great deal of uncertainty and sadness.  Someof these were due to nature and many were on account of human interventions or lack of it, such as poor irrigation systems, poor farm inputs and absence of machines that would make farming easy.  But most importantly, the market was inefficient.  There was no guarantee if the customers would buy local rice.  And when they did, they threw very low prices at it.  The people preferred foreign rice because “the optics” of foreign rice were better.  Better looking.  Better processed.

 

Even the Federal Government didn’t like the situation, because the top four import commodities, which included rice and wheat, consumed N1 trillion worth of foreign exchange.  The FG didn’t have enough foreign exchange.  What to do?  Lagos and Kebbi states stepped in.  They said: “Let’s be business friends.  Our friendship would allow us to guarantee the purchase of farmers’ rice at good prices.  This would make the farmers happy.  Then let’s process this local rice well, so that it is even better than foreign rice.  But before we sell it, let’s lower the price.  This would make the people happy.  Other states saw this and decided to create their own friendships in other cash crops.  And everyone lived happily ever after.  That is the story of the Lake Rice.

 

Therefore, if you want to make your idea, message, lesson, advice or campaigns sticky, you should craft them in such a way that they are simple, unique, concrete, credible, emotional and should have a story.  And that idea or message would be around for a long long time.  Even our revealed books have these elements and they’ve been with us for thousands of years.