Are Your Ideas Sticky?

I'll admit that it was the duct tape on the cover that drew my attention to this book. Like all good Minnesotans, I use this silver miracle to fix almost everything. (If it moves and shouldn't...) Happily, the content lived up to the  cover of book...

All of us are marketers. Of ideas, of philosophies, of products, of ourselves. Like it or not, we are in the business of getting people to listen to us, believe what we say and remember to act in ways we'd like them to act. Some of us are better at it than others. Why?

Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick; Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Random House, 2007) suggest that "sticky ideas" have some common characteristics and that all of us can make our own ideas stickier. Sticky ideas:

• are simple
• have elements of the unexpected
• are concrete
• come from a credible source
  
• contain an emotional appeal.
• use stories to make an impact.

OK, so the acronym SUCCESs is a little cheesy. But, the book is filled with great examples of each of these qualities. Here are a few of my take-aways:

1. Being simple means getting to the core of your message. Not burying the lead. (It's about improved learning, stupid. Not the operating system or size of the print collection or the latest 2.0 application)

2. The Heaths introduce (at least to me) a great concept they call the Curse of Knowledge. Being an "expert" with tons of data and support can easily get in the way of your message when you try to tell everything. They write "You know things that others don't know, and you can't remember what it was like not to know those things...[you] tend to communicate as if the your audience were you." Might this be why the "true believers" in technology and libraries have a tough time getting other educators to accept their message?

3. They quote Stephen Covey who reports on a poll of 23,000 employees:

• Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their origination is trying to achieve and why.
• Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals.
• Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals
• Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals
• Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for. ...

Then Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent."

Do we help others get the meaning from our statistics in such a compelling fashion? 

4. The authors quote copywriter John Caples: "The most frequent reason for unsuccessful advertising is advertisers who are so full of their own accomplishments (the worlds best seed!) they forget to tell us why we should buy (the world's best lawn!)."  Is it: We have a 1:1 laptop project! or is it Students in our school are successful!?

5. When asked "when are ever going to need this?" by his students about an algebra procedure, high school teacher Dan Sherman says:

Never. You will never use this.

It then go on to remind them that people don't lift weights so that one day they will be prepared should one day, someone knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically . so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.

MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to and end (for most people) and not an end in itself. 

Librarians, do we have as good a reason why kids should be reading quality children's literature?

6. How quickly and convincingly can you answer the question 'Why would the world be a less rich place if ___________ disappeared completely?" Fill in the blank with your area of passion/expertise (libraries, Web 2.0, public schools).

7. Motivational stories have three main plots: The Challenge Plot (overcoming obstacles; The Connection Plot (how a relationship bridged a gap); and The Creativity Plot (how innovation solves a problem). We don't need to be able to create stories, but we must be able to recognize a good story when we hear one. When I talk about how a lack of keyboarding skills prevents some teachers from becoming computer users, I always tell the story told to me by one of our librarians: "I remember when Jim first saw the computer keyboard. He said, "How in the hell do you expect me to learn to use a computer when the keys ain't in alphabetical order!")

Made to Stick is worth a read. Put it on your bookcase beside Cialdini's classic Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

You'll be unstoppable.

____________

Blue Skunk readers know that I try to practice The Lazy Person's Reading Plan - alternating one non-fiction book with one fun read. But I'm breaking my pattern - and not for the reason I usually do by sneaking in a couple extra fun reads. I picked up Keen's Cult of the Amateur and find myself drawn to it like I would a car wreck. It is obviously a book meant to generate heat, not light, and such books I don't comment on. It's like being baited into an argument with an ideologue - there is no possible positive outcome since an angry reaction is all that is expected. If I change my mind by the end of the book, I will let you and my fellow monkeys know.

Homage to Travis McGee

One of my more literate buddies and I were having supper a few weeks ago when the discussion veered from “lies about women” to “books we like.” Come to think about it, those may be the only things we ever talk about. Anyway, we tried to remember what specific book got us hooked on a particular genre. Kiddie books don’t count.

I can safely say that Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel started my infatuation with science fiction. Tolkien’s hobbits lead to a brief flirtation with fantasy novels. I remember Kenneth Roberts’ Northwest Passage and Mary Renault’s The King Must Die as my first dalliances with historical fiction – an affair that continues to this day. And of course, Fleming’s Bond stories created this fan of international espionage.

