Creativity… on demand!

The creative process can be perplexing, elusive and difficult to duplicate. Some days, I sit down and the ideas just flow. Other days, it’s like pulling teeth just to string a sentence together. I don’t know what variables have to be in place or which planets need to align for one situation to occur and not the other. But I’m always looking for ideas to spark the little creativity hamster in my head and get him running around his little wheel.

The Verve team brings you these tips, plus a few from the www.
From Amy:

• Don’t look at just other designs to get ideas – look at fabrics, furniture or fashion
• Use tools like Kuler for great color inspiration (maybe set a timer first, you can look for hours)
• Go shoe shopping

From Devon:

• Step away for five minutes
• Read part of a book or magazine
• Catch up on blog reading or emails that don’t require thinking

From me:

• Catch up on gossip – celebrity blogs are my dirty little (no so) secret
• Spend time outside with one adorable toddler
• Work on something unrelated for a while, maybe grade papers

Some ideas I’ve found trolling the Internets today:

• Get your box of crayons back. Hugh at Gaping Void says we’re all born creatives and we all get a box of crayons in kindergarten and we need to get those crayons back. This is tip 6 of 30. (I’ll add that subscribing to Hugh’s blog via email or a feed reader is also a nice creativity boost. Thanks for the inspiration, Hugh!)
• Listen to Bach? I’ve not tried this one. I have heard about the research that you think better when you’re listening to music with a beat.
• Try mind mapping. My favorite tool is Bubbl.us if you’re doing it online, or crayons (see tip above) if you’re doing it by hand.
• Look at what others are doing. What can you learn from the best designs, the best campaigns, the best ideas around. At Verve, we’re always interested in learning from the master’s in our fields. We read voraciously, participate in networking groups and talk at length about how we can apply industry best practices to what we’re doing in our day -to-day work

Anything you’d add?  What’s your favorite tip for creative sparkage?

Thanks for the idea for this post, Tamar. See? Another creativity idea – give and ye shall receive.

Enjoy a Clearview on America’s Roadways

Likely you don’t think much about typography, especially when driving on the highways and byways.

But you’re not Don Meeker. This New York Times article talks about how America’s roadsigns are slowly, but surely changing for the better. (Be sure and catch the slideshow, too)

Even if you’re not producing roadsigns, it’s important to pay attention to what your typography and font choices are saying about your organization.

Five Great Reasons to Jump on the Social Media Train

Tomorrow evening, I’m doing an informal presentation to a local group of music industry professionals about social media. My part of the talk will be on the benefits of social media.

Music and social media seem to go hand-in-hand. Having a MySpace presence, for example, is just the cost of admission these days. Music is, by nature, such a collaborative industry so it makes sense that these tools would work well.

The major benefits to jumping in with both feet:

1. Make Deeper Connections

Social media can build deeper connections with customers, clients and fans to complement the broad reach of advertising and one-way promotions like community calendars, posters, etc.Social media allow your customers, clients and fans to talk back, giving you the opportunity to listen to what they are saying.

2. It’s a Small World, Join the Conversation

You’ve gotta be on MySpace. It was made for musicians. In addition, there are hundreds of artists participating in blogging, podcasting, videocasting, etc. Why aren’t you? It’s cheap (or free), easy and has measurable benefits.

3. Be Human

The “voice” you use in your blogging, podcasting or social networking interactions should be your authentic voice and should give your oganization personality. If you represent a venue, find someone who can create that voice to drive your social media efforts.

4. Be findable and create Web site traffic

Google loves fresh content. Blogging, podcasting, participating in MySpace or Facebook allows you to produce content quickly and easily without any technical expertise. It also creates the “currency” of social media (links!) that allow others to share your content quickly and easily.

5. Meet your marketing objectives

Social media are not a strategy, they are a set of tools to complement and supplement what you’re already doing. Blogging is one tool to increase attendance at an event, for example. But it’s not the only tool. A blog can work hand-in-hand with posters, event calendars, street promotions and MySpace and a podcast.

These tools present terrific opportunities for small business because of the extraordinarily low production costs.

Need more info? Just ask!

