Made To Stick is an interesting and practical book on how to make your ideas catch on... how to take a dull concept laden with boring statistics, and turn it into something that people will remember, and tell their friends.

Its not academic, rather its a down to earth how-to manual. Its a good companion to The Tipping Point, which popularized the concept of stickiness... which is the tendency for a person to remember and pass on an idea. They analyzed marketing campaigns, public service messages, and urban legends to determine what sticky ideas have in common. They came up with this basic framework:

• Simplicity: the idea must be stripped to its core, and the most important concepts should jump out.
• Unexpectedness: the idea must destroy preconceived notions about something. This forces people to stop, think, and remember.
• Concreteness: avoid statistics, use real-world analogies to help people understand complex ideas.
• Credibility: if people don't trust you, they'll ignore you. In some cases, they will be openly hostile, which means they'll actively try to dispute your message!
• Emotional: information makes people think, but emotion makes them act. Appeal to emotional needs, sometimes even way up on Maslow's hierarchy.
• Stores: telling a story tricks people into paying closer attention, and feeling more connected. Remember the Jared Subway commercials?

The book gives some great examples, and even has some brief homework assignments so you can test how to make a message more sticky. This book isn't just for marketing types... I'd recommend it to anybody who communicates with the public at all.