Get Your Crayons Back!Creativity in communications

Rosetta Public Relations Inc.

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What do we mean by ‘creativity’?

My preferred definitions The process of developing new,

uncommon or unique ideas Being imaginative or inventive The power to invest with new form

• The ability to create new associations between existing ideas or concepts

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But seriously… what is creativity?

The how of communications (as opposed to the what), often reflected in the vehicle for the message

Not an idea but how you use ideas and combine them with others in a novel arrangement Duchamp’s ‘readymade’ art

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Are you born with it?

Both an innate talent and a skill

We all have the same brain – some have more creativity in theirs than others

It can be cultivated, honed and taught… or it can atrophy through disuse

The myth of the creative genius – legacy from the explosion of the advertising age

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Get your crayons back

You were creative in kindergarten… what happened? You put your crayons away and studied serious stuff

Did you grow up and get boring? Probably

You can be creative again Just take your crayons back and make creativity a part of your life and work

Superman by Robbie, age 4

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Where does creativity come from?

Many sources GETS – good enough to steal Small is beautiful – take the

little ideas and combine them (don’t waste your time chasing after the big idea)

Serendipity – the art of finding something while looking for something else

Subverting convention – think different (sp) WS Burroughs, author of

Naked Lunch and father of the GETS principle

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An example

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Originality

Vastly overrated Your idea thefts are likely to go undiscovered

unless blatant The key is taking ideas from wherever you

find them and combining them into something new of your own making

Juxtaposition is good! Originality only applies to your own specific

situation – if your context is new then your work is original

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Argument for creativity

Delivers value – like heightened audience interest or a shortcut to intuitive understanding (the aha moment)

Surmounts noise in the communications channel by getting you invited into the audiences’ mindspace

Conveys desirable brand attributes in addition to the message

Can support positioning (or re-positioning)

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Creativity for large organizations

Every organization can be creative Some choose not to be… historically

governments, industrial companies Typically risk-averse, approval-seeking

organizations have problems with cultivating creativity

Often the corporate communications folks are the problem –

“creativity is for the marketing department” “we outsource that to an agency”

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Conditions for creativity

Capacity – sufficient horsepower (internal or external) to drive project

Will – champion(s) who believe in the project

Buy-in – appetite among senior management

Who would’ve thought BK management would back this?

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Are there limits to creativity?

… yes

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Disciplined creativity

Must support brand Must be on strategy Simply means an orderly process to

generate creativity Warning – this is hard work with limited

shortcuts for the lazy

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.”

- Jack London

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Basic principles Suspend judgement – no nay-saying Resist the usual Don’t stop at one idea, keep going Allow sufficient time… but not too much that ennui sets

in Consider repeated creativity generation sessions to

prevent burnout Never ignore hallway conversations – doctors do it, why

can’t you? Capture everything Focus Don’t turn off creativity – sometimes good ideas come

outside of office hours

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Eating the tangerine Forcing focus Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh,

teaches this to generate mindfulness

Eat a tangerine What does it taste, smell, feel like? Resist the abstract, the urge to

categorize Less about thinking than

experiencing Now do the same with your ideas

– experience them, record them, don’t evaluate them… yet

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Try three types of thinking

1. Blue-sky

2. Realistic

3. Critical

Should be applied separately One should not dominate If you have more time to explore, look at

de Bono’s Six Hats model

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PerspectivesFresh eyes Who is in your organization? What about outside? Imagine – what does this look like from their position?

Find the connections Instead of being a professional communications person, look

through the lens of: Parent Volunteer hockey coach Community activist Amateur photographer Whatever you might be

… or imagine “what would my brother/sister/aunt (circle one) the [insert career here] think?”

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Generating ideas

The What If exercise What if there were no barriers to realizing our objective? Identifies ideal goal Lists obstacles to realizing that goal Obstacles can then be challenged and sorted as

Insurmountable Surmountable Imaginary

Workaround solutions can be found to realize the goal Imaginary obstacles can be dismissed

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Generating ideas

Story-telling Tell the story/problem

differently If this is usually conveyed

through text, draw a picture If this is typically told from the

government’s viewpoint, tell it from a different perspective

Tell/show/act it to a 4th grader

Similarity exercise What’s this like? What could you borrow from

other sectors?

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Do we have to brainstorm?

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Brainstorming Creativity-sparking concept with a bad reputation Useful if structured

Phase Thinking type

Generate ideas Blue-sky

Share them Blue-sky

First sort Realistic

Short list Realistic/critical

Best idea Critical

Refine (process)

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Sample brainstorming structure What is this about? What are the opportunities and obstacles? Who are we talking to? What do we want to say? How do we want to be seen? What channels are available? What opportunities exist/could exist? What other noise is there in the environment? What could derail our efforts (worst-case scenario

planning)? What other ideas do we like that could be stolen and

applied here?

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Paul McIvor

416.516.7095

416.906.1276 C

mcivor@RosettaPR.com

www.RosettaPR.com

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