Photo by Jason Miller Photography

The New Face of Politics

A large part of Public Relations 2.0 is the ability to surrender control.

Once information is released into social media outlets, it is out of our hands and we can’t control what may happen next. This is difficult to get used to for many public relations folks and organizations of all sizes.

Recently, the political realm joined public relations practitioners in letting go during the CNN/YouTube debate.

Democratic candidates for the presidency participated in a debate with questions provided by Average Joes (and Joannas) via YouTube. This new format stripped the formality from presidential debates and allowed the questioners to ask sharp questions and confront the candidates if they felt their questions were not answered.

The new format allowed greater participation and greater perceived access to presidential candidates (the questions were pre-chosen by CNN and the winning YouTube users flown to South Carolina for the debate).

Some candidates have already jumped on the social media bandwagon. For example, Barack Obama uses Twitter; John Edward has an avatar and election headquarters in Second Life; and many candidates have profiles on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook.

This will be the first presidential election in which social media plays a large part. In the next year, social media will involve itself in different aspects of the election process and Verve can’t wait to see how it turns out! And what lessons we can learn for those clients who aren’t in the political realm.

Keep Your Biz “Hydrated” This Summer

In the heat of summer, it may feel like business is withering like the grass. The lazy days of summer don’t have to mean the lazy days of business. Look around your community and you’ll find plenty of ways to sponsor, participate and host summer events that will build your brand and help you connect to customers.

Sponsorships: What are your core audiences doing this summer? Is there a way to get involved with their favorite summertime concerts and festivals?

Many community events seek sponsors to help cover costs and raise the event’s (or organization’s) visibility. A little informal research (asking your customers, clients, vendors, friends and neighbors) what summer events they plan on attending will help you understand which would be a good fit to support with your checkbook.

Look for events that offer some reciprocal relationship – maybe you can hang a banner or have your logo displayed in a brochure or program. Likely, you’ll also get space at the event for a table or booth. Use it to collect contact info and then follow-up.

Sponsorships are quickly becoming a way of marketing that builds relationships with customers on a new level. An old article about sports marketing has some great stats for why companies sponsor events. The top three reasons?

1. Corporate Identity: Companies display their name/logo on signage, posters, banners, uniforms, etc.
2. Target Marketing: Events help you reach a “self-selected” audience.Whether it’s your local Saturday Market or a major league sports sponsorship, you’re in front of customers who have an emotional, experiential connection with those events and will extend that emotion to your brand (ideally).
3. Promotional Tie-In: Use the event as a theme in your marketing and promotional activities. You can get a lot of mileage with internal and external customers, as well as media.

Participation:If you’re active in your community, you know the events and summer happenings that you and your friends and family enjoy. Find a way to participate in a way that builds your business.

• Volunteer to help in a capacity that showcases your skills. Project Management International (trade association), offers this advice that really applies across industries and disciplines.
• Use your participation to build your “social capital”

Hosting: By far the biggest time, energy and financial commitment, but with the greatest potential payoff, would be to host an event yourself. I’m not talking about a music festival for thousands – but you could host a free workshop, or a mid-summer social event for employees and customers/clients to mingle. Chances are, you’re not the only one looking for networking and business-building opportunities. Facilitating a way for others to make connections will earn a lot of good will.

Create the event that you wish you could attend.

Maybe you want to put together a professional development workshop – learning a new technology or skill. Find someone in your area who is an expert and invite them to be the speaker. A lot of professionals (yours truly included) will do so for free.

Or you’d rather socialize? Plan an evening of cocktails and mingling with close business associates, clients and customers, or potentials in any of those categories. Find a local restaurant, club or hotspot that offers just enough seclusion and quiet to facilitate conversation.

Keep hydrated this summer and your business in the flow with these tips.

Talk is Cheap: Six Ways to Align Your Actions & Your Words

If you’re serious about being “green,” sustainable, eco-friendly, community-oriented or… [fill in the blank], remember that actions speak louder than words. In a recent survey by Cone, a cause marketing firm in Boston, more than 2/3 of American consumers consider a company’s business practices when making purchasing decisions.

