Pfiew. It's been a little while since I wrote a serious bookreport (I'm not counting the CPM ones here) but one of my resolutions for 2008 is to retain more of what I'm reading. As you can probably tell from the sidebar, I read quite a lot: I love it. And I don't have a TV. But mainly because I love it. However, sometimes it feels like I rush through a book, like it, but don't retain what's in there for longer than it takes to read the book. I decided to take a stack of mini-Postit's with me and tagged every page that had an interesting concept. But I wasn't quite sure what to do next. So it was quite timely that I saw Russell Davies' post today. He's copying this guy, and so I'm the copycat's copycat.
The book: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The verdict: ****
What is it about? We wanted to take apart sticky ideas - both natural and created - and figure out what made them stick. What makes urban legends so compelling? Why do some chemistry lessons work better than others? Why does virtually every society circulate a set of proverbs? (p 12)
The Heath brothers have made the reader's life easier by ordering their book into 6 principles:
- Simplicity
- Unexpectednes
- Concreteness
- Credibility
- Emotions
- Stories
On simplicity: Finding the core and writing the lead both involve forced prioritization. Suppose you're a wartime reporter and you can telegraph only one thing before the line gets cut, what would it be? There's only one lead and there's only one core. You must choose. (p 32)
More on Simple: ... the Curse of Knowledge... the difficulty in remembering what it was like not to know something... To a CEO, "maximizing shareholder value" may be an immensely useful rule of behavior. To a flight attendant, it is not... People are tempted to tell you everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front, when they should be giving you just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a litle more. (p 57)
I think this for me alone, the introduction of the Curse of Knowledge, a phenomenon that we are all familiar with instinctively, was worth reading the book alone. Mental note to self: be aware of the curse.
About unexpectedness: The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern...Surprise gets our attention... Interest keeps our attention. (p 64/5)
So how to go about making your ideas more sticky? A good process for making your ideas stickier is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate -- find the core; (2) Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message -- i.e. , What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening already? (3) Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience's guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension... Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages. When message sound like common sense, they float gently in one ear and out the other. (p 72)
The Heath brothers quote prof Cialdini (who I saw speak at the RSA not long ago) ..."the Aha! experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the Huh? experience." (p 81)
One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. The trick is ... to first highlight some specific knowledge that they're missing (p 85) which a few pages later is followed by Unexpected ideas, by opening a knowledge gap, tease and flirt [yeay, we need more ideas that tease and flirt, hurrah!!] (p 93)
The credibility chapter didn't hold too much interest for me, but the chapter on Emotional roped me back in: Caples says companies often emphasize features when they should be emphasizing benefits. "The most frequent reason for unsuccesful advertising is advertisers who are so full of their own accomplishments ... that they forget to tell us why we should buy... An old advertising maxim says you've got to spell out the benefit of the benefit. In other words, people don't buy quarter-inch drills. They buy quarter-inch holes so they can hang their childern's pictures. (p 179)
How do we make decisions? James March, a professor at Stanford University, ... proposes that we use two basic models to make decisions. The first model involves calculating consequences. We weigh our alternatives, assessing the value of each one, and we choose the alternative that yields us the most value... The second model is quite different. It assumes that people make decisions based on identity. They ask themselves three questions: Who am I? What kinds of situation is this? And what do people like me do in this kind of situation? (p 190) That last one made me think. I think this is much more important that I had realized.
Other ideas that struck me in the book: mental simulation can build skills (e.g you can become better at darts by thinking about doing a task successfully from beginning to end) on page 213; inspiration drives action (which explains the before-and-after photos in ads!) on page 222; that many stories basically have 3 plots: challenge (think David and Goliath), connection (about relationships) and creativity (a mental breakthrough or solving a puzzle) on pages 228/29/30.
What can't people tell stories? The first villain is the tendency to bury the lead -- to get lost in a sea of information... the second is to focus on the presentation rather than the message (p 243/44). A better crafted message is tons more effective than a charismatic speaker... wow, this kind of counterintuitive.
And a final quote: There is a curious disconnect between the amount of time we invest in training people how to arrive at the Answer and the amount of time in invest in training them how to Tell Others. It's easy to graduate from ... an MBA program without ever taking a class in communication. (p 245) Halleluja. MBA's should have storytelling classes, we'd have a lot less boring death-by-powerpoint presentations!!
Check out the authors' blog for more background.
Would I recommend it? Yep. Wholeheartedly. It's a great, and practical, read.
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