Are ideas born interesting or made interesting?
Chip & Dan Heath believe in the nurture side of the debate and their book Made to Stick identifies the six key qualities that your ideas need to be "understood, remembered, and have a lasting impact". The six traits that they identify are used to create the acronym SUCCESs. They are:
- Simplicity – finding the core of the idea
- Unexpectedness – getting and keeping attention
- Concreteness – concrete images help us remember and coordinate our activities with others
- Credibility – credible ideas help people test them for themselves
- Emotions – people are wired for feelings, not abstractions
- Stories – stories provide inspiration (motivation to act) and simulation (how to act)
The book discusses the Curse of Knowledge – the inability of people to imagine what it’s like to lack the knowledge they have. The Curse of Knowledge plays a major role in the failure to create ideas that stick.
The epilogue of the book explains how the 6 traits can be used as a framework for solving communication problems.
I highly recommend this book, and not just because it has duct tape on the cover ; ). It is well written and contains tons of practical information. I have notes covering the two inside pages of the book and seem to have gone highlighter happy marking all of the ideas I want to try.
