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Hardcover
336 pages
ISBN 9781400064281 Published Jan. 2007
Random House
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Posted Nov. 10, 2011 4:03 p.m. by 800-ceo-read
We’ve been fortunate to spend time with Dan Roam over the years, and his new book, Blah Blah Blah is as high-energy, insightful, and creative as he is.
Blah Blah Blah is a book that may just be impossible to give justice to in a review. From cover to cover, Dan Roam uses his great skill at communicating through words and pictures to inform us, charm us, and convince us to accept his belief that ideas become clearer when they are represented by pictures. Not that words aren’t important—this book is full of them—but Roam explains that:
Words are abstractions, the ultimate mental shorthand. When we know what they mean, words instantly call to mind ideas, images, feelings, and memories. When we all speak the same language, our words offer near-perfect communications efficiency. … But the extraordinary verbal efficiency of words also has a steep downside. Like all abstractions, words are by definition distinct from the actual “things” they represent. If we are unclear in our own mind about which specific “thing” our word means or if we’re unclear when we share words with other people, the whole system crashes.
Roam’s solution? Make communication less of an abstraction by using pictures to help guide understanding, to learn more quickly and to share ideas more clearly.
Start with Roam’s method of creating a Visual Grammar: “When we say a word, we should draw a picture.” Easy enough. Then combine that grammar into Vivid Thinking, which is more than just linking word pictures together, but about combining them in a specific way that reflects the complexity of our ideas—because Vivid Thinking is Balanced Thinking. As Roam writes:
Verbal mind, visual mind. They see the same world, but they don’t see it the same way.
This is important: drawing pictures as Roam suggests is not about simplifying. Nor does it dumb down our ideas. Instead, it makes them more concrete, more sticky. In fact, reading through Blah Blah Blah reminds me of my first reading of Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Perhaps it’s Roam’s use of the word FOREST as a mnemonic device for his 6 essentials of vivid ideas. (The Heath brothers used the word SUCCESS as a mnemonic to remember their keys to sticky ideas.) FOREST stands for Form, Only the Essentials, Recognizable, Evolving, Span Differences, Targeted.
The use of FOREST is particularly memorable because of its relations to the phrase, “He couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” For Roam’s book offers easy to remember, easy to implement ideas that will help you see (and communicate) the forest and the trees.
Jack Covert Selects - Switch
Posted Feb. 12, 2010 6:29 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Chip and Dan Heath, brothers and scholars, won the inaugural 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year Award with their first book, Made to Stick. That book, despite being a newborn, also made our list of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. When the publisher sent me the advance copy of Switch, I was concerned about the “sophomore slump” that happens in sports and music, whether due to a true drop in quality or critical backlash due to expectations. Still, I dropped everything and stretched out on my couch to read, and I can tell you that Switch might even be better than Made to Stick.
In Made to Stick, the Heaths offered a methodology for how to make your ideas memorable. And, of course, one of the things the Heath brothers excel in is creating their own sticky ideas. They use clever acronyms, catchy phrases, and unusual connections that we can easily remember and reference for future situations. In Made to Stick, it was SUCCESs, and the “curse of knowledge” among other memorable lessons. Switch is about making change happen, despite our tendency to fight it. Here the Heaths teach us about the Rider—or rational mind—and the Elephant—our emotional mind— and how change needs a partnership between the two in order to “shape the path” ahead. We also learn about TBU—true but useless—which, undiagnosed, can lead to decision paralysis.
To explain an antidote to decision paralysis, the Heaths tell of a small community in South Dakota that had been losing young people at an unsustainable rate. A group of high school students decided to do something. In the past, decision paralysis ruled efforts like this because the problem was so overwhelming and the potential answers so numerous. The students commissioned a survey and discovered that half the residents shopped outside they county. The first step was to ask the residents to support local businesses, which in turn became the first step in a successful revitalization program.
The Heath brothers are teachers at heart, and Switch features the same high level of research-driven data brought to life through world-class stories as Made to Stick, while also offering loads of practical, how-to advice on how to start and maintain your next change initiative, whether in your business or in your personal life. The ultimate takeaway is that by recognizing that oftentimes it is the situation that must change, not the person, we are able to take action and not fear the unknown.
Jack Covert Selects: Made to Stick
Posted Jan. 10, 2007 5:19 a.m. by jack
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Random House, January 2007, $24.95 Hardcover, 288 Pages, ISBN 1400064287
One of the perks about being in the book industry is meeting some really smart people. In November, at our Author Pow-Wow, I got to meet Dan Heath, one of the authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Not only is Dan personable, interesting and cool, but he's also brilliant. You'll know that the instant you pick up Made to Stick.
Dan, a consultant at Duke, and his brother Chip, a professor at Stanford Business School, came to realize that while their professional work looked different, the core of the work was the same. They were each trying to get at what makes ideas successful once they’re out into the world. So they teamed up to write Made to Stick. Borrowing Malcolm Gladwell's concept of "sticky" ideas, the Brothers Heath examined everything from urban legends to public health scares to elementary school teaching strategies to political campaigns. Made to Stick is the kind of book that breaks out of the traditional business book market and offers solid, useful information to all types of readers.
Dan and Chip know that there's not a simple formula for making an idea stick. What they care about is identifying what's common among sticky ideas. They found six principles that apply to all sticky ideas: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. (Cleverly, they form an acronym for "success.")
"No special expertise is needed to apply these principles. There are no licensed stickologists. Moreover, many of the principles have a commonsense ring to them: Didn’t most of us already know the intuition that we should be 'simple' and 'use stories'? It’s not as though there's a powerful constituency for overcomplicated, lifeless prose."
I love the Heaths' straightforward yet elegant writing style. And the book has substance too. As you read, you will experience tons of 'lightbulb' moments, when you instantly recognize their ideas as true and immediately applicable. Here’s an example:
"So why aren't we deluged with brilliantly designed sticky ideas? Why is our life filled with more process memos than proverbs? Sadly, there is a villain in our story. The villain is a natural psychological tendency that consistently confounds our ability to create ideas using these principles. It's called the Curse of Knowledge."
They explain that the more we know about a subject, the less we're actually able to craft it into an idea that will stick. The Heaths offer strategies for defeating the Curse of Knowledge and other roadblocks to creating sticky ideas. And you'll have fun while learning about Curiosity Gaps, the Velcro Theory of Memory, and the Sinatra Test
So, make room on your bookshelf. Much like the subject it tackles, Made to Stick is magnetic, sticky. You're going to start seeing this book everywhere.
