Latest read: Made to Stick

What book would be a perfect follow up to The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? To prove timing is everything I read Dan and Chip Heath’s new release: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The book’s authors acknowledge that their book complements Gladwell’s The Tipping Point by identifying “traits” necessary to make your ideas ‘sticky’ with your intended audience.
Written by brothers Chip and Dan Heath they share experiences and research in finding ideas that stick. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Made to Stick provides wonderful insight to learn how powerful ideas succeed in the face of big obstacles (and people) especially in a stale environment. Take Subway’s series of commercials featuring Jared for example.

Originally passed by PR firms, Jared’s story was brought to life by the Subway store manager where Jared ate while attending Indiana University. The ad campaign was eventually created pro-bono by a firm thinking they would fail. Even Subway’s PR firm did not support this idea. Chip and Dan prove not only how wrong they were, but how powerful the idea has turned out to be for Subway.

This also proves great ideas can be spotted rather than created. Jared proves compelling stories already exist around us — and can be spotted by every day people … not just big PR firms. Why? Because the world will produce more great, creative ideas than any talented individual.

Chip and Dan develop six principals to building sticky ideas: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. They all can be combined into producing powerful, sticky ideas.

What is the biggest take away for any IT professional? The Curse of Knowledge. And the book shares the principals to reverse this curse. Simply a must read for any IT Professional.

Love the duct tape design too!

Made to Stick Website