THINKing

Creativity 2010 - #1

Since we’re all about creativity, I’ve decided to institute a weekly creativity update this year. We’ll offer up a few pieces on creativity that we’re reading each week. So, here’s Episode 1.

Creative Block #1 - I’m Not Creative - This is one of the biggest and most debilitating creative blocks of all. Fortunately, it’s also one of the easiest to get around, provided you’re prepared to make a shift in your mindset.

Hans Rosing & The Art Of Storytelling With Statistics -  Hans proves what we all know, even if our teachers from yesteryear did not: Statistics are not boring.

25 Ultra-Creative Packaging Designs - Web designers can (and should) draw inspiration from places other than web design, so today’s article is going to showcase 25 creative packaging designs found on Deviantart.com.

Resolve To Be More Creative In 2010 -  Are you thinking about making New Year’s resolutions for 2010? If so, then I strongly recommend that you add a resolution to become a more creative problem solver to your list.

10 Idea Inspiring Lightning Rods -  Waiting for inspiration? You may as well wait for lightning to strike.

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More Creativity

I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity lately. Done some research on the topic, too. As a result, I have some additional creativity resources for you.

Roger von Oech has long been a favorite of mine. His A Whack On The Side Of The Head book is a well-thumbed resident on my bookshelf.  He authors a blog - Creative Think -  that is an excellent destination when you are stuck for ideas.

Chuck Frey’s Innovation Weblog tackles creativity-related topics, and on the site are several resource centers, offering thoughs on mind mapping and idea management.

Dominic Basulto is a digital strategist at Electric Artists in New York and the former Editor of Fortune’s Business Innovation Insider. His blog, Endless Innovation, keeps an eye on what’s next in innovation and creativity.

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Links - 2/17/2009

Here are a few links that might be of interest to you:

• Email tops online ad budget changes in 09
• iMindMap
• The new toolbar from My Creative Team
• What’s your news IQ?
• PR MatchPoint
• Blatant Self-Promotion: My Creative Team eNewsletter Sign-Up
• Google SearchWiki Strains Online Reputation Management
  

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Take Your Vitamins

Don’t just sit there in a funk. The media news may be gloomy but you don’t have to succumb. Be proactive. Here are a few One-A-Day Marketing Vitamins from my white paper on the subject.

1. Make a list of the 20 people who have most helped your business succeed and take them to lunch over the next month.
2. Send a handwritten note to your best customers, thanking them for the part they have played in your success.
3. Develop a marketing calendar that lists all of your planned marketing activities for the year in these categories: Direct Mail, Networking, Public Relations, Advertising, New Products & Services, Marketing Communications Material.
4. Give a speech. If you need help with your presentation skills, take a course from my friend, Ty Boyd, who is the best in the business.
5. Hold a monthly session with employees to discuss marketing and sales ideas. Your field people are in touch with customers, who often have the best new ideas for you.

There are 45 more ideas in One-A-Day Marketing Vitamins.

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Creativity Redux

Someone asked me a question about creativity the other day and I sent them to the blog to review our creativity category. They were excited about all the content there on creativity, so I thought I’d share the information with you. Here are a few of the top creativity posts from THINKing.

Creative Briefs

Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers

Writer’s Block

To Be Creative, Be Brief

Stuck? Brainstorm! 

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Dusty Archives - September 2008 Edition

Once again, it is time to sift through the dusty archives here at THINKing to pull out some gems you may not have seen the first time around. Let me know if there are some posts you particularly enjoyed and I’ll feature them in a future edition.

Shallow Brands

Creativity & You

It’s In The Cards

Activate Your Customers With Email

Good PR, Manipulative PR

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Top Content

Our content at THINKing is eclectic by design because My Creative Team offers a wide range of services and has expertise in many marketing disciplines. We use this blog as the key distribution vehicle for our content marketing program.

