Emotional Stories - Made to Stick?

Stanford Heath Brothers, Chip/Dan, offer us 6 qualities that make ideas sticky, all wrapped up in a clever acronym: Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories (SUCCES). In Book entitled "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die" Random House, 2007.

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Made to Stick

 

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Made to Stick

Hardcover edition

AuthorChip Heath & Dan Heath

CountryUnited States

LanguageEnglish

SubjectPsychology

PublisherRandom House

Publication date

January 2, 2007

Media type Print, e-book

Pages304 pp.

ISBN1-4000-6428-7

OCLC68786839

Dewey Decimal

302/.13 22

LC ClassHM1033 .H43 2007
 

Followed bySwitch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

 

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is a book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath published by Random House on January 2, 2007. The book continues the idea of "stickiness" popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, seeking to explain what makes an idea or concept memorable or interesting. A similar style to Gladwell's is used, with a number of stories and case studies followed by principles.

 

The stories range from urban legends, such as the "Kidney Heist" in the introduction; to business stories, as with the story of Southwest Airlines, "the low price airline"; to inspirational, personal stories such as that of Floyd Lee, a passionate mess hall manager. Each chapter includes a section entitled "Clinic", in which the principles of the chapter are applied to a specific case study or idea to demonstrate the principle's application.

 

Contents

 

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1 Overview

2 Authors

3 Reception

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

 

Overview[edit]

 

The book's outline follows the acronym "SUCCES" (with the last s omitted). Each letter refers to a characteristic that can help make an idea "sticky":

 

Simple – find the core of any idea

Unexpected – grab people's attention by surprising them

Concrete – make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later

Credible – give an idea believability

Emotional – help people see the importance of an idea

Stories – empower people to use an idea through narrative

 

The book then goes to mention examples like: Simple: Southwest Airlines, whose motto is "THE low fare airline".[1] If a steward proposed serving chicken salad in the Texas–Vegas route, thinking about that motto helps one decide that this is not a good idea. Other example: Proverbs, which encapsulate wisdom in short sentences. The book mentions many case studies of successful teachers and professionals around the world such as Diana Virgo of Loudoun Academy of Science as a mathematics teacher.

 

Authors[edit]

 

Chip Heath is a professor of organizational behavior at Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Dan Heath, a former researcher at Harvard, is a consultant and developer of innovative textbooks. They also write a regular feature for Fast Company magazine.[2]

 

Reception[edit]

 

The novel was commercially successful, appearing on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, alongside a 24-month listing on BusinessWeek book listings.[3]

 

Writing in The Guardian, William Leith described it as a "smart, lively book" that is "fun to read" and will give readers "an insight into the power of bad ideas" as well as better ones.[4] In her review in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Judith Samuelson observed that "The Heath brothers have taught me that if anyone is going to 'get' my idea – need it, buy it, fund it, use it – I need to radically shorten my elevator pitch.[5] Writing in BookPages, Eliza McGraw wrote, "How do we make people care about our ideas?, the Heaths ask. 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."[6]

 

See also[edit]

 

Meme

Viral marketing

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, which popularized the concept of "stickiness".

A Whole New Mind, by Daniel H. Pink, has emotive storytelling as a central theme in the "conceptual age".

Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye

 

References[edit]

 

Jump up ^ "Summary of Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007)". engineerguy.com. Retrieved 2014-01-29.

Jump up ^ Authors' profiles Archived 2008-03-10 at the Wayback Machine.

Jump up ^ Solomon, Micah (November 1, 2017). "How To Create More Of the Magical Moments That Transform Life And Business". Forbes. Retrieved November 27, 2017.

Jump up ^ Leith, William (February 24, 2007). "Sticking points: Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick shows us that if you want your message to be memorable, keep it simple, says William Leith". The Guardian. Retrieved November 26, 2017.

Jump up ^ Samuelson, Judith (Summer 2007). "Review: Made to Stick: Simplicity is the golden rule for getting messages across". Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved November 26, 2017.

Jump up ^ McGraw, Eliza (February 2007). "Made to Stick: The keys to staying power". BookPage. Nashville.