“MADE TO STICK” WHY SOME IDEAS SURVIVE AND OTHER DIE

While reading this book about the ideas an ancient proverb about teachers crossed my mind: A bad teacher speaks, a good teacher explains and an excellent teacher inspires. Well, I think this is similar to the explanation given by the authors of this book. Certainly people that transmit their ideas to the crowds could be considered as teachers, may be teachers of mankind. They have taught their followers and have inspired them with their ideas which have survived, some of them for centuries and decades.

What makes an idea stick? The authors have described various categories of ideas which are good, bad, emotional, storytelling etc. In my opinion an idea’s survival depends on two main factors; the person throwing it, what he/she represents for the others and how this idea can influence people’s mind. Of course by this I mean great ideas or let’s define it as ideas which have influenced and changed the wheel of world’s history thrown and implemented by great people. Those ideas are difficult to categorize, merely they are all sticky.

One the other hand, you find a lot of day to day ideas which are sticky but not permanently. One example could be fashion or a new model of dressing. A new model of a dress could be very successful or sticky for as long as it will find followers and likability among people. But these swings a lot because of its nature while the permanent sticky idea the way of dressing such as: simple, extravagant, nicely or arrogantly, remain. What seems to be the basic glue for an idea is how much it influences people’s mind and the way of life up to the point that they will consider it as their own idea.