Seth's Blog : Rankings and flavors

Rankings and flavors

Here’s a quick tactical riff about how we name things.

It’s worth considering that:

Sometimes there’s more than one thing we need to highlight
And putting those things in a list is a way to indicate that
but numbering the list implies a priority that might not be relevant or true

If you’ve got four initiatives going on, numbering or even lettering them can’t help but communicate a priority to others.

Considering flavoring them instead.

When there’s an orange, a blue and a pink project, we can see that they’re separate and all important. It’s silly but it works.

But how to make sure we don’t skip one when calling the roll? Can we give people an easy way to remember all the flavors without leaving any out?

Here are a few to get you started:

Batman and Robin
Snap, Crackle and Pop
John, Paul, George and Ringo
Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen

or Monday through Sunday.

You get the idea.

On the other hand, if you’ve written a series of books or created a pedagogy that needs to go in order, please number them. It’s useful scaffolding that adds insight for those that you’re teaching.