Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Random House (2007), Hardcover, 304 pages
Description
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? Educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan 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 fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures), 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. This book that will transform the way you communicate ideas.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
Leadership
The book is a rare combination of being both "an easy read" as well as providing thoughtful information that can be readily applied.
Journal for Quality & Participation
I especially like that this book follows its own rules for stickiness.
The Wall Street Journal
"Made to Stick" might have followed its own advice a bit more. The analytical point of all those sticky ideas almost gets lost in the welter of anecdotes.
Advertising Age
The big sellers in this field of finding common ingredients in success/failure stories are rarely as thorough as "Stick," but they're usually easier to incorporate into your daily process.
Communication World
Much of the content of the book, however, has been said before, in other contexts, and often to a more satisfying end.
New Statesman
Even though they are addressing a potentially dull topic, their analysis is peppered with memorable stories, images and facts.
BusinessWeek Online
The clear writing and myriad examples make the book highly readable.
Publishers Weekly
Fun to read and solidly researched, this book deserves a wide readership.
People
A savvy analysis of the reasons some ideas find traction and others fade away.
User reviews
LibraryThing member SagethePage
Everyone should read this book. This isn't psychology or marketing. Even if you think you don't need it, you do. At the very least it will make you laugh out loud at stupid work memos, and how they use way to many words to say absolutely nothing important.
LibraryThing member markajudd
Saturday February 24, 2007
The Guardian
Buy Made to Stick at the Guardian bookshop
Made to Stick: How Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck
by Chip and Dan Heath
304pp, Random House, £12.99
This is a book about what makes some ideas more effective than others. It explains what it is that makes
As the authors say: "Good ideas often have a hard time succeeding in the world. Yet the ridiculous kidney heist tale keeps circulating, with no resources whatsoever to support it."
Kidney heist tale? That's right. The authors, Chip and Dan Heath, brothers from California, tell us the story of a guy who goes into a bar in an unfamiliar city and orders a drink, after which an attractive woman approaches him and asks him if he'd like another. And that's the last thing he remembers, until he wakes up the next morning in a bathtub full of ice. He has a wound in his back with a tube sticking out. He calls the emergency services. The operator says, "Sir, don't panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested."
Next, the authors give us an example of something unmemorable. I won't quote it in full, but to give you an idea: "Comprehensive community building naturally lends itself to a return-on-investment rationale that can be modelled ..." We are asked to imagine what would happen if we closed the book and tried to tell someone about the kidney heist and the jargon. We'd be able to remember the heist. We'd have forgotten the jargon. The authors ask us: "Which sounds closer to the communications you encounter at work?"
This is a self-help book for ideas. Like a diet book, it tells you to slim your ideas down. Simplicity is the key. Dan, an educational publisher, studied teachers and what made them effective. Chip, a social science professor at Stanford, spent time researching the concept "How could a false idea displace a true one?" Both brothers were impressed by the concept of "stickiness", as explained by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point - some ideas stick in the mind, while others don't. "We want to pay tribute to Gladwell for the word 'stickiness'," they say. "It stuck."
There are various things, according to the Heaths, that make ideas memorable. Apart from simplicity, it helps if ideas are unexpected. You need to grab people's attention. They describe an advertising spot in which the viewer sees a happy family getting into a minivan and cruising blandly through suburban streets. Then, apparently out of nowhere - bang! An appalling crash. The idea: "Buckle up." The reason that the ad was effective: "It violates our schema of real-life neighbourhood trips."
Other things that make ideas stick: adding concrete details, dumping complicated statistics, connecting with people's emotions and telling stories. We hear about an anti-nuclear campaigner who wanted to give people the idea that the world was full of dangerous nuclear warheads - 5,000, in fact. Expressed as a number, he realised, this was not a particularly sticky idea. So he gave lectures, taking along a metal bucket and thousands of BB pellets. He dropped one pellet into the bucket and told his audience: "This is the Hiroshima bomb." Later, he poured 5,000 pellets into the bucket. This was the world's current nuclear capability. His audience was stunned into silence.
This is one of many examples that make this book such fun to read. We learn about good communicators, which is inspiring. How do you get people to unlearn an idea which is sticky but false, such as the notion that lots of people are attacked by sharks? Not by telling people the actual numbers, but by asking them whether they are more likely to be killed by a shark or a deer. Of course, the deer is more dangerous. This is something you're likely to remember. It's funny. It's something you'll want to tell people.
So why is this book scary? For one thing, it gives you an insight into the power of bad ideas - simple, concrete, emotive, story-based ideas will stick in spite of being wrong. For another, it makes you think of the world of ideas as a kind of arms race. Everybody is trying to seduce you, using concepts that, over time, are more and more fiendishly sticky. Sometimes, someone on the side of good will find a way of getting you to think about road safety or nuclear warheads. But who owns most of the sticky ideas? Surely it's the big corporations, who can afford to employ people who know how to keep their messages crisp and memorable.
