Made to stick
Mark Twain once observed, "A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on." His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas--business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others--struggle to make their ideas "stick." Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the "human scale principle," using the "Velcro Theory of Memory," and creating "curiosity gaps."In this indispensable guide, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures)--the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of "the Mother Teresa Effect"; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.
Stats for nerds
70recommend
110mentions
86people
2007–2025years
79% recommend21% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath, and Influence by Cialdini are classics for a reason. Influence in particular made it shockingly clear how our environment shapes not only our decision process, but our personality.
- Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath (its about why some ideas stick and other dies)
- In case you don't already know, the indiehacker community is now quite mature with a few folks sharing their stories and lessons up to a few $M of ARR.
Microconf is also very high quality with great talks out there, a podcast and a slack community. Focused on SAAS software. Rob Walling, the founder, wrote a book recently. Not my area, but I heard good things about it.
I also like the Tropical MBA podcast. They get stories from entrepreneurs outside the shiny bubble (agency owners, Amazon FBA, SEO software, affiliates, etc)
Books that might interest you : Company of one by Paul Jarvis ; Profit First by Mike Michalowicz ;
Other good resources for entrepreneurs: - Seth Godin & Robert Cialdini for marketing - The Mom Test (how to talk to your users) - Made to Stick (how to craft stories and narratives) - $100M offers & $100M leads by Hormozi (currently reading them, it's mainly common concepts put in a simple and actionable way)
- Down voted by those who don't understand marketing, human behavior, read the Heath Brother's "Made to Stick", etc.? Love you HN but you're jumping the shark.
- I like the idea of keeping it simple. You need to minimize jargon and concepts that take a PhD to understand. Also, keep in mind that people don't know what's in your mind so you need to over explain so that people can get enough background to understand what you are trying to convey. Get the book, "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die." It's a marketing book but it will give you some tips on how to speak to a small audience.
- I have seen this extensively covered in "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath. I got this recommendation from HN itself. It was a great read.
If your organization is large, you create one actionable, concrete, clear message, and you stick to it, and you communicate it downwards.
Seeing it in action is Microsoft is not shocking.
