Today I received a course book for my advanced Public Relations writing class. The book is "Made to Stick: Why some Ideas survive and others Die" by Chip and Dan Heath. This is the first course book I picked up and skimmed the first chapter and found myself actually reading and enjoying the message it was sending. I think that's when you know you're in the correct major.
This book starts out telling you about the authors friend of a friend, this man named Dan who was on a business trip in Atlantic City. Dan was waiting for his flight home, and he grabbed a drink at a local bar. Before he was about to leave a beautiful woman came up and offered to buy him a drink. That was the last part of his night he remembers. He woke up the next morning in a hotel room in the bathtub lying in a tub of ice. Next to him on a table is a note and a cell phone that says "don't move CALL 9-1-1" his kidney had been stolen. Typical Urban legend, Nip/Tuck did it last season.
anyway this message sticks. Its something you can remember and tell it almost verbatim because its interesting to you.
The book goes on to compare it to a financial strategy of a non-profit organization. How is someone supposed to remember some mummble jummble of a financial statement and make that stick in your mind and even slightly repeat it. I just read it and have no idea what it said.
The Heath brothers do an extraordinary job of hooking the reader in this New York Times Bestseller. Pick it up. Buy it. It will Stick with you.
Visit the website at www.madetostick.com
