Book description
What is that makes urban myths so persistent but many everyday truths
so eminently forgettable? How do newspapers set about ensuring that
their headlines make you want to read on? And why do we remember
complicated stories but not complicated facts?
In the course of over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have
established what it is that determines whether particular ideas or
stories stick in our minds or not, and Made to Stick is the
fascinating outcome of their painstaking research. Packed full of case
histories and thought-provoking anecdotes, it shows, among other
things, how one Australian scientist convinced the world he'd
discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with
bacteria, how a gifted sports reporter got people to watch a football
match by showing them the outside of the stadium, and how
high-concept pitches such as 'Jaws on a spaceship'
(Alien) and 'Die Hard on a bus' (Speed) convince
movie executives to invest vast sums of money in a project on the
basis of almost no information.
Entertaining and informative by turns, this is a fascinating and
multi-faceted account of a key area of human behaviour. At the same
time, by showing how we can all use such cleverly devised strategies
as the 'Velcro Theory of Memory' and 'curiosity gaps', it offers
superbly practical insights, setting out principles we all can adopt
to make sure that we get our ideas across effectively.
Chip Heath is a Professor of Organizational Behavior in the
Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His research
examines why certain ideas - ranging from urban legends to folk
medical cures, from Chicken Soup for the Soul stories to business
strategy myths - survive and prosper in the social marketplace of
ideas. His research has appeared in a variety of academic journals,
and popular accounts of his research have appeared in Scientific
American, the Financial Times, the Washington Post,
BusinessWeek, Psychology Today, and Vanity Fair. He lives
in Los Gatos, California.
Dan Heath is a consultant at Duke Corporate Education, one of the
world's top providers of executive education. Prior to joining Duke,
he was a researcher at Harvard Business School, writing 10 cases on
entrepreneurship that are used in business school programmes. Heath is
also the co-founder of Thinkwell, a publishing company dedicated to
creating high-quality, multimedia university textbooks. Dan has an MBA
from Harvard Business School. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
