《Made to Stick》chapter one “simple” reading note

《 Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die》
by Chip Heath, Dan Heath

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Introduction: the main idea of this book**

Author shared four stories in the introduction section, and told us the power of methods of sharing ideas. The four stories is about (1) kidney heist story, (2) papers distributed by a nonprofit organization, (3) the truth about the movie popcorn, (4) the toxic candy. (Please find the detail in the book)

Methods is tools, that can be used for bot good thing and do bad things. Scientists shared the truth about the movie popcorn, and let people have a more healthier life. But some bad guy shared some faked news to get some illegal benefits.

The stories shared some basic principles of** sharing ideas efficiently or sticky**. This is also the main content, that is why some ideas survived and spread all over the world, while others dies quickly?

By “stick,” we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact—they change your audience’s opinions or behavior.
Sticky = understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior
There are two steps in making your ideas sticky—Step 1 is to find the core, and Step 2 is to translate the core using the SUCCESs checklist.
SUCCES: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, stories.

WYK: The SUCCESs methods remind me of the methods of improving our memory. When we use the “memory palaces” methods to memorize a series things or numbers, we also need to make a story using SUCCESs.

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Chapter one: Simple**

In this chapter, author told us the first principle of making ideas sticky, that is to find the core of of what we should spread and then share the core.

What’s simple?**

Simple means the core, essence, and priority.

Some examples in this chapter.

1. Commander’s intents (CI): soldiers know the CI all the time, and can change their actions based on the specific environments.
2. Southwest airlines: reducing costs of their key competitive strength and the employees can decide based on that.
3. Bury the lead: writers express their core ideas in the beginning and then give detailed information in the following, that is the “inverted pyramid”.
4. Clinton champion: “It’s the economy, stupid”. This is there core things that people should now.
5. Daily Record paper: names, names, names. The reason of Daily Record paper is very popular is that they pay attention on the local people always, that is their core.
6. Palm pilot: the success of the Palm is they reduce some unnecessary function and focus on four main functions and become a better device compared with the current products.

If You Say Three Things,You Don’t Say Anything.
If you want to do too much, you will get nothing good enough.

The decision paralysis**

It’s hard to prioritize when we make decisions. The first reason is the uncertainty. Things changed all the time and we worry to lose. Sometimes, even the irrelevant uncertainty can paralyze us, this is confirmed by psychologists. The second reason is the choice.
If we can find the core messages, that can help us avoid bad choices by reminding us of what’s important.
Therefor, let’s prioritize first and then act!

How to share ideas: the balance between the complexity and simplicity. **

A good tool of explaining complex things is to use schemas, that means to learn a complex and hard concept based on the easy-to-understand concept. This is similar with the Feynman technique, I think.
If we share the ideas to children, to use analogy is a good try.

The Feynman Technique is a Mental Model named after RichardFeynman, a Nobel Prize Winning Physicist. It is designed as atechnique to help you learn pretty much learn anything - so understand concepts you don't really get, remember stuff you have already learnt, or study more efficiently.—Google
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”—Albert Einstein

How to Use the Feynman Technique to Learn Faster (With Examples) | College Info Geek

2017.11.4