Week Eight

Assignment: Heath & Heath 25-97

Chapter 1 in Made to Stick focuses on simplicity and finding the core, or "stripping an idea down to its most critical essence," and making it compact. Finding the core is the first of two steps in making your ideas "sticky."  The second step is to translate te core using the SUCCESs checklist, which is discussed later in the book.

Through an array of examples, from war plans to an airline company's mission to political campaigns to  journalism, this chapter really gave me the insight to making ideas stick through simplicity.  Also, instead of the typical definition, I  realized that simple doesn't always mean "dumbing down" and that it requires strict prioritization.  I can easily compare what I read to this year's mission of the Clemson University yearbook.  Our editor-in-chief's mission (or the "Commander's Intent") is to focus on the spirit of Clemson tradition.  In other words, when the staff is writing stories for the book, the focal point needs to be what makes Clemson different than other universities and that's what I think about when writing.

After giving a lot of examples, the authors compare the idea to proverbs and The Golden Rule, explaining that ideas should be "compact enough to be sticky and meaningful enough to make a difference."  This comparison stuck out to me because it shows that making ideas stick can apply to any aspect of life, not just businesses.

I also liked how the authors explained a few things to avoid, like "burying the lead" and "feature creep."  Basically this means to not focus too much on the details.  This idea has been evident to me for several years when writing for the high school newspaper or, more currently, the Clemson yearbook.  You only have about a couple hundred words to talk about a big topic, like the College of Business and Behavioral Science or all of the famous speakers who come to campus.  Therefore, you really have to figure out what is the most important.  Also, headlines and photographs are very  important.  When someone is flipping through the yearbook, they are more likely to stop and read a story if either the title catches their eye, or the photographs interest them.