Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
but thinking differently certainly could be. (Hint: it is)
The best writing, jokes, puns, speeches, services, projects, ads, advice, adventures, plans, business ideas… come from thinking about things differently. Of course, then you must apply action to the thought.
It’s unlikely your idea is original, but the real life creation and implementation of that idea is.
Stay Positive & See, Think, Do Things Differently
There’s something special about business and branding that I’ve always loved. It’s the pinnacle moment when a business goes from profiting from just one product or one rote service, to offering other products or services. Let me break it down for you.
Business 1 only sells product X. Product X is incredible, it’s what business 1 is known for. Business 1’s brand is completely based on product X. People are obsessed with product X.
Business 1 can certainly continue selling product X without seeing a deficit. There’s no need to change, no need to add anything, no need to appeal to a larger market. But, they decide to. (My favorite part about PR is promoting this transition.) Now Business 1 sells product Y and Z based off of product X.
What if I told you Business 1 is Cinnabon, product X is the Cinnabon roll and now product Y and Z are Cinnabon air freshener and Cinnabon Vodka.
In one of my most popular blog posts, I wrote about offering variety; it is better to create original products than more flavors of one. Cinnabon has done just that by creating new products rather than creating different flavored Cinnabon rolls.
I tip my hat to Cinnabon. Kat Cole knows what she’s doing. However, I’m still upset that I can’t order orange juice with my Cinnabon anymore. I guess I’ll survive.
Stay Positive & There’s More To Variety Than Just Flavor
Photo credit
Newton only cared about analyzing everything and proving ideas with mathematics. Newton had a fixed idea about life and how it worked. He created laws instead of breaking them. A man who studied outward rather than inward.
Einstein is about creativity. He thought about macro and micro level moments of life and how they can’t be broken down to mathematics. The macro and the micro is of the ether, of uncertainty, of fear, and creativity. Rather than create laws, Einstein went on a crusade against them, against stereotypes, against the impossible. A man of originality and intellect.
There’s a reason why Einstein, not Newton, is synonymous with genius.
Stay Positive & All In Theory, Of Course…
Garth E. Beyer
Here’s an oxymoron: everyone is unique.
If every PR agency continues to say they are a boutique public relations firm, the term boutique will lose all it’s meaning, all of its power.
Here are four out of a thousands of sites that consider themselves Boutique firms or agencies:
Heck, this one has Boutique in its name.
Now here is where I show that I don’t know everything. Before researching this concept, I thought I was on to something big. I wanted to show that PR firms and agencies need to quit saying they are all unique, they are all boutiques, they are all different niches of PR and to come up with something more meaningful. PR Outhouse, Exclusive PR, PR Booth, or something like PR Superette are all better variations than the traditional and overused Boutique.
All cool ideas, I feel, but then I read this.
So maybe these PR firms and agencies are not doing any wrong when calling themselves a Boutique, but don’t you agree they can be more original?
If you’re going to create something – as everyone must during some point of their lives – don’t create a new variety of something that already exists. Create something which you can create a variety from.
Creating a new flavor of Cheez-Its won’t get you far. I’m not even sure it will get you anything except a snack to munch on while you contemplate your next “genius” idea.
Maybe after a few new flavors of Cheez-Its you will decide to create an entirely original cracker snack instead. In which case, you can showcase all your new flavors with your cracker snack.
If that’s the case, or rather, if that’s the box, then I’m in. Just because something has 20 different flavors doesn’t mean I’ll choose it.
You know what people (you included) love? New. They love change, mishmash, and variety – after all, it’s the spice of life! The illusion is that they love a variety of originality. They don’t.
I’ll cut to the point and stick with the Cheez-It theme:
If you were given the choice between a new flavored Cheez-It or an entirely new cracker snack, which would you choose?
There is always more of a craving for something original than a new flavor, new type, new color of something already invented.
Stay Positive & I Call It The Flavor Of Originality
Garth E. Beyer
It’s true we feel that in order to make any change in the world, any real impact, any worthwhile improvement that we have to be original.
We can’t change the world in a massive way by donating $5, volunteering 20 minutes of our time or inventing an imitation drink of Pepsi and Cola.
Naturally, deep down, we want the next big thing and anything less than that we want nothing to do with.
We use the fact that we’re in this huge technological and inventive revolution that we have to create something completely original to make an influential ruckus in it. In other words, we can’t be part of the revolution if we aren’t original in our work.
That’s all good but so many forget how to be original. They don’t know what original means.
You must understand that the more experiences and perceptions of the world you have, the more original you become.
See here,
You have to be a part of everything to be different, to be original. It’s the greatest paradox of creativity and ingenuity.
In other words, originality is alchemy of life. It’s about combing different things, thoughts, perceptions, experiences, etc., together to create something original.
Only in that originality can you change the world.
After all, something can’t come out of nothing, yet that’s what so many think “original” is.
Stay Positive & Go Change The World
Garth E. Beyer
A guru once asked me to think a thought that no one has ever thought before. If there is anything that is impossible, it’s this false definition of originality.
It seems that we are finally seeing a slight but steady decrease in monopolies. It is something I hoped for when I was 16 and even when I thought of the most logical step to take to do it. Three years ago, I wrote the following in my journal.
“America needs to focus more on free market and trading and bartering, then it would lower monopolies.”
What I didn’t know at the time was what the free market – trading and bartering – would be made up of. Traditionally speaking, it would be about exchanging a couch for a punching bag, or a TV for food, or a boat for some of the fish the user would catch. We would expect to see a decrease in the use of money and overall monetary value and an increase in personal tangible need.
What I have now come to realize is that this free market that we are riding into is not about specific valuable items, or about money, or about the vital needs for sustainability. In fact, it is a collection of it all. We’re heading into an age where the free market is composed of information, skills, talents, art, passion, action, change, teamwork, and originality.
It’s no longer who has the fanciest house, who has the most food, or who has the biggest boat. It’s about who created a new model of a house, who combined an ancient recipe with their own originality and successfully opened a restaurant with that as its signature dish, it’s about who ditches their biggest boat to bring actual art and change to humanity.
Those who successfully enroll themselves in this new free market enterprise are the ones who will become the monopolies – trusted and valued monopolies.
Stay Positive & I Prefer To Call It The Free(dom) Market Economy
Garth E. Beyer
