made-to-stick.md

Made to Stick

Stick - your ideas are understood and remembered and have a lasting impact, they change your audience's opinions or behavior

Simple - finding the core of the idea; elegant; lead; compact
Unexpected - get attention > surprise; hold attention > interest
Concrete - concrete images vs ambiguous/abstract; common language
Credible - believe; use vivid, compelling details; stats
Emotional - care; create empathy; appeal to self-interest and identity
Story - act; engagement; mental simulation and inspiration > action

The Communication Framework

1. Pay attention Unexpected
2. Understand and remember it Concrete
3. Agree/Believe Credible
4. Care Emotional
5. Be able to act on it Story

Strategy Barriers

1. Curse of Knowledge - we can't re-create our listeners' state of mind
2. Decision paralysis
3. Lack of common language

Strategy Tips

1. Be concrete
2. Say something unexpected
3. Tell stories

Ideas

• Commander's Intent
• schema
• feature creep
• Gap Theory
• Velcro theory of memory
• universal language
• External credibility
• Internal credibility: vivid details, stats to illustrate a relationship in a human-scale context that's tangible and intuitive
• testable credentials
• Sinatra Test
• WIIFY - What's In It For You
• drop in the bucket effect
• mental simulation
• inspiration to act
• 4 story plots*: Challenge, Connection, Creativity, Springboard
• focus on the message, not the presentation
• focus on the lead, stress 1 or 2 points, don't get lost in the sea of information
• CHIFF - Clever, High-quality, Innovative, Friendly, Fun
• efficiency vs experimentation