Getting Sticky

"A sticky idea is understood, it’s remembered, and it changes something.

"Sticky ideas of all kinds—ranging from the “kidney thieves” urban legend to JFK’s “Man on the Moon” speech—have six traits in common."


If you make use of these traits in your communication, you’ll make your ideas stickier. (You don’t need all 6 to have a sticky idea, but it’s fair to say the more, the better!)

I must be the next-to-last person in the world to have finally gotten around to reading Chip and Dan Heath's "Made To Stick," since it looks like many of the pages of their web site are under construction, getting set up for their next book and starting to do trainings around the "Stick" concepts.

Still, it's well worth a read, even after sitting on my bookshelf for more than a year.

Change Isn't Hard After All

If change is difficult for you, or you want your listeners to change their habits/perceptions, read this new book:

"If people hate change, they have a funny way of showing it. Every iPhone sold serves as counter-evidence. So does every text message sent, every corporate merger finalized, every aluminum can recycled. And we haven’t even mentioned the biggest changes: Getting married. Having kids. (If people hate change, then having a kid is an awfully dumb decision.)

"It puzzled us--why do some huge changes, like marriage, come joyously, while some trivial changes, like submitting an expense report on time, meet fierce resistance?

"We found the answer in the research of some brilliant psychologists who’d discovered that people have two separate “systems” in their brains—a rational system and an emotional system. The rational system is a thoughtful, logical planner. The emotional system is, well, emotional—and impulsive and instinctual.

"When these two systems are in alignment, change can come quickly and easily (as when a dreamy-eyed couple gets married). When they’re not, change can be grueling (as anyone who has struggled with a diet can attest)."

In a nutshell: look for, or even better BE "the bright spot."