From Amazon.ca:
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–business 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 collectors 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 stickier, 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 their power from the same six traits.
Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (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 Effect”; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas–and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.
What I say:
I liked how the book was structured into 6 organized chapters that I can refer back to when I want to remember a specific subject.
The authors focused on Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional & Stories.
My favourite chapters were on credibility and stories. I liked to see and read reasons why certain things have stuck with me when faced with facts. The book has something called clinics worked into each chapter. It focuses on one message told in two different ways and dissects how it measures up to each of the 6 chapter subjects. In the emotional chapter it had a clinic on how teachers deal with students asking ‘why do I need to learn algebra?’ Since I’m sure we’ve all asked that at one point in our life during schooling I liked to see how it was framed up to cover at least 4 categories. When I got to the Stories chapter I really like to read how ad campaigns that have been placed in front of me can make a positive impact and how a great sticky ad campaign can come to life with a great story. After having spent the last year working on one of the best brands out there and working through several Storyteller Session I have a new found respect for marketers as story tellers to make ideas for companies sticky.
A great read that will get the mind thinking.