Made to Stick

Ideas are dime a dozen. What really makes money are not ideas, but actually following up on the idea, implementing it the right way at the right time. At the same time, for ideas to be accepted among the masses, and stick for eternity, it needs to be marketed. How to do that? Thats what this book "Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath is about. A book that treats ideas like how I would deal with an analytical problem. Look at how historically popular ideas have stuck with people. Look at the characteristics of those ideas and in how they were communicated and pull out the commonality and distill them down to the variables: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotional and stories.

Here is one example from the book on unexpectedness:

Assignment to a journalism class: Write a lead for the following facts: Next Thursday, the entire faculty will go to Sacramento for a teacher's conference. Speakers at the conference include college president, leading anthropologist, state governor etc.

Students came with leads like "Staff to attend conference in ..."

Then the teacher revealed her choice: "There will be no school next Thursday."
The message, news is supposed to convey what matters and why it matters, not what where etc. stuck with the students forever after this assignment.

The book is filled with examples like this, explaining the importance of packaging ideas so that people get it, remember it and make use of it. Its a great read.

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