BusinessWeek’s David Kelly pens the “Brand New Day” column online. His analysis of the Cone survey is that people just want to be aware of what companies and organizations support.

Of course, you cannot just “say” you support a cause or you’re committed to a movement or issue – you have to be doing something about it. Your organization’s actions have to show your support and commitment. Then, you have to turn around and do a good job communicating what you’re doing to your core audiences.

Before you start, think about what it is that you want your organization to be known for. What are the core values that should infuse everything from the signage on your building, to your Web site and even your employee-customer interactions.
1. Examine what you’re saying: Do this by looking at all the ways you communicate with your customers, clients, employees, vendors and community. Some common “channels” for communication might include: brochures, Web site, email newsletters, product collateral, store environment, sales presentations, etc.

Looking as objectively as you can at each of these channels. If you were reading/listening/watching these things for the first time, what would each say about what is important to your organization? Is that in line with what you want to say is important?

2. Next, take a look at your company’s programs, products and environment (your actions). Again, remaining as objective as possible, look at your programs as a customer would. What are your actions saying is important to your organization?

3. Spend some time talking to your staff and employees. Does the front-line of your organization know what your organization stands for? Can they articulate your values? And importantly, do they see any discrepancy between action and words?

This might be tough to do without some outside help. Employees may be reluctant to be critical of the company. Finding someone who can serve as an objective third party that can help give employees freedom to speak openly. Or devise a survey of sorts that can collect data anonymously. Of course, interviews provide much more context and often, employees have the best ideas to overcome challenges.

4. Talk to your customers and clients. Conducting informal focus groups or even email surveys can give you a glimpse into how your organization’s words and actions are perceived by your customers and clients. Find out if you’re effectively communication your values and if your customers think your actions support those ideals.

5. Figure out where the trouble spots are and fix them. Is what you’re doing in line with what you’re saying?

Based on what you learned in steps 1 through 4, what do you need to change?

I have two examples, each organization with a different challenge:

Verve client Cafe Yumm! does an outstanding job of doing. With a “triple bottom line” focus, this growing company puts equal emphasis on planet, profit and people. Cafe Yumm!’s challenge is the telling. People don’t know all the great things that it’s doing. They don’t know that much of the interior build-out of the new Cafe Yumm! are biocomposites (things like counters of recycled paper and wall-covers of sorghum.

What people know about Cafe Yumm!, they know because they are fanatical Yumm! eaters, which is terrific. Supporting its actions (which are loud and clear) with words and some creative communication would go a long way to further reinforce the organization’s values.

A previous client-who-shall-not-be-named developed a unique business model that they purposed for solving the nonstop funding scramble that most nonprofits experience. There was a lot of “telling” and almost no “showing.” You’d read on the organization’s Web site about how they are making a big difference, but this information was too much-too soon. There were no happy customers, no success stories – no one saying, “yes! this worked for us!”

In all fairness, the vision that this organization has for changing the landscape of nonprofit fundraising has a tremendous potential and the individuals behind the company were sincere in their motives. But in terms of communication, the words were virtually unsupported by actions.

It takes both to effectively identify, support and communicate your organization’s values.

6. Be transparent!

Once you have figured out if and where the discrepancies between words and actions lie and have made efforts to bring them into alignment, continue to be transparent about what you’re doing. Keep a blog, have an active press room on your Web site, participate in community events and organizations.

How to Reach Bloggers with Your Story

There are more than 70 million blogs around the world and more are being created every second. Blogs are the new kid on the media relations block – So how do they fit in?

