Made to Stick

In Made to Stick Chip and Dan Heath take the lid off one of the great mysteries of life: why is it that we have no difficulty at all to remembering the details of, say a bogus scare story, and yet often struggle to recall information that may be vital to us. Isolating the six factors that make ideas 'sticky', they reveal, through compelling analysis and entertaining anecdotes, precisely how our minds absorb information — and what we can do to make sure our own ideas register with others.

• Introduction: What Sticks?
• Kidney heist.
• Movie popcorn.
• Sticky = understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior.
• Halloween candy.
• Six principles: SUCCESs.
• The villain: Curse of Knowledge.
• It's hard to be a tapper.
• Creativity starts with templates.
• Chapter 1: Simple
• Commander's Intent.
• THE low-fare airline.
• Burying the lead and the inverted pyramid.
• It's the economy, stupid.
• Decision paralysis.
• Clinic: Sun exposure.
• Names, names, and names.
• Simple = core + compact.
• Proverbs.
• The Palm Pilot wood block.
• Using what’s there.
• The pomelo schema.
• High concept: Jaws on a spaceship.
• Generative analogies: Disney's "cast members."
• Chapter 2: Unexpected
• The successful flight safety announcement.
• The surprise brow.
• Gimmicky surprise and "postdictability."
• Breaking the guessing machine.
• "The Nordie who …"
• "No school next Thursday."
• Clinic: Too much on foreign aid?
• Saturn’s rings.
• Movie turning points.
• Gap theory of curiosity.
• Clinic: Fund-raising.
• Priming the gap: NCAA football.
• Pocketable radio.
• Man on the moon.
• Chapter 3: Concrete
• Sour grapes.
• Landscapes as eco-celebrities.
•  Teaching subtraction with less abstraction.
• Soap-opera accounting.
• Velcro theory of memory.
• Brown eyes, blue eyes.
• Engineers vs. manufacturers.
• The Ferraris go to Disney World.
• White things.
• The leather computer.
• Clinic: Oral rehydration therapy.
• Hamburger Helper and Saddleback Sam.
• Chapter 4:Credible
• The Nobel-winning scientist no one believed.
• Flesh-eating bananas.
• Authority and antiauthority.
• Pam Laffin, smoker.
• Powerful details.
• Jurors and the Darth Vader toothbrush.
• The dancing seventy-three year old.
• Statistics: Nuclear warheads as BBs.
• The human-scale principle.
• Officemates as a soccer team.
• Clinic: Shark attack hysteria.
• The Sinatra Test.
• Transporting Bollywood movies.
• Edible fabric.
• Where’s the beef?
• Testable credentials.
• The Emotional Tank.
• Clinic: Our flawed intuition.
• NBA rookie camp.
• Chapter 5: Emotional
• The Mother Teresa principle: If I look at the one, I will act.
• Beating smoking with the Truth.
• Semantic stretch and why unique isn't unique.
• Reclaiming "sportsmanship."
• Schlocky but masterful mail-order ads.
• WIIFY.
• Cable television in Tempe.
• Avoiding Maslow's basement.
• Dining in Iraq.
• The popcorn popper and political science.
• Clinic: Why study algebra?
• Don’t mess with Texas.
• Who cares about duo piano?
• Creating empathy.
• Chapter 6: Stories
• The day the heart monitor lied.
• Shop talk at Xerox.
• Helpful and unhelpful visualizations
• Stories as flight simulators.
• Clinic: Dealing with problem students.
• Jared, the 425-pound fast-food dieter.
• Spotting inspiring stories.
• The Challenge Plot.
• The Connection Plot.
• The Creativity Plot.
• Springboard stories at the World Bank: A health worker in Zambia.
• How to make presenters angry with stories.
• Epilogue: What Sticks
• Nice guys finish last.
• Elementary, my dear Watson.
• The power of spotting.
• Curse of Knowledge again.
• Pay attention, understand, believe, care, and act.
• Sticky problems: symptoms and solutions.
• John F. Kennedy versus Floyd Lee.
• Sticky Advice
• Talking Strategy
• Cranium's CHIFF.
• Inert strategies.
• Costco's "salmon stories."
• Avoiding decision paralysis.
• Muckers.
• Australian bank: "We sure as hell don't want to be third."
• Teaching That Sticks
• Mugs as variables.
• The San Diego Zoo's food-stealing pony.
• Teaching functions with crickets.
• Using emotion: Students as Civil War surge.
• Dissolving eyeballs.
• Rubber duckies that circled the world.
• Can You Unstick An Idea?
• "Wedge-drivers" in World War II.
• Fight sticky with stickier.
• The Goodtimes Virus parody.
• How auto "reliability races" convinced people to sit on an explosion.
• Making Ideas Stick: The Easy Reference Guide