Emotion

In the book we discuss how to combat mistaken perceptions, such as people’s inflated sense of the danger of shark attacks — the attacks are so rare as to be mathematically soothing, and in fact the danger of shark attacks is dwarfed by the danger of deer attacks (aka those little furries who dart mindlessly in front of your car just at the moment when braking would be pointless).

Here’s another approach to the same topic: Turns out SAND ATTACKS are more dangerous than sharks: (Thanks to Hashim for the pointer)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/20/sand.deaths.ap/index.html

Update: The link above no longer works but here is a link to CBS article on the same topic.

From a story in the Eugene, OR Register-Guard (thanks to Len H for the link) (Update: here is a link to the same story from CBS):

Kyleray Katherman, 13, thought something was funny about the water coming from the drinking fountains at his school. So, being far more intelligent and resourceful than I was at 13, he conducted an experiment. He used a Q-tip to swab the spigots of four different drinking fountains (and also a toilet for good measure). Then he took the samples back to the lab and tested them for bacteria. (Apparently junior high is a good bit more like CSI than in my day.) Result: The toilet water was Evian compared with the drinking-fountain water.

Then, in a masterstroke of stickiness, Katherman presented his analysis of the 5 sources of water to his classmates, and without telling them where each sample came from, he asked them which source they’d prefer to drink from.

They chose the toilet water, of course. And imagine the looks on their faces when he let them know. (For that matter, imagine the look on *his* face when his punchline worked as intended.)

Think about how much more powerful it was for him to structure the presentation this way, getting people to commit to a preference for toilet water, rather than launching into his presentation with a typical opener: “Based on my analysis of the drinking water in this school, there was a significantly higher level of bacteria in the drinking fountains than in the toilets.”

I forgot to blog this when it happened, but consider it a historical pointer. SlideShare ran the “World’s Best Presentation Contest.” Winners are here. My primary comment is that I hope these are not, in fact, the world’s best presentations. Not to be a downer.

The winners are all extremely strong as examples of graphic design and layout. And that’s great, but that’s not the same thing as a great presentation. In many cases, the stunning visuals aren’t used in the service of a sticky idea. The visuals aren’t used to make ideas concrete, they’re simply adding decoration. For instance, check out the presentation for the Sustainable Food Lab. This is a great example of a feel-good presentation — anyone who watches it will say, “Wow, that was cool.” And a week later, no one will remember anything about it. There’s no focus, there’s no sharp unexpected hook to call us to attention, there’s no story. I wish it were stickier — it’s a great cause.

There are two bloggers who have done multi-post series on Made to Stick recently — they are nice introductions to the book and its concepts for people who haven’t read it. I am learning a lot from the insights that they are bringing to the book.

First, there’s Cam Beck at ChaosScenario. Here are the MTS-related posts: Boil it down to just one thing. Get their attention and keep it. Hit your audience with a ton of bricks. Earning the trust of strangers. [Stay tuned to Cam’s blog for posts on Emotion and Stories.]

Then, there’s Katya Andresen from Network for Good, whose blog is a must-read for non-profit marketers. She shows how the principles in MTS can be applied to social enterprise marketing, which is something that Chip and I are passionate about. Here are the posts: Finding your core aka sweet spot. Go for the unexpected. Hang your message on hooks. Emotion and calculation.

Cory Doctorow likes the duct tape on our cover. Cool. I’ve been a Boing Boing fan for years — was quite a nice surprise to see a familiar image there.

There were some early cover designs of the book that included Post-It Notes. And we were thinking, is there anything less sticky than a Post-It? Isn’t that, in fact, the core value of Post-Its, that they aren’t so sticky? I guess we could have gone that direction and renamed the book: Made to Adhere Lightly.

We also played around with images of gum. Gum sticks, ya know. One design showed a woman’s foot in a high-heeled shoe, and she had just stepped in a huge wad of gum, and strands of the gum were trailing the heel into the air. It was a cool photo, almost beautiful. And yet the emotional resonance was, um, less appealing. “Our book — it’s like stepping in gum!”

Bless you, duct tape.