Brainstorming

Why Do Your Best At Everything (Even What Doesn’t Matter Much)

Why Do Your Best At Everything (Even What Doesn’t Matter Much)

Garth Beyer

Do Your Best Work, Leave An Impression

An ol’ professor of mine asked the class to raise their hands if they truly believed the grades on small assignments mattered. Some students kept their hands down signifying only the large assignments mattered. The professor responded with one of my favorite sayings.

Everything matters.

He went on to say the grade itself matters, sure, but more importantly it’s the impression that matters. “Everything, no matter how little or big, leaves an impression,” he said.

His words resonate with me still to this day.

Every action we take (and don’t take) leaves an impression. The 20 poor ideas you pitch during the brain storm session, they may have been rated poorly, but your impression of pitching 20 ideas matters. It shows you’re committed, willing to risk ideas while others play it safe, and able to use your imagination.

Inaction (which I have to point out is still an action) also leaves the impression.

Earlier today I was at an event to listen to Mariah Haberman speak. I noticed a handful of guests standing around waiting for the event to start. No conversing with other attendees. No networking using the twitter hashtag for the event. No engagement at all. You can imagine the impression they left.

I, and I’m sure my ol’ professor (and you now?), can’t stress enough how much everything we do matters.

Forget the “grades.” Focus on the impressions.

 

Stay Positive & Start Asking Yourself “What Impression Am I Leaving?”

[Lucky for you SMBmadison recorded the presentation. You can listen to Mariah here.]

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Consider The Wildest Ideas

Consider The Wildest Ideas

Garth Beyer

Wild Idea

Are you open to it? Thinking about it? Considering the wildest idea others may have?

I tested a new interface of EatStreet‘s website earlier today with Rob, VP of marketing there. His last question for me was what my wildest idea is that could make the experience better, more remarkable? No boundaries, no wrong answers, no restrictions. It could be anything.

Really, though, he didn’t need to ask. He could have ended the trial without ever asking. The feedback up to that point was safe, it was logical, it was feedback that would benefit the mass number of users. But he didn’t stop there. He asked.

It’s great to think of where the wild ideas are. They represent forward thinking, they represent risk and potential failure, but also potentially wild success too.

 

Stay Positive & So, What’s Your Wildest Idea? Can It Work?

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PR Freelancers Don’t Neglect The Last Phase

Garth Beyer

Public Relations Phase

A PR strategy can be broken down into three phases. The last, the most important and often neglected.

1) Ideation

Write down everything. Brainstorm. Read about other products’ PR strategies (not just similar brands to the one you’re working with). Talk with a different person each day and ask for help. You can do it alone, but you can do it better with others’ help. Here’s a site I read a lot when brainstorming.

2) Evaluation

No one loves to redo something because they forgot a piece. Nor does anyone enjoy scrapping work they’ve spent hours on because while it may be good work, it doesn’t fit the overall strategy. Evaluation is easy, but dealing with the criticism may prove difficult to handle. You can get attached once you start creating, not before.

3) Creation

Here’s the spot a lot of PR freelancers neglect before pitching their strategy. It’s easy to suggest a business sends out a newsletter. It’s much more difficult to write that newsletter yourself. It’s easy to suggest how to use Twitter and Facebook, but much harder to think of 30 tweets or 24 Facebook posts they can use. It’s easy to suggest building a clock a bird pops out of each hour and sings, but … you get the idea. No business wants to hear what they should do they want to see it. After all, they are hiring you to do it, not just think about doing it.

 

Stay Positive & Go Create Something Special

The Problem Isn’t That You Can’t Handle Criticism

Garth Beyer

Two hours of solid group brainstorming. A lot of bad ideas will be thrown in the air, but it’s your right and your privilege to throw as many ideas out there. Good ideas and “meh” ideas.

A friend of mine used to work at a PR agency that, during brainstorming sessions, would not let anyone leave the room until there were 70 ideas on the board. On top of that, even if their first idea was the perfect one and they knew it was, they still went to 70.

You’re a magnet. We all are when we pitch ideas. We attract the criticism and hold it with us while we shout out more ideas. The more ideas, the more criticism we hear, the heavier we feel. Finally, every magnet has its threshold and we can’t hold any more criticism. At that point, we shut up. At that point, we fail. Exhausted from holding so much criticism.

The problem isn’t that you can’t hold any more criticism. The problem is you’ve let it stop you from sharing more ideas. All the sudden you make the brainstorming session about you and not about brainstorming.

It’s two-fold. First, criticism gains weight when you take it personally. Then, second, as you take more criticism personally, you become subjective and blame yourself for poor ideas, for not moving the group forward in the right direction; you believe you’re holding the group back.

Actually, what holds the group back is your lack of more “meh” ideas.

The reason brainstorming groups work is when you share a bad idea, it saves everyone else from thinking of that same bad idea. It’s a game of trial-and-error. More specifically, it’s a game of removing all bad ideas until what you have left are the good ones. When you stop participating with your bad ideas, you’re not doing the group justice, you’re holding them back.

 

Stay Positive & If You’re Not Coming Up With Good Ideas Read This

 

PR/Business/Journalism Students

Garth Beyer

While in school you accomplish a lot, some of a lot of value, more so of little value, but you still complete a plethora of tasks. Traditionally speaking, the largest achievement is acquiring a degree.

I beg to differ.

The largest achievement is you starting your own business, releasing your first product, building a sales team, creating an online store, or transforming fans into a tribe that kickstarts your passion. All of which can easily be done by one method.

Find a way to get together with other students in a focus group. Schedule one meeting a week that is one to three hours long. Brainstorm. Simple as that.

You start to do that your freshman, sophomore, junior and possibly even senior year of college and you will, without a doubt, have achieved something far greater, overwhelmingly valuable, and more remarkable than a degree at the end of your time there.

There are other passionate people waiting to meet you.                                                            Call out to them, organize, and create.