But I read two detective novels for every one book of another genre. And it was John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee who set me down this path. No pantywaist Hardy Boy or tea-sipping Marple or cerebral Holmes, this McGee. He describes himself as:

I was an artifact, genus boat bum, a pale-eyed, shambling, gangling, knuckly man, without enough unscarred hide left to make a decent lampshade. Watchful appraiser of the sandy-rumped beach ladies. Creaking knight errant, yawning at the thought of the next dragon.  They don't make grails the way they used to. The Green Ripper, p 46.

McGee set the mold for my favorite detectives. Smart, absolutely, but also unafraid of violence when needed and unafraid to buck the establishment when necessary. And always adhering to a personal moral code that detests bullies and protects the innocent. Knight errant, indeed.

I re-read a couple McGee mysteries just recently and McDonald’s writing has held up. McGee’s relationship with women won’t pass any political correctness tests today, but I love how the women he encounters can speak in complete, compound, even complex sentences that add up to whole paragraphs:

She wrenched around to face me, her mouth stretched into ugliness. "And what the hell do you know about relationships? Symbiotic! Limited contact with reality! How could you even pretend to recognize the intellectual position? Oh, you have your lousy little vanity, Mr. McGee. You have a shrewd, quick mind, and little tag ends of wry attitudes, and a short of deliberate irony, served up as if you were holding it on a tray. And you have the nerve to patronize me! You have all your snappy little answers to everything, but when they ask the wrong questions, you always have fists or kicking or fake superior laughter. You are a physical man, but in the best sense of being a man, you are not one-tenth the man my brother was. " Her eyes went wild and dazed. "Was," she repeated softly/ She had sunk the barb herself, and chunked it deep, and she writhed on it. A Purple Place for Dying, p. 71

McGee’s life was one I’ve always envied. Life onboard the houseboat The Busted Flush. Working only enough to take his retirement a small piece at a time. Beautiful women going in and out of his life. A true friend and Watson in next door neighbor Meyers. The life, I suppose, we all dream about but would probably detest were we actually in it. No children or grandchildren in McGee’s world as I remember.

I am always searching for other detectives of the McGee school – smart, violent and principled. As Bill Ott suggests in his February "Rousing Reads" column in American Libraries, Lee Child’s hero Jack Reacher comes close. Earl Swagger (Stephen Hunter), Dave Robicheaux (James Lee Burke), Harry Bosch (Michael Connelly), and even Gabriel Allon (Daniel Silva) honor the type.

It’s my hope that authors keep cranking out these tough guys that can use brains, bullets and fists. Any suggestions to expand my list? What book hooked you on a genre?

A "Lucky" perspective

Controversy over the 2007 Newbery Award winner The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron rages on LM_Net and the blogosphere. As I understand it, the author uses the word scrotum which some librarians found objectionable and then other librarians found finding scrotum objectionable, objectionable. Confused? I will withhold judgement on the book and the use of the word until I've actually read Lucky, but I will say here and now that I like the word scrotum. Somehow it is nearly onomatopoeic.

 My friend Tom Ross, the poet-librarian, puts the issue into very stark perspective. He sent this to our state listserv and has given me permission to reprint it here:

Come on folks... I am not worried about this word. I am worried about my student who  attempted suicide twice. I am worried about my student who is falling through the cracks because everybody wants  to discipline him, but I think he is so  depressed that he will end up like that first student. Everybody is trying to do the right thing, but we are not perfect people. Sometimes we may not  cover every child perfectly and yet our  heart is breaking over each one. I am worried about the gangs x-ing out each other,  I am worried about my principals giving up because they are  being worn down by parents who are demanding perfect people handle their children and there are none to be found.  I'm worried about my Goth student who thinks that nobody cares about him as a human being and I wonder if he is cutting again. I'm worried about the  little girls that come to school with  bruises and bumps and social services is working on the problem... but there are not enough of them to cover  everybody fast  enough... I'm worried  about the teachers that are leaving because they can't handle the disrespect, intensity and pace of their  job...Good people who will be lost  forever to one of the most important task society has given them. I'm worried that society is abandoning  us because they want to pretend the  problem is the language in the book and it's not the kids who are dying. I'm worried about the kids whose  mom has three part time jobs and no  insurance.  I'm worried that if one of my students ends up running away, she may end up a street child who will  be abused by some evil man for something  as fleeting as money. I'm sorry this is  a word that just doesn't worry me. I want my students to live to  the next day... That worries me.
 
Sorry if I have my values misplaced, my heart is breaking for my kids right now - Tom Ross, Plymouth

I am as guilty as the next person about worrying about and arguing over and finding importance in those issues that this time next year won't even be remembered. Thanks, Tom, for grounding all of us who read your message.