Excellent books for writers, speakers, or anyone with ideas to communicate to others. The authors do a great job of explaining the tools and structure necessary to make an idea stick with a reader or audience. The SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories) approach they propose seems to work for me in the couple of instances (so far) that I've tried to use it. I could go on and on. It's worth reading and re-reading. Highly recommended. ( )

This book is basically a guide for people who want to get their ideas across to other people and will be a useful managers, teachers, advertisers, and anyone else with a good idea who doesn't know how to share it. The Heaths discuss factors such as the Curse of Knowledge where experts know their field so well that they can't explain it to outsiders. There are also tips on creating stories, often with surprise elements, to capture the attention of your audience. The best parts are the many examples such as teacher Jane Elliot's "Eye of the Storm" method to teach children about prejudice, urban legends, Subway sandwich shops' Jared campaign, the "Don't Mess With Texas" effort to reduce littering and the best car commercial ever. It's a good, quick, and intstructional read for anyone needing to learn how to better communicate their ideas. ( )

This is only the Index and Introduction of the book. It was interesting, but didn't capture my attention enough to spend $12 on the complete book. ( )

Not many business books that I would read, much less read and enjoy! The stories the Heath brothers tell, the stories that stick, are fun and fascinating and memorable. And that is their point. When we have a message to deliver, we usually don't deliver it well. To have served its purpose, then our message must be remembered, cared about, and acted upon, and how we deliver that message will determine if we succeed. ( )

Lots of practical, applicable ideas. my full review - http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.or... ( )

What is that makes urban myths so persistent but many everyday truths so eminently forgettable? How do newspapers set about ensuring that their headlines make you want to read on? And why do we remember complicated stories but not complicated facts? In the course of over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have established what it is that determines whether particular ideas or stories stick in our minds or not, and "Made to Stick" is the fascinating outcome of their painstaking research.Packed full of case histories and thought-provoking anecdotes, it shows, among other things, how one Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria, how a gifted sports reporter got people to watch a football match by showing them the outside of the stadium, and how high-concept pitches such as 'Jaws on a spaceship' ("Alien") and 'Die Hard on a bus' ("Speed") convince movie executives to invest vast sums of money in a project on the basis of almost no information. Entertaining and informative by turns, this is a fascinating and multi-faceted account of a key area of human behaviour. At the same time, by showing how we can all use such cleverly devised strategies as the 'Velcro Theory of Memory' and 'curiosity gaps', it offers superbly practical insights, setting out principles we all can adopt to make sure that we get our ideas across effectively.

I included this book in my book: The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. www.100bestbiz.com. ( )

I LOVED THIS BOOK!
It is now my life... :-) -- Jennifer

The Great Wall of China is the only person-made object that is visible from space. Memorable, but not true.

An aid to: How tech can sell ideas outside of tech.

Great book. Very useful if you have to communicate anything. They follow their own advice in many instances, implementing the six characteristics of messages that stick:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credentialed
Emotional
Stories ( )

SUCCES: Simple (find the core, singular); Unexpected (Pay attention), Concrete (understand and remember), Credible (Agree/Believe), Emotional (Care), Story (be able to act). Why don't we do this? The Curse of Knowledge, i.e. abstraction. ( )

I'm surprised that I liked this book. As an educator, I tend to hate these marketing type books and find them rather vapid. The Heath brothers, however, included education in their research and I think that made all the difference. Their ideas on what makes ideas "sticky" is pretty insightful and I find myself using their principles when I'm planning my classes or making a presentation ( )

A good business book that taps into the 'story-telling' aspect of human interaction.

This book inspired me to try to make my blue-sky ideas more concrete when explaining their benefit to co-workers. ( )

Great mix of how and why urban legends (true or not) matter. ore importantly, this is a great reference for why stories and storytelling are more than anecadotes or anecdotal evidence. ( )

(First Published in blog at http://www.sea-of-flowers.ca/weblog/s...)

Made to Stick, Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is a pretty good book. It's marketed as a business book by some major bookstores, but libraries may shelve it under social psychology. The Duke University Business school has promoted it on its web page. Co-author Dan Heath is a consultant in the Duke program. The web site for the book has links to other reviews.

It starts with a retelling of the urban legend of drugged travelers and kidney theft. The authors, the Heath brothers, ask why this story is likely to remembered and repeated. They suggest that the ideas that stick are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories. They work through those 6 concepts, using case studies from business and the general media.

Which corporate mission statements provide a useful framework for decision-making by employees and customers? Southwest Airlines in the low-cost airline. Their customers know it, and the whole organization knows it. The discussion of corporate mission statements is good, and it's quite funny. The Heath brothers deflate several meaningless and pretentious mission statements, and that has started a sort of buzz on the internet. Their book blog has tracked stories about moronic corporate mission statements.

Remember "where's the beef"? Remember the urban myth of poisoned halloween candy? Why is sportsmanship a dead idea, and how has the idea of respect for the game replaced it?

The Heath brothers explain why some ideas are believed by some people, and remembered, even if not believed, by most people. They also look at the business end of psychology - which stories get people to buy products, send money to charities, act better, or simplify decisions.

The book provides a good working explanation of the psychology of decision making, which explains why there is more to persuasion than logic. In spite of the bad name given to rhetoric by Aristotle and other classical philosophers, it works. ( )

Ambitious breadth with a workable structure. Presents method for improving your communications. Summary and memory aids in back of book. Many examples from business and cognitive science. Enjoyed applying ideas in this book to my communication strategy for 2008 action plans. ( )

Pithy, but fun for the most part. ( )

page 21

http://jwikert.typepad.com/the_averag... ( )

This is an interesting look at why some marketing ideas work-why we remember them and how we can craft ideas to work in the same way. I originally read it as a book review for my library, but ended up getting so interested in the comments made about how to use marketing ideas to make teaching lessons stick. I now use its message to create my information literacy lessons. ( )

A very interesting concept book. By studying teaching methods, advertising methods, urban legends, and what we remember and what we don't, the authors have a very basic formula for what will be remembered and what will not. Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credibility, Emotions, Stories all play a part in why people remember what they do. ( )

An incredible little book. I deployed a few of its principles in presenting a proposal even before I finished reading the book and got exactly the response I wanted.

Reminds us that words are important, and things that may seem trite on the surface - Disney callings its worker cast members instead of employees, for example - can leave profound and lasting changes. ( )

http://12frogs.com/reading/reviews/20... ( )