Brothers Chip Heath and Dan Heath are the co-authors ofMade to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and are regular columnists in Fast Company magazine.
Chip Heath is a Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the co-author of the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, andBusinessWeek bestseller. Chip has spoken and consulted on the topic of “making ideas stick” with organizations such as Nike, the Nature Conservancy, Microsoft, Ideo, and the American Heart Association.
Dan is a Consultant to the Policy Programs for the Aspen Institute. He is the co-author of the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, which has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller. Dan has spoken and consulted on the topic of “making ideas stick” with organizations such as Microsoft, Nestle, the American Heart Association, Nissan, and Macy’s.Thinkwell in Austin, TX. Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BA in the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin.
- Sticky ideas are understood, are remembered and change something.
- Every culture has its own proverbs.
- Sticky ideas have things in common…
- Simple – easy to understand, remember (i.e. “Just Do It”)
- Unexpected – something about it that surprises.
- Concrete – you can visualize what’s happening.
- Credible – convinces us to believe it.
- Emotional
- Stories – often told as stories… Aesop’s Fables, parables in the Bible, etc.
- We all spend tons of time and energy making art because we want to change minds and hearts.
- We have ideas that our precious to us and we take time to make them matter and make them last.
- SIMPLE – Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “A designer knows he’s achieved perfection not what there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
- Simplicity is not about dumbing-down. It’s about finding the core of an idea and stripping everything else away so the core can shine through.
- Journalism is about finding the real heart of the story… not regurgitating facts.
- Our role is to find the core of our idea.
- UNEXPECTED – A sticky idea breaks a pattern.
- Voodoo Doughnut, Portland … gets press attention because they broke the pattern. They made remarkable doughnuts!
- The Sermon on the Mount … broke patterns… blessed are the meek, don’t store up treasures on earth, don’t do your good works in front of men, love your enemies, sex is not required on the 3rd date (haha!).
- If you want to get people’s attention, our role is to find what’s unexpected.
- Don’t let the profound truth fade into the background.
- CONCRETE/STORIES – Concrete ideas form a picture and stories make the ideas come alive.
- Too often we tell stories in the language of expertise.
- Too often we use abstraction in communicating messages.
- Subway’s previous marketing campaign was “7 under 6″… because people didn’t get what they met. Then came Jared.
- When you talk in abstraction, you haven’t told your story yet.
- Our role is to find a story and find a visual.
- EMOTION – How do we get people to care about our message?
- Our role is to find something to make people care.
- The Curse of Knowledge – as we become experts in our fields, it’s hard for us to imagine what it is like not to have our expertise.
- Experts talk in complex jargon.
- Even when experts are trying to connect with others, they will speak a different language.
- The things we’re most passionate about can cripple us.
- Experts talk in complex language… we need to use simple language.
- Experts tell lists and facts… we need to give a concrete idea.
- In the context of church, there is an abundance of information about the Gospel, God, etc and we get anxious to tell everyone everything… we have to learn to strip things away… and make it simple.
- We need to go after exclusion without sacrificing depth.
- We need to get realistic about how much people can really retain.
- What’s the one simple idea or truth we want people to remember about God?
- Stories make ideas tangible.
- 5 out of 100 people will remember a statistic, 60 will remember a story.
- Be collectors of stories to unveil the truth you are trying to communicate.
- What do you want people to know? (Truth) what do you want people to feel? (Emotion) What them to do? (Application)
- The unexpected… Do people know what’s going to happen in our church services before they get there?Is there a pattern?
- There is room for tradition… but if we get into a tireless, relentless routine, people are no longer engaging.
- Curiosity is a great tool to use. We need to create space between what people know and what they want to know.
- There’s got to be a gap between what people know… not a chasm.
- “A credible idea makes people believe. An emotional idea makes people care.”
