Conclusion

To create conversations people can easily bounce of from:

• Share something personal and specific about yourself
• Include something quirky, intimate, or vulnerable
• Don’t avoid strong or unusual statements
• Provide rich details that give others multiple points to connect with

Example:

“I have one grandma still alive, and I think a lot about all this knowledge she has––how to raise a family, how to cope with tragedy, how to make chocolate zucchini bread––and how I feel anxious about learning from her while I still can”).

Doorknobs idea

The idea is to offer a lot of affordances (”features of the environment that allow you to do something”) within a conversation. Questions, bold statements, or anything else (”digressions and confessions and bold claims that beg for a rejoinder”) that gives the other party to relate and bounce off.

Examples: questions with doorknobs:

• Why do you think you and your brother turned out so different?

and some don’t

• “How many of your grandparents are still living?”

But one can create an answer that has a lot of opportunities to bounce of

• Other notes