Here are our top content categories in case you want to poke around. If you have ideas for topics we should tackle, drop me a note.
- Creativity/Brainstorming

- Advertising

- Marketing

- Branding

- Personal Branding

- Social Media

- PR

- Media Relations/Journalism

- RSS

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Tightrope To Creativity

(left to right on back row are Dustin Moore, Derick Wells, Barry Kraft and Mark Harrison; in the middle is Terry Hoover, front row, left to right are Brant Waldeck, Harry Hoover and Jenny Waldeck.)

You can discover creativity anywhere, as My Creative Team learned Saturday at the US National Whitewater Center. Because our organization is virtual, we hold as many face-to-face events as possible. We have established My Creative Team University, a monthly learning session at the Whitewater Center, and we do a lot of other team building events like whitewater rafting and this weekend’s ropes course at the Center.

I’ll tell you, if I am ever stranded on a deserted island, this is the group I want with me. We rapidly solved the challenges thrown at us by our guide, Laura. We came up with some solutions that Laura said she had never seen before.

One of the challenges is a 10 x 6 teeter-totter that you must get everyone aboard while keeping it balanced and not letting it touch the ground on either end. Harder than it sounds. Then, you must all move to the far ends of the teeter-totter without letting it touch. Again, much harder than it sounds. But we did both, the final one with virtually no verbal communication.

Most important learning for me: sometimes the best communication is non-verbal. In the balance exercise, we let our senses take control.

Events like this can really release your creative muse. I’d suggest you take your team to the US National Whitewater Center, or a similar venue, and try it.

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Let’s Review

THINKing has had some major growth in its subscriber base, and new THINKers may not have seen all the good stuff that has appeared here. So, let’s hop into the wayback machine and review some previous topics.

Learn more about your genial host in 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Meet Mike Reative, aka Mikey, the living logo and creative muse of My Creative Team.

Stuck? Then you might need a brainstrom.

How’s Your Online Reputation? Do a Google search on your name, and then read this.

Need new business? Don’t forget existing customers.

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Twittering Tactically

You see a lot of posts about how businesses are using Twitter but most of them talk about the strategic approach, not the tactical application. Let’s brainstorm. Below are a few to get us started, and here is a post from Todd Mintz on a wide variety of Twitter uses. Please wade into the conversation if you have ideas.

My local wine bar, Corkscrew, should adopt this practice. Get a Twitter account (Corkscrew is available). Place table talkers asking patrons to follow them for wine specials that only Twitterers will find out about. On slow nights, Corkscrew can Twitter about “instant specials”.

Then, there is one of my favorite restaurants, Eez Fusion & Sushi. Use Twitter to remind me that Tuesday is $5 martini night, or that there are some new menu items. I’d follow you for that.

We have a lot of local musicians with large followings in our area. Why aren’t they Twittering about their upcoming events and venues?

Taxi! What a great way to order up a ride. Just Twitter your location and the time you need a ride to dispatch. Bam! There’s your chariot. No, that’s good customer service.

Hello, Procter & Gamble. Set up Twitter accounts for your brands and recruit product testers to follow you. You send them beta product, they respond with their thoughts via Twitter. You get good product development advice and pre-launch buzz.

Of course, we’ve been talking a lot here recently about following media folks via Twitter. Keep an eye on your favorite reporters, like Jeff Elder (@JeffElder) at The Charlotte Observer. Jeff is always Twittering for column ideas, and smart PR people Twitter back.

I used to work on the NC Tourism account. This is an organization that should adopt Twitter. The website is VisitNC.com, so naturally the overall Twitter username would be VisitNC, but then they would segment, adding users for mountain lovers (VisitNCMountains), coast lovers and heartland lovers. Here is how it might work. You are planning your NC vacation and begin following VisitNC. You start getting tweets about the cool things to see and do in the state. Once you’ve decided you are going to the mountains, you follow VisitNCMountains for more specific information about your destination. You stay connected to find out about the calendar of events while you are in the state.

Here is another good post with some additional ideas on using Twitter.

Your Twitter ideas, please. Oh, by the way, follow me on Twitter @MyCreativeTeam.

UPDATE: Found another good post on Twitter tactical uses.

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