How do you create ideas that people will remember? It is a pretty hard problem. Dan and Chip Heath say you have to make them sticky. Borrowing a term from The Tipping Point, the Heath brothers provide some great ideas on things you can do to make your message memorable. Here is what they say about Made to Stick.
“We wrote this book to help you make your ideas stick. By “stick,” we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact — they change your audience’s opinions or behavior.”
I think they succeed in their goal. If the principles they describe are use to build messages about ideas, I am pretty sure the message will be stickier.
The Heaths give an easy to remember acronym, SUCCESs, to make their message stick. SUCCESs stands for six thinks you can do to help your idea be remembered.
- Simplicity
- Unexpectedness
- Concreteness
- Credibility
- Emotions
- Stories
In each chapter, the book provides explanations and specific examples of using each of these principles. I found the examples clear and compelling.
Those of us that do information systems work are not usually trained as communicators. We often think since the solution, plan or idea is obvious to us then it should be to everyone. I think if we used more of these principles to communicate our ideas then our ideas would be better received, understood and remembered. It takes work to create a good message about ideas. If you do the work to apply the SUCCESs principle to the messages you need to communicate then I think you will find success in making your ideas stick.
I found this book easy to ready because of how applicable each principle seems to be. I can easily see how to use these principles to improve the internal communications in the organizations I work with, to create more effective marketing messages to external audiences, or just to help me develop a good introduction to a presentation.
I also found these guys have a web site and a column in Fast Company magazine.
I think that using these ideas will help me make my ideas stick. Read the book. Let me know if you think using the ideas will help you.
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I like to solve problems with technology. In this blog, I'd like to share some of my ideas and also tell you about solutions I am currently working on. Welcome, and please share your own ideas with me by leaving a comment.
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