Vibrant Public Relations - What's Your Story!

Try a Random Idea

It’s been a while since I cracked open the old Creative Whack Pack. It’s a great tool to inspire your thinking whether you’re working on a new article for your newsletter or brainstorming a new marketing idea. Today’s draw of the cards led me to “Try A Random Idea”. The challenge was to open any book at random, put your finger down on a word and consider how that word relates to what you’re doing. What random ideas can you try?

I think this is a great way to shake out the cobwebs when it comes to communicating, especially if you find yourself in a bit of a communications rut. I know that it is so easy to fall into doing the same old thing whether it’s corresponding with your customers, writing the company newsletter or even blogging. The idea of choosing a random word can really work - even if you do what I did, and land on the word “the”.

At first I was tempted to flip pages and do this again, until I found a better, more stimulating word. But that wouldn’t be really exercising my brain and my creative muscle now would it? Think about “the“. How can you incorporate that into what you’re communicating about your company, cause or self? For me, it made me start listing out ways I can focus on being “THE” PR Chick in my professional community. What are some simple steps that would propel me into top-of-mind awareness in my field? Got ‘em. Okay, next. What about my clients? “THE” All About You Recovery Salon. What will it take to position them as “THE” place to go when you’ve got cancer recovery needs. It brought me back to thinking about their brand flywheel we developed and focusing on the personality traits that make this team amazing.

And of course, I love etymologies, the roots of words and their evolutionary development. So I hopped over to webster.com to check out “the” and lo and behold, you’ve got to scroll down the page to get everything on this seemingly simple word. So that got me thinking about the breadth and depth of the projects I have on hand. This simple word has now encouraged me to take a step back from each project I have on my plate and consider whether or not the work I have planned really communicates the diversity, uniqueness and intrinsic value associated with each client, product and project.

The power of “the”- a Random Idea that has really stirred up my creative juices.

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Vibrant Resource: It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, that I highly recommend Roger vonOech’s “Creative Whack Pack” or just about anything from Creative Think.

Vibrant Challenge: Try this exercise today. Then mark your calendar or set a reminder for 30 days from now. Do it again and see how it helps. Let me know how it works out for you!