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The books opens with a story about a friend, Dave. Dave who is a frequent business traveller.
\nOne night, he was sitting at a hotel bar when a young, attractive woman walks up to him and
\noffers to him a drink. He accepts, and takes a sip. The next thing he remembers is waking up on
\na bathtub filled with ice, his body – freezing cold, his mind – completely disoriented. He looks
\naround, confused and scared, and spots a note saying,
\n\u201cDON\u2019T MOVE. CALL 911.\u201d
\nA phone rested on a small table. He picked it up and clumsily dialed 911 with his numb fingers.
\nHe narrated the entire incident to the officer at the other end of the line. The officer,
\nunusually unfazed, asks Dave to see if there is a tube protruding from his lower back. An
\nanxious Dave feels around behind him and finds a tube. The officer says, \u201cSir, don\u2019t panic, but
\none of your kidneys has been harvested. There\u2019s a ring of organ thieves operating in this city,
\nand they got to you. Paramedics are on their way. Don\u2019t move until they arrive.\u201d
\n\u201cYOU\u2019VE JUST READ one of the most successful urban legends of the past fifteen years.\u201d
\nGood ideas, great ideas, phenomenal ideas don\u2019t have the kind of virality that urban legends
\nhave. People may not refrain from smoking on seeing the repulsive cancer ads. But following
\nthe spread of the kidney heist story, people started rejecting drinks from strangers.
\nA little context.
\nIn 2007, two brothers, Chip and Dan Heath wrote their first book, Made to Stick, that went on
\nto spent two years on the Business Week bestseller list and made such a huge impact that
\npeople still talk about it thirteen years hence.
\nSo\u2026what was the book about?
\nMade to Stick dealt in what makes ideas \u201cunderstandable, memorable, and effective in
\nchanging thought or behaviour\u201d. In short, what makes them \u201csticky\u201d – so that they stick with
\nyou like the duct tape on the cover, mess with you, don\u2019t leave you until you\u2019ve got up and
\ndone something about it.
\nThe brothers did extensive research on sticky ideas \u2013 from all domains of life – . Ranging from
\nurban legends, to corporate strategies that affect the behaviours of frontlines employees, to
\nmarketing campaigns that convinced teenagers not to start smoking. The same six traits started
\ncoming up over and over again \u2013 the six traits of sticky ideas. They arranged them in an
\nacronym, \u201cS.U.C.C.E.S’.
\nSo here\u2019s what a sticky idea should be:<\/p>\n
A sticky idea should be SIMPLE
\nA sticky idea should be UNEXPECTED<\/p>\n
A sticky idea should be CONCRETE
\nA sticky idea should be CREDIBLE
\nA sticky idea should be EMOTIONAL
\nA sticky idea should be STORIES<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s elaborate on these traits.
\nIn 1969, President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy made a speech that
\norganised the efforts of an entire nation towards reaching one goal. The idea was SIMPLE. It
\ntalked in easy language what the president wanted for his nation \u2013 to put a man on the Moon
\nand bring him back safely to Earth, before the decade was out. The idea was UNEXPECTED,
\nbecause it sounded like science fiction at the time to most people. The idea was CONCRETE,
\nbecause it gave everyone the same picture of success to root for \u2013 man on the moon. The idea
\nwas CREDIBLE, coming from the charismatic president. The idea was EMOTIONAL, as it talked
\nabout the entire nation going on a journey together, and winning. The idea was essentially a
\nSTORY, the story where there is a journey, there\u2019s an obstacle, an enemy (the Soviet Union),
\nand the ultimate success.<\/p>\n
JFK\u2019s idea scored six out of six on the stickiness scale. But Dan and Chip say, not all of us can
\naccomplish that all the time. But they do promise that an idea that ticks four of the SUCCES
\nboxes will do better in terms of stickiness than an idea that ticks only two of those boxes. So, to
\nmake your idea its stickiness best, try to tick all the six boxes because the many boxes you leave
\nout, the less sticky your idea\u2019s going to be.<\/p>\n
The book is still a huge success. After all, it talks about ideas that go on to become huge
\nsuccesses. The writers, true to their words, have applied their \u2018SUCCESS\u2019 formula in their book as
\nwell! I choose to trust their formula because it already feels like the ideas in the book are stuck
\nwith me, and will continue to, for a long time to come – until the time someone comes up with
\nsomething \u2018stickier’. And that is saying something.<\/p>\n
Sulagna Chakraborty<\/strong><\/p>\n