Bloggers are extremely influential in the niche they focus on and their reach is worldwide. More and more, companies are relying on bloggers as a cornerstone of their media relations strategy. For example, CBS recently invited several influential mom bloggers to a bloggers-only press conference to release the new start time of The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Rohit Bhargava, of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, has put together a list of seven tips to help incorporate bloggers into media relations strategies:

1. Before you pitch them, read their blog; don’t pitch a story about pet care to a blogger who writes about technology.

2. Track backs and comments are signs of how visible a blogger is – does your pitch help increase either?

3. Bloggers are experts in their niche.

4. Bloggers are writing what they are interested in and are not bound to write about what you may deem newsworthy.

5. Giving them free-stuff is okay; just don’t expect to control what they write about it.

6. Know who else is talking about you – bloggers network and often communicate with each other.

7. Traditional media relations still apply; bloggers want timely, accurate, and interesting material.

– from Devon Ashbridge, Verve Northwest Summer Intern

Summertime & the Livin’ is Eas(ier)

Apologies all around for being a bit slow with the posts so far this month. I think with the rise in temperatures comes an stymied ability to multi-task effectively. And for some reason, that meant In Bloom fell off a bit.

Part of our summertime activities include revamping the Verve Web site. As such, I’ve been thinking about design and content and navigation and how to maximize our use of cyber real estate.

I will bring more discussion about how we make these decisions and maybe even some sneak peeks as we move through the process. If you have any ideas, speak up!

Making Decisions About Web 2.0 Tools

Solidariti, a blog by Priscilla Brice-Weller and based in Australia, has a terrific post called “Does Effort = Effect.” Priscilla has developed a very simple (even I’m not afraid of it) formula for determining which social media applications make the most sense for an organization to participate in.

The “effort” score is made up of the amount of time required to develop the took, the amount of money needed to get going and to maintain and the amount of “in-house geekiness” (technical know-how) required. Rate each on a scale of 1 to 5, resulting in a total max score of 15.

Effect score is much more subjective. Think about the potential effect of each tool for your organization and rank it on a 1 to 5 scale.

The result, a graph that gives you four quadrants:
Yellow: Must Haves (low effort, big effect)
Green: Should Haves (greater effort, big effect – probably worth the time/money investment)
White: Can Have (if you don’t spend much time, the effect could be worth it)
Blue: Stay Away! (too much effort, too little effect)

This graph was created for ANTaR, but you can easily do the same for your organization.

A couple of definitions:
Demographic refers to Web sites that appeal to a core demographic and allow nonprofits to participate by having their own page and connecting with potential volunteers, donors, etc.

I have no idea what Bespoke it (up in the corner) and I’m not sure what Priscilla means by maps. Maybe she’ll come by and leave a comment…

Great tool! I plan to use it in the near future. I’ll try to post the results.

Toe-In-The-Water Strategy for Social Media

Social media means marketing departments, public relations people and CEOs have to let go. They have to let go of control. They have to let the conversation develop and dialogue take place.

And that. is. hard.

If your organization is not ready to open itself up to the world, but wants to dip its toe in the social media water, a couple of things will get your started.

Start monitoring conversation about your organization, key people, trends and issues. The two primary places for monitoring are Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Both services allow you to subscribe via RSS to a feed. I highly recommend Bloglines to manage your feeds. Lots of people would be just as adamant about Google Reader. The benefit to a feed reader is that you can view all your searches and commonly read blogs in one place, keeping your “favorites” folder more manageable.

Start an internal blog. You can define what “internal” means. In a pure sense it would mean internal to your organization. But you can also have an “internal” blog for members only or for your staff and board of directors.

Most blogging platforms allow you to let in or keep out who you want. WordPress is quickly becoming the Internet standard and has lots of great options for privacy. The Intranet Journal offers this how-to on creating an Intranet via WordPress.

The clear benefit to an internal blog is that there’s still a great deal of control, but you can test systems for posting, monitoring and responding with relative security. You can also foster a blog-friendly culture that will be more open to creating an external blog when the time is right.

CIO Magazine has seven reasons to create an internal blog here.

Understanding blogging culture and social media is an important part of getting started. You’ll find some great tips here at Marketing Profs (one of my favorite resources!). And Kami Huyse at Communication Overtones has two excellent posts to which I refer frequently on corporate blogging – here and here.

Need more toe-in-the-water strategies? Media Orchard offers a few additional tips here.

Take your time and be deliberate. It may be an instant medium, but when you’re participating on behalf of your organization, it’s important to have all your systems, policies and strategies in place before you dive in.

– Kelli

“Toes” via Flickr by Crawford 721.