Made to Stick

DREW, STEVE, LINDSAY, DANIA, WANDA

JULY 27, 2015

Principles of Made to Stick Simple

Unexpected

Concrete

Credible Emotional Stories

SIMPLE Find the core

Share the core

Use generative analogies

“If you say three things, you don’t say anything.”

- James Carville, political advisor to Bill Clinton

UNEXPECTEDViolate People’s Expectations

Elements of Surprise

Three Things:Identify the messageCounterintuitiveBreak the audience’s guessing machines

CONCRETEDon’t be Vague

Use Real Images and Examples

CREDIBLE How do we Get People to Believe in our Ideas?

External Validation

Statistics (Input)

Vivid Details + Persuasive

Internal Sources (Textile Company)

Anti-Authority (Anti-Smoking Campaign)

Audience (Testable Credential)

Story from the past (Sinatra Test)

Don’t Trust Intuition (Availability Bias)

EMOTIONAL How to Make People Care About our Messages?

Empathy (Focus on One)

Core (Curse of Knowledge)

Piggyback (Association with Existing Emotions or Ideas)

Appeal to Self-Interest (Emphasize THEIR Benefits WIIFY)

Positioning (Incentives Organizations Maslow vs. Own Perception)

Higher Purpose (Iraq – “Don’t Mess with Texas”)

Empathy

STORIES The Challenge Plot The Connection Plot The Creativity Plot

“A story is powerful because it provides the context missing from abstract.”

Made to Stick vs. SwitchedPsychology of the audienceTheoretical vs. ActionablePlaying to emotionsSimilar presentation of content

EVALUATION Ideas are more memorable if you communicate 6 principlesTell you why they are important and ten apply it through success stories and

case studiesCreating curiosity, simplicity, curse of knowledge Easy to read well writtenRelatable Acronym SUCCESToo many examples