Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

#102
Title: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Author: Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2007
Genre: Business, education
291 pages

An easy to read and palatable example of its genre (it thinks it's social psychology, but it seems more pitched to management than anything else), Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die teaches a basic paradigm related to the "stickiness" of ideas, and how to make them stickier. The authors open with some urban legends, then analyze them to show why they stick--that is, why people remember them and find them highly salient. It goes on to situate itself in the context of Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of "The Stickiness Factor" in The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

The book is distinguished from many of its ilk in that it does not seem to exist for the purpose of helping the reader to deceive others (i.e., as do many texts on advertising techniques), it draws from a variety of credible empirical and theoretical sources, and it has benign applications outside the realm of economics. I can easily see ways to incorporate their basic ideas into lesson plans, especially lessons that would help my students design promotional materials, report findings, or direct clientele to the agencies at which they train. While my copy is as full of marginal notes as any non-fiction I read, more of my comments reflect my engagement with the material rather than any substantive dispute with it.

I was pleased to see references to Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors we Live By, not because I agree with all of their contentions, but because it evokes my pleasant college experiences of ferociously discussing this then-new book with Jonathan and Frederic, now both gone.