MADE TO STICK

On the evening of 16th of July 2024, our persuasive lecturer sent a book in the group chat with instructions for us to read the book and make presentations. As expected of students we shrugged thinking this was one of the many books you will have to read just for the purposes of graduating. Lol!!

The biggest lesson I would say the book Made to stick by Chip and Dan Heath has taught me is the saying, never judge a book by its cover. When I first saw the book, I thought for sure it was one of those old books that would be a pain to read. However, after reading so far 3 chapters, I can proudly say that that book is very educative and surprisingly interesting.

Dan and Chip use very distinct and well elaborated examples to pass the main concepts of the book. That I would say is the best writing strategy I have so far seen in the book. This strategy also sell them out as authors well versed with what they are talking about as the book is explaining why some ideas are actualized while others are not. The book encourages ideas that are simple, concrete, understandable and more traits of a good and persuasive idea. Each of these traits have a chapter dedicated to them that Dan and Chip use real life examples to explain.

Another notable thing thing that I would say the authors did to ensure that one is persuaded to keep reading the book is that they do not explain everything to you. This encourages the reader to still use their brains while reading the book thus making it a very active reading process. To explain this better, I will give an example of chapter 3 where Dan and Chip are persuading the audience that a good idea is concrete and not abstract.

To sell this concept to the readers, they use an example of The National Conservancy(TNC). This is an environmental organisation based in the United states of America.

This organisation basically deals with saving land that is important to the planet from being polluted. For a long time the company used a system known as bucks and land to save the detrimental land masses. This system basically refers to them raising funds by the help of various donors to go and purchase land that has been seen to be important to the environment and have it under their ownership.

This system had been working for the longest time until they were faced with a major dilemma. About 60% of land in Carlifornia had been identified to be part of the top 5 areas important to the eco system. After further analysis it was established that 40% of the 60% was most important. By the nature of TNC mission, they were expected to raise funds and save the land. This would however not work because which donors are not about to offer funds once they hear they are to save 40% of Carlifornia. If you know a bit about the USA then I believe you know that Carlifornia is among the most expensive areas in the USA. Buying that amount of land from Cali(Carlifornia) would cost millions of dollars and humans being humans would shy away from raising funds for that especially knowing the land would not be in neither of their names.

TNC was now faced with a task on figuring out what was the most persuasive way of convincing people to help in the Cali mission. I will spare you the details of the process of how they came up with the final and most convining idea, so that you can go and read the book yourself! The brilliant idea decided upon was that they would label the land as beautiful landscapes that needed to be rescued to the people. They also said that the would save 5 landscapes per year meaning all 50 landscapes would be saved in 10 years. We are told this idea worked like magic! The reason is because the idea sounded more concrete than the previous bucks and land strategy. However, Dan and Chip do not explain to you what part makes it concrete and lets you see the aspect of that with the tools they gave to you on cocreteness. I will spare you the trouble of trying to think of the answer as you prepare to read the book!

The corelation of the TNC story and cocreteness of ideas is that when the people were told they were saving landscapes and not bare boring land, they found it more closer and relatable to them. Also by telling them they were saving 5 landscape a year and not 40% of California, they saw the idea as much more concrete and attainable and not something abstract. Get it now?

So far I would say that Made to stick is one of the most persuasive books I have been reading so far. You should definitely give it a try and tell me how you found it in the comments below =)