When I finished this book, I wondered what it had taught me. It has taught me a simple thing about communication: keep it simple. And an unexpected thing: that, to be clever, you have to avoid being complex. And a statistical thing: forget about numbers. And an emotional thing: he who spins, wins, which is sad. And which is why it's worth reading this book. In the right hands, it will help.
The Guardian
Buy Made to Stick at the Guardian bookshop
Made to Stick: How Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck
by Chip and Dan Heath
304pp, Random House, £12.99
This is a book about what makes some ideas more effective than others. It explains what it is that makes
Show More
you notice them, understand them, care about them, remember them, and act on them. And the simple answer is: presentation. Spin is crucial. Of course, substance is important, too. But the message of this smart, lively book is that if your spin is bad, you're nowhere.As the authors say: "Good ideas often have a hard time succeeding in the world. Yet the ridiculous kidney heist tale keeps circulating, with no resources whatsoever to support it."
Kidney heist tale? That's right. The authors, Chip and Dan Heath, brothers from California, tell us the story of a guy who goes into a bar in an unfamiliar city and orders a drink, after which an attractive woman approaches him and asks him if he'd like another. And that's the last thing he remembers, until he wakes up the next morning in a bathtub full of ice. He has a wound in his back with a tube sticking out. He calls the emergency services. The operator says, "Sir, don't panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested."
Next, the authors give us an example of something unmemorable. I won't quote it in full, but to give you an idea: "Comprehensive community building naturally lends itself to a return-on-investment rationale that can be modelled ..." We are asked to imagine what would happen if we closed the book and tried to tell someone about the kidney heist and the jargon. We'd be able to remember the heist. We'd have forgotten the jargon. The authors ask us: "Which sounds closer to the communications you encounter at work?"
This is a self-help book for ideas. Like a diet book, it tells you to slim your ideas down. Simplicity is the key. Dan, an educational publisher, studied teachers and what made them effective. Chip, a social science professor at Stanford, spent time researching the concept "How could a false idea displace a true one?" Both brothers were impressed by the concept of "stickiness", as explained by Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point - some ideas stick in the mind, while others don't. "We want to pay tribute to Gladwell for the word 'stickiness'," they say. "It stuck."
There are various things, according to the Heaths, that make ideas memorable. Apart from simplicity, it helps if ideas are unexpected. You need to grab people's attention. They describe an advertising spot in which the viewer sees a happy family getting into a minivan and cruising blandly through suburban streets. Then, apparently out of nowhere - bang! An appalling crash. The idea: "Buckle up." The reason that the ad was effective: "It violates our schema of real-life neighbourhood trips."
Other things that make ideas stick: adding concrete details, dumping complicated statistics, connecting with people's emotions and telling stories. We hear about an anti-nuclear campaigner who wanted to give people the idea that the world was full of dangerous nuclear warheads - 5,000, in fact. Expressed as a number, he realised, this was not a particularly sticky idea. So he gave lectures, taking along a metal bucket and thousands of BB pellets. He dropped one pellet into the bucket and told his audience: "This is the Hiroshima bomb." Later, he poured 5,000 pellets into the bucket. This was the world's current nuclear capability. His audience was stunned into silence.
This is one of many examples that make this book such fun to read. We learn about good communicators, which is inspiring. How do you get people to unlearn an idea which is sticky but false, such as the notion that lots of people are attacked by sharks? Not by telling people the actual numbers, but by asking them whether they are more likely to be killed by a shark or a deer. Of course, the deer is more dangerous. This is something you're likely to remember. It's funny. It's something you'll want to tell people.
So why is this book scary? For one thing, it gives you an insight into the power of bad ideas - simple, concrete, emotive, story-based ideas will stick in spite of being wrong. For another, it makes you think of the world of ideas as a kind of arms race. Everybody is trying to seduce you, using concepts that, over time, are more and more fiendishly sticky. Sometimes, someone on the side of good will find a way of getting you to think about road safety or nuclear warheads. But who owns most of the sticky ideas? Surely it's the big corporations, who can afford to employ people who know how to keep their messages crisp and memorable.
When I finished this book, I wondered what it had taught me. It has taught me a simple thing about communication: keep it simple. And an unexpected thing: that, to be clever, you have to avoid being complex. And a statistical thing: forget about numbers. And an emotional thing: he who spins, wins, which is sad. And which is why it's worth reading this book. In the right hands, it will help.
