Analogies are extremely useful. I use them often, to explain and sometimes bring to light things from a different perspective. Take for example life lessons from game of thrones, cheese holes and reputation, and the cleverly created analogy in the header of this post.
But something to keep in mind while dealing with analogies is that not everyone will know what the context might be. In the current state of globalization, its important to accept that people have different backgrounds and to be understood by others, we must make a genuine effort to not build analogies only understood by a certain group of people / culture. This is typically why, sports analogies, although effective, are bad for people with diverse backgrounds.
When my economics prof once used baseball to explain regression models to me while at school, I didn't even know what a base was. Similarly, trying to explain a concept in North America with an analogy based on cricket (yes, some of you might not even know what that is) is a bad idea.
Storytelling is a powerful tool and can be extremely effective, but when it comes to analogies, stick to those with references to family life, something most of us go through.
But something to keep in mind while dealing with analogies is that not everyone will know what the context might be. In the current state of globalization, its important to accept that people have different backgrounds and to be understood by others, we must make a genuine effort to not build analogies only understood by a certain group of people / culture. This is typically why, sports analogies, although effective, are bad for people with diverse backgrounds.
When my economics prof once used baseball to explain regression models to me while at school, I didn't even know what a base was. Similarly, trying to explain a concept in North America with an analogy based on cricket (yes, some of you might not even know what that is) is a bad idea.
Storytelling is a powerful tool and can be extremely effective, but when it comes to analogies, stick to those with references to family life, something most of us go through.
