Need to kick-start creativity? Try a change of scenery

I think it’s time I came out of the closet: I am not an enormous nature lover. Never have enjoyed being outside. After all, there are gnats out there, and weather.

For 51 years, my idea of the great outdoors has been the space between front door and car door.

While my sister, Lynn Wylie, has entertained herself exploring caves, jumping from airplanes into kayaks and trekking through Lady Gaga only knows what kind of wilderness, I’ve enjoyed a civilized life. A life involving air conditioning and wine. A life spent studying Lorrie Moore’s sentence structure, Rick Bayless’ ginger margaritas and Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s abs.

So when I asked Lynn what I could get her for her 50th birthday, I was a little surprised that her wish list contained only one item: She wanted me to go hiking with her. And I’m not talking about my traditional use of the word “hiking” — aka exploring the Louvre. She wanted me to tromp around outside in the Utah desert.

What was she thinking?

OK, to be fair, Lynn was suggesting a spa. A very nice spa: Red Mountain Spa, just outside Zion National Park. Plus a lodge near Bryce Canyon situated just yards from the renowned restaurant Hell’s Backbone Grill.

Reader, as it turns out, I LOVE nature! I just don’t want to sleep outside or relieve myself behind a tree. And I do think five-star meals should be part of every vacation experience.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about the pleasures of trekking through postcard settings, breathing the clear desert air on a cool spring morning, seeing the world from the tops of mountains you’ve climbed all by yourself (Lynn calls these particular mountains “rocks,” but still … )? I felt like I was living the lyrics of a John Denver song.

And guess what? Turns out this sort of thing is fabulous for creativity.

Get out of your own backyard

I have long preached the gospel of getting out of your comfort zone when it comes to nurturing creative ideas.

Find inspiration outside your company, industry or geography, I’ve counseled. Otherwise you risk practicing what marketing guru Dan Kennedy calls “creative incest.” Like real incest, he says, the product of creative incest just keeps getting dumber and dumber and dumber with each generation.

Turns out, as it so often does, that the choir I was preaching to should have been me: You can also enhance creativity by trying something new — learning a new language, experiencing a different culture or letting go of the remote and heading for the hills (or rocks).

How can you get out of your office — and out of your comfort zone — to kick-start your own creativity?

Open the Creativity Toolbox

Want to kick-start your creative process?

• Bring Ann to your organization for a workshop on Opening the Creativity Toolbox.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on nurturing creativity at RevUpReadership.com.
• Get ideas for making your communications more creative with a communication review.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2010 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

It was early Sunday evening, but the tiny restaurant was packed with patrons who’d booked early to make sure they didn’t miss out on spicy tuna with green ball, Baja lobster sashimi or other fresh, silky seafood treats.

Sorry, the hostess told the group, no seats.

The leader of the pack, a tall blond tottering on murderous heels, was not pleased. She hustled her friends out the door, then turned back to menace:

“We will Yelp this!”

“We will Yelp this!” I said to Phil. “That’s a real-time review! It’s trend No. 3 on Trendwatching.com’s top trends of 2010!”

“Slurp,” said Phil, swatting my hand away from the last piece of California roll stuffed with fresh Dungeness crab.

Hoping that you’re more interested than Phil, I give you three of Trendwatching.com’s top 10 list for 2010:

• Urbany. Trendwatching.com says: “Urban culture is the culture. Extreme urbanization, in 2010, 2011, 2012 and far beyond will lead to more sophisticated and demanding consumers around the world.” Subtrend: Urban pride. You’ll know it when: You mix your signature cocktail using New Orleans, Absolut vodka’s mango-black pepper blend inspired by the city.
• Mass mingling. Trendwatching.com says: “Online lifestyles are fueling and encouraging ‘real world’ meet-ups like there’s no tomorrow, shattering all clichés and predictions about a desk-bound, virtual, isolated future.” You’ll know it when: You use Loopt to stalk your favorite professional dancer from “Dancing With the Stars.”
• Tracking and alerting. Trendwatching.com says: “Tracking and alerting are the new search, and 2010 will see countless new INFOLUST services that will help consumers expand their web of control.” You’ll know it when: You open a Specialty Café and Bakery “Warm Cookie Radar” e-mail message, alerting you that a batch of fresh cookies has just come out of the oven.

