Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–busines people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas “stick.”
Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea colectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickeir, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”
In this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds–from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony–draw thier power from the same six traits.
Made to Stick Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funy, . It’s a fast-paced tour of success storeis (and failures)–the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of “the Mother Teresa Efect”; the elementaryschool teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. is a bok that will transform the way you communicate ideasMade to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas–and tells us how we can aply these rules to making our own mesages stick.
EAN: 9781400064281
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Should I buy the Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die?
"Do it yourself" consulting: Crafting memorable messages with integrity
If you are going to write a guide to crafting sticky ideas, your book had better embody your principles. Authors Chip and Dan Heath succeed admirably. What I love about "Made to Stick" is that it is not merely entertaining (though it is), it provides practical, tangible strategies for creating sticky ideas. Once you understand these recommendations, you can boil them down to a set of touchstone points to evaluate your own work. This sets "Made to Stick" apart from the work of Malcolm Gladwell, whom the Heath brothers cite as an inspiration. I enjoyed Gladwell's books but could not necessarily apply his ideas to my own work.
My review copy of "Made to Stick" is covered with highlighter. I am reading the book once through for pure pleasure, and then I am going back again to apply the ideas to evaluate the communications of a non-profit organization I am working for. "Made to Stick" challenges you to distill the essence of your message, to get back to core principles and to communicate them in a memorable way. Chip and Dan point out that as we become experts, we tend to use abstraction to define our ideas, and we lose our ability to communicate with novices. They teach us how to bridge that gap so that our ideas are once again accessible by everyone.
"Made to Stick" gives you the tools you need to revamp your own messages. It provides "do it yourself" conuslting in book form, which will be appreciated by activists, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all sizes.
Valuable insights for marketers, advertisers and sellers
With an entertaining blend of case studies and startling research, the Heath brothers lay out the critical elements of a sticky idea. They are--
1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories
As you might expect, the authors use these techniques to drive home their point. For example, in the chapter on stories, they talk about Subway's Jared campaign--quite a dramatic behind-the-scenes story besides being a near perfect example of storytelling in marketing.
Although these six elements seem like common sense, they are woefully underapplied in business communication. The authors state it well--
"Business managers seem to believe that, once they've clicked through a PowerPoint presentation showcasing their conclusions, they've successfully communicated their ideas. What they've done is share data."
Well researched, easy to read and hard to forget.
Excellent Presentation of Core Ideas with Lots of Examples
This book is getting a great deal more attention than Allison Fine's "MOMENTUM: igniting social change in the connected age," so up front I want to say I consider them BOTH to be extremely complementary to one another, and MUST READS for any social activist or political reformer, as well as for those crafting educational or corporate messages.
I cannot improve on Brian Bex Huf's review, which I voted for, but for the sake of coherence for those who are alerted when I do a review, here is the meat from Brian's review:
* Simplicity: the idea must be stripped to its core, and the most important concepts should jump out.
* Unexpectedness: the idea must destroy preconceived notions about something. This forces people to stop, think, and remember.
* Concreteness: avoid statistics, use real-world analogies to help people understand complex ideas.
* Credibility: if people don't trust you, they'll ignore you. In some cases, they will be openly hostile, which means they'll actively try to dispute your message!
* Emotional: information makes people think, but emotion makes them act. Appeal to emotional needs, sometimes even way up on Maslow's hierarchy.
* Stores: telling a story [gets] people into paying closer attention, and feeling more connected. Remember the Jared Subway commercials?
The book ends with a five page reference guide that persuaded me of the author's value as consultants. They have given us a low-cost book we can use our5selves, but I am also persuaded they are valuable as brain-stormers for those trying to craft transpartisan and electoral reform messages, so I am recommending them both to the leadership of Reuniting America.
LOTS of details and examples. Easily a five-star book with great social and political value.
Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
The art and science of devising ideas that have impact and endurance
This is one of the most entertaining as well as one of the most thought-provoking and informative books I have read in recent years. Chip Heath and his brother Dan examine an especially important challenge to everyone who struggles to formulate and then communicate ideas that "stick": That is, ideas that "are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact - they change your audience's opinions or behavior." Extensive research indicates that each of us receives several thousand messages each day from various print and electronic media as well as from those with whom we have direct contact. These competing messages create "clutter" that is increasingly more difficult to penetrate.
Others have already explained why they hold this book in high regard. Here are three reasons of mine. First, the Heaths brilliantly explain how to nurture ideas that will succeed by penetrating the clutter and then sticking in a "noisy, unpredictable, chaotic environment." They stress the importance of simplicity (i.e. "finding the core of the idea"), of surprise to attract attention and then interest to keep that attention, of concreteness ("language is often abstract, but life is not abstract"), of credibility (hence the importance of verifiable details), of emotion (i.e. making people care), and of storytelling that provides stimulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). The Heaths' own explanation of all this "sticks" because it possesses the same qualities to which the acronym SUCCESs refers: their explanation is guided and informed by Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories.
Also, I greatly appreciate the Heaths' use of real-world situations that demonstrate why some ideas "stick" and most others don't. For example, in Chapter 5, the Heaths examine efforts to reduce litter in Texas. The state was spending $25-million a year on cleanup and costs were increasing 15% a year. Efforts to encourage better behavior (such as use of "Please Don't Litter" signs and roadside trash cans marked "Pitch In") weren't working because they weren't effective as appeals to emotion. What to do? How and why "Don't mess with Texas" stuck is best revealed within the narrative. My point now is that this and dozens of other examples give a stickiness to the Heaths' key points. Again, how they organize and present their material penetrates the clutter that (at last count) 432,367 books on communication offered by Amazon have helped to create...and that number does not include seminars, workshops, CD, DVDs, Web sites, and articles.
Key Point: Whether devising a campaign to eliminate litter or writing a book about penetrating clutter, ideas must "stick" to have any visibility and "traction" to have any impact. I agree with Thomas Edison: "Vision without execution is hallucination."
My third reason is an entirely personal one: I like to be entertained while reading a non-fiction book about effective communication. The Heaths share their insights with a light, almost playful touch. They seem to have a robust sense of humor. They not only know their stuff, they thoroughly enjoy sharing what they have learned. And they constantly cite sources that have helped them to increase their understanding of "why some ideas survive and others die." Three in particular are worth noting here: Robert Cialdini on the importance of using mysteries to reach "a higher level of unexpectedness," Robert McKee on the importance of using curiosity to fill the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns, and Gary Klein on how stories "illustrate causal relationships that people hadn't recognized before and highlight unexpected, resourceful ways in which people have solved problems." I highly recommend Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting, and Klein's Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions and more recent The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work.
I wholly agree with Chip and Dan Heath that, contrary to what many people may believe, almost anyone can craft ideas that make a difference. "And that's the great thing about the world of ideas - any of us, with the right insight and the right message, can make an idea stick." In this volume, the Heaths share all they have learned about how to do that. To paraphrase Henry Ford, whether you think you can or think you can't...you're right.
Sticky Concepts, From Cover to Cover!
The Heath brothers present us with an amazing title that automatically becomes an essential part of the toolkit of any marketer or anyone seeking to influence others. Complementing very nicely the concepts introduced a while back by Gladwell in "The Tipping Point", this title offers the reader a very easy-to-follow framework to help in the creation of sticky ideas.
Each chapter focuses on one of the six dimensions of the framework (SIMPLE, UNEXPECTED, CONCRETE, CREDIBLE, EMOTIONAL and STORIES) which you can easily remember through the acronym SUCCESs. They spice up each element with examples to illustrate the points they make, building up on the concepts covered earlier on and periodically inserting what they call clinics, which are great stopping points to see the new material put in practice.
The end-result is a sticky book that you will devour in no time (as powerful of a methodology they present, they don't take too long to do it -thus applying their own method, making the content CONCRETE). It will also be a book that you will find yourself applying instantly to whatever idea you want to influence others about, whether you are presenting in person to an audience of investors or to over the TV in the form of a commercial.
