Made to Stick
Since classes have ended for the semester, I've been reading some interesting books related to communication.
I just completed Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
It was a fascinating and well-researched look at what makes messages "sticky" - what makes them stick in people's minds long after they have heard them. The book looked at both truisms and urban legends, famous and obscure messages. The authors find a pattern among sticky ideas, that many of them have some combination of the following 6 elements of SUCCESs:
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories
The book is relevant for anyone who has to convey a message: school teachers, PR professionals, marketers, parents, governments...just about anyone.
As a public speaking professional, I found one section particularly interesting. The authors mentioned that in certain studies they performed, there wasn't "necessarily" a correlation between good speakers and sticky messages. In other words, you could really entertain a crowd for 15 minutes, and they wouldn't remember a word of it.
This is a challenge to those of use who speak publicly on a regular basis and who help others to speak well. It's a reminder that our goal as speakers is not only to entertain a crowd, but to inspire them to think or act in a certain way afterwards. We can't simply focus on presentation without focusing on content as well.
We need to ensure that our delivery is an effective vehicle for delivering a message that our audience will remember afterwards. In other words: have something to say, and say it well.
This was a powerful take-away from the book.
I just completed Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
It was a fascinating and well-researched look at what makes messages "sticky" - what makes them stick in people's minds long after they have heard them. The book looked at both truisms and urban legends, famous and obscure messages. The authors find a pattern among sticky ideas, that many of them have some combination of the following 6 elements of SUCCESs:
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories
The book is relevant for anyone who has to convey a message: school teachers, PR professionals, marketers, parents, governments...just about anyone.
As a public speaking professional, I found one section particularly interesting. The authors mentioned that in certain studies they performed, there wasn't "necessarily" a correlation between good speakers and sticky messages. In other words, you could really entertain a crowd for 15 minutes, and they wouldn't remember a word of it.
This is a challenge to those of use who speak publicly on a regular basis and who help others to speak well. It's a reminder that our goal as speakers is not only to entertain a crowd, but to inspire them to think or act in a certain way afterwards. We can't simply focus on presentation without focusing on content as well.
We need to ensure that our delivery is an effective vehicle for delivering a message that our audience will remember afterwards. In other words: have something to say, and say it well.
This was a powerful take-away from the book.
posted by Allison at 5:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home