Use these trends to develop new story angles, update your communication strategy and fascinate friends and strangers.

Download full descriptions of Trendwatching.com’s top 10 trends for 2010.

Open the Creativity Toolbox

Want to come up with fresh ways of telling the same old story?

• Bring Ann to your organization for a workshop on Opening the Creativity Toolbox.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on developing creative story approaches at RevUpReadership.com.
• Get ideas for making your own communications more creative with a communication review.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2009 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

by Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.

a

I recently sent one of my pals a plea for reading recommendations.

“Read The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron,” he replied. “Read everything by William Styron. Then write like him.”

Not bad advice. After all, as communicators, we can learn a lot from the masters of our crafts — the William Styrons, the P.J. O’Rourkes, the folks who have earned Silver Anvils and other awards.

Consider this your invitation to model the masters, to learn new techniques by studying your favorite communicators’ work. It’s the best way I know to improve your skills.

Here’s a six-step process to get you started:

1. Browse the best.

If you’re going to model the masters, you need to look at the masters — the best communications being produced in any field. For me, “the best stuff” includes:

• The leads, kickers and classic feature structure of The Wall Street Journal

• Men’s Health’s tricks for packaging basic how-to information into compelling articles and departments

• Warren Buffett’s methods for bringing the driest financial formulas to life through humor, anecdote and metaphor

• Southwest Airline’s ability to make how-to-fasten-your-seatbelt information amusing enough to pay attention to

• Approaches used by other award-winning writers, editors and webmasters

So ask yourself, “What communications do I most admire?” Then add those to your regular reading and review list.

2. Forage more widely.

The next step is to forage more widely, or to make sure you’re looking at great pieces of communication — not just the ones you need to gather information and conduct transactions in your daily life.

One way I forage more widely is to look at winners of major communication competitions. For instance, I follow the winners of the National Magazine Awards — which explains why I subscribe to New York even though I live in Missouri and to Parenting even though I have no children.

3. Read like a writer.

As you study the masters, make sure you’re reading as a writer, not just as a reader. Readers read for information and entertainment. Writers read for information and entertainment, too. But they also read for something else: technique.

Another writer might introduce you to a new way of crafting a headline, constructing a metaphor or structuring a story.

As William Faulkner said, “Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.”

4. Clip it.

Next, start a clip file of the pieces you admire most.

• Rip out articles that do a stellar job of demonstrating the WIIFM to the reader.

• Bookmark Websites that allow visitors to experience a new process, service or product instead of just reading about it.

• Copy magazine articles that offer good examples of “telling and selling” the story in the headlines, subheads, callouts and captions.

One guideline to follow: Whenever you hear yourself saying, “I wish I’d created that,” “that” goes into the clip file.

5. Study it.

Now that you have a file bulging with great communication samples, go through it again. This time, take each piece apart and put it back together until you understand why you like it and what the communicator did to make it that way.

6. Steal the techniques (not the words).

Now it’s time to model the masters, or pattern your pieces after the best talent in the field.

Note: We’re not talking about plagiarism here. I once outlined this approach to a group of communicators in a seminar. At the break, one of the participants pulled me aside and proudly explained how she collected The Wall Street Journal headlines — then used them verbatim in her own newsletter.

Yikes! That’s not modeling. That’s plagiarizing.

The key to modeling the masters is to steal the techniques, not the words. Modeling the masters means getting inspiration from the very best communicators out there, then adapting their approaches — not adopting them, but adapting them — to your own work.

Try it yourself. Feel free to borrow and improve on other communicators’ methods. It’s a widely practiced form of flattery. Take whatever you can, and keep T.S. Eliot’s advice close to heart.

“Amateurs plagiarize,” he said. “Real writers steal.”

Open the Creativity Toolbox

Want to come up with fresh ways of telling the same old story?

• Bring Ann to your organization for a workshop on Opening the Creativity Toolbox.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on developing creative story approaches at RevUpReadership.com.
• Get ideas for making your own communications more creative with a communication review.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2003 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.