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LibraryThing member kaelirenee
This is an interesting look at why some marketing ideas work-why we remember them and how we can craft ideas to work in the same way. I originally read it as a book review for my library, but ended up getting so interested in the comments made about how to use marketing ideas to make teaching
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lessons stick. I now use its message to create my information literacy lessons. Show Less
LibraryThing member jgrann
Ambitious breadth with a workable structure. Presents method for improving your communications. Summary and memory aids in back of book. Many examples from business and cognitive science. Enjoyed applying ideas in this book to my communication strategy for 2008 action plans.
LibraryThing member KnowledgeMover
Great mix of how and why urban legends (true or not) matter. ore importantly, this is a great reference for why stories and storytelling are more than anecadotes or anecdotal evidence.
LibraryThing member dvf1976
A good business book that taps into the 'story-telling' aspect of human interaction.
This book inspired me to try to make my blue-sky ideas more concrete when explaining their benefit to co-workers.
This book inspired me to try to make my blue-sky ideas more concrete when explaining their benefit to co-workers.
LibraryThing member dmcolon
I'm surprised that I liked this book. As an educator, I tend to hate these marketing type books and find them rather vapid. The Heath brothers, however, included education in their research and I think that made all the difference. Their ideas on what makes ideas "sticky" is pretty insightful and I
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find myself using their principles when I'm planning my classes or making a presentation Show Less
LibraryThing member jpsnow
SUCCES: Simple (find the core, singular); Unexpected (Pay attention), Concrete (understand and remember), Credible (Agree/Believe), Emotional (Care), Story (be able to act). Why don't we do this? The Curse of Knowledge, i.e. abstraction.
LibraryThing member DaveShearon
Great book. Very useful if you have to communicate anything. They follow their own advice in many instances, implementing the six characteristics of messages that stick:
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credentialed
Emotional
Stories
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credentialed
Emotional
Stories
LibraryThing member tmdr
The Great Wall of China is the only person-made object that is visible from space. Memorable, but not true.
An aid to: How tech can sell ideas outside of tech.
An aid to: How tech can sell ideas outside of tech.
LibraryThing member edella
What is that makes urban myths so persistent but many everyday truths so eminently forgettable? How do newspapers set about ensuring that their headlines make you want to read on? And why do we remember complicated stories but not complicated facts? In the course of over ten years of study, Chip
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and Dan Heath have established what it is that determines whether particular ideas or stories stick in our minds or not, and "Made to Stick" is the fascinating outcome of their painstaking research.Packed full of case histories and thought-provoking anecdotes, it shows, among other things, how one Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria, how a gifted sports reporter got people to watch a football match by showing them the outside of the stadium, and how high-concept pitches such as 'Jaws on a spaceship' ("Alien") and 'Die Hard on a bus' ("Speed") convince movie executives to invest vast sums of money in a project on the basis of almost no information. Entertaining and informative by turns, this is a fascinating and multi-faceted account of a key area of human behaviour. At the same time, by showing how we can all use such cleverly devised strategies as the 'Velcro Theory of Memory' and 'curiosity gaps', it offers superbly practical insights, setting out principles we all can adopt to make sure that we get our ideas across effectively. Show Less
LibraryThing member davedonelson
As a writer and speaker, I love stories. I love to tell them, to write them, and I love to read them. I also like to read about stories, what makes them work, how they excite our imagination, how we use them to enrich our communications. Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive And Others Die is about
Good salespeople, advertisers, marketers, PR professionals, even managers wanting to motivate their employees and entrepreneurs needing to excite their investors can make good use of the techniques described in this book. The authors achieved their goal, "...to help you make your ideas...understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact...." In other words, they help you make your ideas "stick."
As the author of several books about persuasion in business myself, I took away several great points:
"Belief counts for a lot, but belief isn't enough. For people to take action, they have to care."
"We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities--not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be."
"One of the worst things about knowing a lot, or having access to a lot of information, is that we're tempted to share it all."
Chip and Dan Heath dissect everything from urban legends to ad campaigns to explain what makes a message resonate in the audience's mind. In the process, they not only show the reader how to use successful strategies, they do it in an entertaining fashion that makes the book a pleasure to read.
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all that and more. Good salespeople, advertisers, marketers, PR professionals, even managers wanting to motivate their employees and entrepreneurs needing to excite their investors can make good use of the techniques described in this book. The authors achieved their goal, "...to help you make your ideas...understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact...." In other words, they help you make your ideas "stick."
As the author of several books about persuasion in business myself, I took away several great points:
"Belief counts for a lot, but belief isn't enough. For people to take action, they have to care."
"We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities--not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be."
"One of the worst things about knowing a lot, or having access to a lot of information, is that we're tempted to share it all."
