Chip Heath

Why Emotion, Not Knowledge, Is the Catalyst for Change

How Do You Make Your Business Ideas Concrete? Look to Hamburger Helper

What CSR and Nonprofit Leaders Are Reading – Part III

Made to Stick: The Birth of a Sticky Idea

After seeing a strikingly effective ad campaign, Dan Heath and Chip Heath wonder whether sodas will be the next cigarettes.

Switch: Don’t Solve Problems–Copy Success

An exclusive book excerpt by Fast Company columnists Chip Heath and Dan Heath, best-selling authors of Made to Stick.

Making Nice: The Stops and Starts of Advertising for a Cause

The Gripping Statistic: How to Make Your Data Matter

We’re awash in data. Here’s how to make yours matter.

Three Secrets to Make a Message Go Viral

The police have issued this warning: “If you are driving after dark and see an oncoming car with no headlights on, DO NOT FLASH YOUR LIGHTS AT THEM!” Why? Because the no-headlights car is being driven by a gang member, and as part of an initiation rite, the first person who flashes him will be hunted down and killed. (But at least the gang member will turn his lights on afterward.)

Set Smaller Goals, Get Bigger Results

Why tough circumstances call for smaller goals.

How Setting Modest Goals Can Lead Toward Success

1. Debt Snowball Financial struggles often feel insurmountable: Will I ever be able to retire if I can’t get out of debt? Personal-finance guru Dave Ramsey recommends making a “debt snowball” by combining small amounts of money that would be spent on frivolities (“snowflakes”). The resulting lump sum, or snowball, can be used to pay off creditors. 2. Blockbuster Video

Why Incentives Are Irresistible, Effective, and Likely to Backfire

Ken O’Brien was an NFL quarterback in the 1980s and 1990s. Early in his career, he threw a lot of interceptions, so one clever team lawyer wrote a clause into O’Brien’s contract penalizing him for each one he threw. The incentive worked as intended: His interceptions plummeted. But that’s because he stopped throwing the ball. Years ago, AT&T executives tried to encourage productivity by paying programmers based on the number of lines of code they produced. The result: programs of Proustian length.

Dirty Marketing Campaigns