Hey guys! I know I said I would post about 5-Hour Energy but if you are a public relations major you should absolutely read this book!
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive
and Others Die
Dan and Chip Heath
Random House
New York
2007
291 pages
$26.00
Learning
has not been this fun since The Magic
School Bus was on the air. Chip and Dan Heath have struck gold with their
book, “Made to Stick.” To begin, the Heath brothers use an unfair comparison of
a tale of a kidney heist and a paper from a non-profit organization,
challenging the reader to try and retell both tales an hour after they read it.
Which one will they inevitably describe more accurately? Which one is
inherently more memorable? The Heath brothers take concepts like this and break
down for the audience why it was memorable and what it means to have a truly “sticky”
idea. The book itself is very simple, it is broken up into six sections
describing in detail each element of making your ideas stick; these elements
include simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and
tells a story.
A
lot of the information and definitions given in the book are seemingly common
answers. For instance, in the first chapter entitled Simple, the authors urge
their audience to keep their message… well, simple. In no way do they want you
to start “dumbing down” your message, they suggest “finding the core of the
idea” (Heath & Heath, p. 27) . In this chapter,
Heath and Heath introduce “Idea Clinics.” The goal of the clinics is to help
the audience learn how to make their ideas stickier using visible evidence to “model
the process” (Heath & Heath, p. 37) . Although the
authors do say the reader can safely skip the clinics without losing the effect
of the book, the clinics are good references. The second chapter, entitled
Unexpected, explains that the easiest and most effective way to get someone’s
attention is to change up the pattern of communication. This idea of
unexpectedness is emanated in two key ideas of surprise and interest, surprise is
what grabs our attention and interest is what keeps it. In this chapter the
authors provide numerous ways to maintain that edge of unexpectedness.
The
third chapter explains what it means to have a concrete idea. The authors many
examples of concrete language, explaining that saying a car has a V-8 engine,
is a concrete notion; while a high performance car, is more abstract. The main
point of this chapter is proving that solid, concrete ideas are more memorable.
It is about supplying you audience with ideas that have one of their five
senses involved, everyone knows what the Statue of Liberty looks like, the
sounds of a Beatles songs, and the taste of certain foods, so link your message
to something tangible. The fourth chapter addresses credibility, where to find
it, who already has it, and what to do with it. The ideas supporting the
importance of this chapter are pretty self-explanatory; people will be more
likely to take you seriously if you have some form of credibility. Chapters
five and six talk about emotions and stories which in some cases are very
closely linked. Telling stories and tapping into the pathos of your audience
will make whatever vehicles you use for your message resonate with them more.
This
book was truly a joy to read. The “Idea Clinics” and small exercises with this
book made it almost interactive and absolutely made me feel that I actually
learned. The book was structured in an easy to follow manner that flowed and
logically made sense while you read it. It was not just bits and pieces of
information, the authors created an engaging conversation for the readers to
learn from. This leads us to the fact that the authors write in a very
conversational tone, projecting to the audience that this is not meant to be a
dry and unmemorable experience. Heath and Heath did not want this book to feel
like their audience was in school and forced to read this text. It is simply a book full of ‘good to know’
things that can help out anyone in communications, public relations, advertising,
and marketing. The examples they use throughout the book utilize well-known
companies and real stories so that the audience feels like they are a part of
the conversation. However, an issue that could be raised with this book is the
degree of informality. Although I personally enjoyed reading the banter and
jokes, someone could see this entire book as unprofessional. Another aspect
that would lead to an unprofessional perception would be the way the table of
contents is set up. If one tried to navigate to a specific section of the book
without previously reading the book they would be hard pressed to find Tversky
and Shafir’s study on uncertainty because the table of contents reads as
follows:
“Chapter
1: Simple
Commander’s
Intent. THE low-fare airline. Burying the lead and the inverted pyramid. It’s
the economy, stupid. Decision paralysis….”
It
goes on like that for 10 more sentences. I understand that the authors are
trying to be hip and edgy but it makes it hard to find things if you are not
reading straight through.
In the end, Made to Stick, is a very good book that is fun, educational, and
smart. It is a quick read because of easy going tone of the authors. The only
real problem I had with it was how the authors wrote the table of contents and
that their book could be construed as unprofessional. But as a public relations
major I strongly suggest students in business or communications read this book because
it will do nothing but help you.
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