Many ideas can be remembered much longer than others. Nike said "Just do it," and people did. James Carville insisted the 1992 presidential election was about the economy, stupid, and politicians still bring this up. John F. Kennedy announced that the country would put a man on the moon in under 10 years—and it happened. But why is it that most managers can't get their employees to remember the salient points of their last presentation?
In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip and Dan Heath address this. Chip, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford's Business School, and Dan, a consultant at Duke Corporate Education, argue that great ideas are made, not born, and that businesses can drastically improve their messages. Drawing on the work of psychologists, education researchers, and political scientists, the Heaths identify six traits they think all great ideas (from urban legends to public policy to product design) have in common.