Chip and Dan Heath dissect everything from urban legends to ad campaigns to explain what makes a message resonate in the audience's mind. In the process, they not only show the reader how to use successful strategies, they do it in an entertaining fashion that makes the book a pleasure to read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member tgraettinger
Excellent books for writers, speakers, or anyone with ideas to communicate to others. The authors do a great job of explaining the tools and structure necessary to make an idea stick with a reader or audience. The SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories) approach they
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propose seems to work for me in the couple of instances (so far) that I've tried to use it. I could go on and on. It's worth reading and re-reading. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member pastorjeffmyers
Finished Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath the other day. This is definitely a book worth checking out. Not a Christian book per se, but every preacher/teacher should read it. It's a book about what it takes to get ideas to stick with people and becoming a better communicator. In short, their
Honestly, for a preacher this book is a goldmine. Not only for teaching you to be better at your craft, but because it's also chock full of great stories and illustrations.
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premise is that in order for an idea to stick it needs to be simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and incorporate stories.Honestly, for a preacher this book is a goldmine. Not only for teaching you to be better at your craft, but because it's also chock full of great stories and illustrations.
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LibraryThing member librarythingaliba
I really liked this one, obviously. It was placed as a sort of capstone to my research and background reading on memetics, so it was perfectly positioned to be a modern summary of applications of the ideas I have been reviewing. I have found myself quoting the book and specific ideas from it (such
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as the idea of a "commanders intent") in our strategy sessions at work and to me that is always a great indicator of the quality of the book like this : immediate application. I have been and will certainly continue reviewing my communications to help me develop stickier habits and to improve the chances of my meme's survival! Definitely a recommended read ... for just about anyone, or at least anyone who wants to be heard and have their message survive! Show Less
LibraryThing member jandm
Very interesting read, and the ideas make a lot of sense. It felt too long; I skipped some of the material which felt repetitive.
LibraryThing member Ilithyia
I actually took notes from this one! I'm not sure how much I'll be able to incorporate into my instruction, but I definitely started thinking more about what I want kids to remember and how best to help them to do so. I recommend it for teachers everywhere!
LibraryThing member elliotc
A book I am reading now and I have high hopes for so I am taking some risk. AS the underdog with less resources, credibility and time, it is critical that entrepreneurs are effective at communicating and telling stories is the best way possible.
LibraryThing member BizCoach
Very good (and entertaining) analysis of how to communicate an idea so it "sticks" in people's heads, hearts, and memory. The book is enlightening, has enough academic hooks to make it credible but is entirely practical.
For anyone who has to / wants to present ideas to another person for any reason.
For anyone who has to / wants to present ideas to another person for any reason.
LibraryThing member GShuk
One of the best books I have listened to. It delivers on its title of how to convey ideas to others so they stick. I listened to this a couple of years ago and it seems to be even better the second time. As an added bonus he summarizes the key parts of the book on his website.
LibraryThing member mknute
Made to Stick is an exceptional book that all marketing professionals and educators should read. The authors offer concrete tips for helping people remember your messages
LibraryThing member 4cebwu
It would be a horrible pun to say this book has stuck with me like no other, but it's true. I'm generally not a fan of kind of how-to-books particularly business books, but I was pleasantly surprised. The author's ideas are presented in a way that make an impression. I am already thinking of ways
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to incorporate stickiness. It just so happens that we are in the middle of a planning and strategy session and I have already tried to interject some stickiness by copying the SUCCESs template for management.. Show Less
LibraryThing member fingerpost
Not many business books that I would read, much less read and enjoy! The stories the Heath brothers tell, the stories that stick, are fun and fascinating and memorable. And that is their point. When we have a message to deliver, we usually don't deliver it well. To have served its purpose, then our
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message must be remembered, cared about, and acted upon, and how we deliver that message will determine if we succeed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jcambridge
I bought this book because it came highly recommended by someone whom I hold in high regard. I have to say, however, that I was quite disappointed. I agree with another reviewer who said so much of what's in this book has been said/written before -- I found nothing new in what I read. I did find
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reference to an individual I actually know and did find that "story" interesting. Add this to the pile of similar self-help books on how to sell yourself and your ideas, but I would not put it at the top of the pile... Show Less
LibraryThing member boeflak
An incredible little book. I deployed a few of its principles in presenting a proposal even before I finished reading the book and got exactly the response I wanted.
Reminds us that words are important, and things that may seem trite on the surface - Disney callings its worker cast members instead
Reminds us that words are important, and things that may seem trite on the surface - Disney callings its worker cast members instead
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of employees, for example - can leave profound and lasting changes. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2007
Physical description
291 p.; 8.4 inches
ISBN
1400064287 / 9781400064281
Local notes
checked out
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