I’m teaching a class at the University of Hawaii right now, titled “Creatives in Media” and this week we opened the semester on the subject of creativity. For their assignment I asked the students to share their strengths and weaknesses as creators and most of them said something along the lines of they weren’t as creative as others and it made them uncomfortable sharing. Some went as far as to say they weren’t creative and others said they were too lazy to be creative. Teaching a class on creativity in media, to the next generation of communicators, brings a certain level of responsibility, so I found myself seeking out ways to encourage them. 

I bought a few books, the first I should have read years ago, “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser and I pulled several articles to share with them. 

One of them stuck out to me on PR Daily and I thought I’d share it. 

https://www.prdaily.com/3-ways-to-add-creativity-to-your-writing/?utm_source=RDH&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RDH+(2021-12-06)&utm_content=article+title&utm_term=2&oly_enc_id=9918C5599389G3T

The writer here brings three really good ideas to put into practice in product marketing, specifically, I’ll summarize and you can read the article if you’d like. 

  1. Reintroduce yourself to poetry because it makes us feel, and evokes emotion.

  2. Practice the 3 P’s: put people first (don’t push a product without connecting first), perceive pain points (resolve a conflict for the consumer authentically), practice precision (brevity is crucial, write short, edit aggressively).

  3. Unlock your imagination — Everybody is creative, but not everybody knows it. Get comfortable with quick brainstorming so you don’t overthink it, master metaphors, idioms and pubs, and mix opposites because our brains crave different ways of seeing things.

This is a good one to share too, https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-be-creative, practical, tangible ways to be creative in day to day life, not just your writing. 

And, here’s one on the science of creativity. Science is based on facts, so we trust it and it’s hard to argue. https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2009/01/creativity

For us, creativity comes from countless outlets, but our top three deserve to be shared. The outdoors provides a great outlet, exercise gets our brains moving and journaling creates a place of expression; that’s likely the places where our best ideas have come from. We’d love to hear what works for you, it may just end up in one of my lectures.