Today we begin our re-read of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath in earnest. The Introduction lays out the framework for the book. The next six chapters walk through the six principles that underpin stickiness. During this read of the book, I paid less attention to the introduction of the six principles. The next six chapters go into the principles in greater detail – something I did not know during my first read. What was more striking was the examples of stickiness. As a speaker, writer, blogger, consultant, and human I am often gobsmacked by the ideas that gain purchase. Many of those ideas can’t stand the harsh light of critical thinking (my current saw horse). That isn’t surprising with urban legends like the gangs that drug innocents and harvest organs or spiked Halloween candy. The Heaths walk through several examples that tick the boxes of the six principles. The six are simplicity, unexpectedness, correctness, credibility, emotions, and stories. All of the examples are sticky – I believed and repeated most of them at some point in my life. The veracity of most falls apart when you examine their logic or look for credible evidence. There are examples of stickiness in the Introduction that the Heaths suggest are not true that are far less cut and dry. Take the idea that you can see the Great Wall of China with the naked eye from space as an example. The argument whether you can or can’t turns on whether you define space as the lower part of low earth orbit (100 miles) or if you are on the moon. Listen to SPaMCAST 763 for an example of using critical thinking to examine urban legends and sticky ideas.

During this re-read, I copied the definition of sticky on a larger sticky note and put it on my computer monitor. Sticky ideas are “understood, remembered, and have lasting impact.” I will use the definition to focus my writing and conversations. Sticky ideas in their own right are neither good nor bad. Somewhat terrifying is that sticky ideas jump over most of our defenses and lodge in our consciousnesses. They become firmly held beliefs that are strenuously defended with little rational examination.

More frightening than the firmly held belief problem is that any idea can be more sticky if we use other sticky ideas as a template to hone them. The discussion of how templates for advertisements impact how we perceive creativity is a nugget that did not strike me during the first reading. The inference from this part of the chapter is that patterns of stickiness are identifiable. Patterns once understood will become tools.

I can tell that this reading of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is going to be different than the first. Heraclitus stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This re-read may well be an examination of the dangers of accepting sticky ideas and those that generate sticky ideas.

Buy a copy of the book and read along. Previous entries:

Week 1: Announcement and Logistics – https://bit.ly/46tn5Bz