PatternExon

MADE to STICK – Chip & Dan Heath

// January 15th, 2007 // books, reading, review

“Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” – That, again, is a very good punchline. The authors, Chip Heath – Professor at

Stanford & Dan Heath – co-founder of Thinkwell Inc., have written a book about the most simplest things – what makes anything interesting to others ? “Stickiness” is, as most would have guessed, from Malcolm Galdwell’s Tipping Point. The duct tape effect on the cover is right to the point. To stick any idea, the authors say, it should have -SUCCES, or it should be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credibility, Emotion & a Story. If you think that I have spilled the beans on the recipe of sticking ideas you are wrong. The insight offered in this book is that there are no phrases that help you put your idea forward. For most of us, who like to reiterate the essence of any idea in a few obscure and abstract words, the catch is that it is most likely that your idea did not settle in the way you imagined. The magic is to understand that people dont usually understand!! To make them understand you have to package it and these characteristics will do exactly that.

The book is filled with stories that actually point out what is required to actually spin, if I may, any idea to something more sticky. Though, I have nothing but disdain for those works that have those “interact & take-away” passages that kill the flow of the book & also makes one feel as if the author is showing – off, but not this time. This one has a few pages for every property that they believe ‘a sticky idea’ should have & they illustrate how exactly something that did not have a chance of being sticky actually managed to be something that even you remember; off-hand. These are good stories, actually great stories. If one remember most of the anecdotes – message passed !! My motivation to read this – the plotting universe. This title kept showing itself in weird places all over the sites that I browsed last week. To humour a little askewed romance with this electronic universe I found the book and wasnt let down, which in a stricter self-psychoanalytical way is bad (Ooops!!).

a good, light read.