Need a Creativity Boost? How About a Run?

Running image

 

By Shae Geary, Senior Communications Strategist

I went for a run today. This is not out of the ordinary, but it had been a while since my last run. As I settled into my road rhythm, my mind began to whirl and I had one of those Oprah “a-ha” moments. Having been away from the activity for a period of time, I had forgotten how much running was vital to my job.

Yes, you read right. More than just a cardio boost, running has always been an essential part of my professional toolbox. It just took time away to realize how much. While my endorphins were flying high, I was equally excited about the creative juices that had started to flow. I finished my run with a great mental outline for a press release I needed to write, as well as a fun new idea for a program a client partner has been trying to get off the ground.

As many of us are continuing to tackle health resolutions for the new year, this serves as a good reminder that the benefits of exercise often spill over into our professional lives, making us more productive, happier and, as in my case, creating the ideal time and space for brainstorming. I find that running is especially conducive to creative inspiration because the activity itself doesn’t require a ton of thought or even strategy (unless you are training with time intervals, but that’s a whole different kind of running!) As muscle memory kicks in and heart rate peaks, so does your brainpower.

Scientific research seems to concur with my experience. According to this recent blog post by Eric Barker, researchers at University of Pennsylvania found that movement is in fact a secret to being more creative. If you’re not a runner, even the simple act of walking can help solve problems and provide a new perspective.

While the dream of showing up to the office in spandex and running shoes is probably far off, it’s exciting to know that stepping away from your desk for a run or walk is becoming part of the corporate culture for some companies. I loved reading about Facebook’s new headquarters, which include a nine-acre rooftop garden complete with walking paths so that employees can get outside and even hold walking/running meetings.

In short, the next time you’re looking for your a-ha moment, try plugging in your headphones, tying up your shoes and hitting the road. At best, you’ll return to your desk flowing with ideas. At worst, you’ll be reinvigorated to finish off the day. To me, that’s a win-win.

 

Meet the Team: Joaquín – Communications Specialist

We’re giving you the inside scoop on the entire WOC team with our “Meet the Team” series. This month, the spotlight is on our new Communications Specialist, Joaquín Enríquez.

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Originally from Los Angeles, Joaquín is a senior at San Diego State University pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism with a focus in Public Relations. Before joining the team, he spent time in the U.S. Army as an Infantryman deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Joaquín’s strengths as a communicator include organization, active listening and an eye for detail. Joaquín is two-year member of Public Relations Student Society of America, with ambitions to build upon his PR experience and one day start his own sports communications firm.

 

What would you be doing if you weren’t at your current job?

Coaching soccer somewhere

What’s one word you would use to describe yourself?

Classic

Fill in the blank. “If you really knew me, you’d know ____.”

That I’m working on a suspense novel

What super power would you like to have?

Time manipulation

What would a “perfect” day look like to you?

Barbeque with my family and friends

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the past year?

Appreciate the time you spend with others

Best vacation you’ve had?

Napoli, Italy 2004

What’s your most embarrassing moment at work?

I’m still working on that

Favorite quote?

People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would be cast as you?

Joaquin Phoenix

What’s your drink of choice?

Old Fashioned (double citrus)

If you were stuck on an island and could only choose 5 CDs, what would they be?

Morrissey/ The Smiths mix, Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits, The Eagles mix, Depeche Mode mix, and New Order mix.

Fill in the blank. “People would be surprised if they knew___.”

That I’m a two time combat Veteran

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

Bandwagon sports fans

What tv show/movie is your guilty pleasure?

Married with Children

What’s one thing you can’t live without?

My family

Favorite line from a movie?

“They drew first blood, not me.” –John J. Rambo

Do you have an office nickname? What is it?

Not yet

What’s the best/worst gift you have ever received?

Best gift: mom Worst gift: non-functional bottle opener

What do you like to do in your free time?

I watch a ton of sports. Mostly vintage Real Madrid footage/ matches.

Communicating Design With Clients

 

Graphic-Design

By Design & Multimedia Specialist, Keely Smith

Twitter: @KeelySmith8

When it comes to designing for client partners, it’s not your skill that makes a successful design project, but how effectively you communicate about it. We’ve all been there: you work on a design and you feel confident in what you’ve created, but when it’s time to reveal your masterpiece to your client partner, lo and behold…they hate it! So what happened? Mishaps like these are often a result of a lack of communication or understanding goals and expectations. Here are some best practices to set yourself – and your client partners – up for success and clear conversations on any design project.

Have an open ear

Right off the bat, you need to listen to what your client partner is trying to achieve. It’s vital to understand what’s happening under the surface. By this, I mean what are the goals of the design project – is it to drive more leads? Increase engagement? Or simply to revamp a brand for marketing purposes? These are important questions that will naturally arise as you have an open exchange about ideas and expectations.

Flesh out the details

Once you’ve put your listening cap on and have gathered the feedback needed, it’s time to put it in writing. It’s vital to clearly outline project deliverables, responsibilities and projected timelines for project completion. These details can be included in or accompany a creative brief, which should explain the design goals and how success will be measured, if applicable.

 

Stay on track

Sometimes unexpected developments can throw a wrench into the system, but it’s important to keep to the initial timeline and stay within the scope of the project. If a client partner requests work that is out of scope, be sure to add to or revisit the deliverables that have been agreed upon by both parties. This is not only to to keep things on track, but so you can be a good steward of your client’s budget and dedicate your time appropriately to deliver a product that you are proud of and they love!

Say it loud and proud

Design is an expertise, and any given project has you spending hours mulling over the perfect typeface, colors, arrangement and so much more. If a client partner suggests something that doesn’t seem to align with the project goals, don’t be afraid to address it… just keep it professional. It’s easy to be an order taker, but you’d be selling yourself short if you gave into every idea or request. This also has the potential to avert the project from the initial goals. Having skill is one thing, but as we know, knowledge is power! Giving your client partner access to your knowledge on such things will benefit the overall success of the project.

With clear and intentional communication leading all of your endeavors with client partners, you and your team will cultivate a valued relationship based on professionalism, understanding, respect and, most important, eye-popping design work. Designers, what tips would you share to help keep fellow pros on track?

Reflections to Begin 2016…

 

By Grant Wright, CEO

Twitter: @Grant_Wright 

In the media, sometimes truth is distorted. I don’t mean journalists lie, although that can happen. But I do mean that some aspect of the truth can be emphasized more than others, leaving an unbalanced impression of a situation.

PR pros are typically engaged to emphasize the good for client partners, and occasionally we’re called upon to mitigate the bad. All this message shaping extends in a broader sense to what society consumes every day in the form of “news.” Personally, and professionally, I think the state of journalism in America is abysmal. For example, when CNN provides “breaking news” that is not fact but instead speculation from an unnamed source, it should be called neither “breaking” nor “news.” It’s definitely not quality journalism.

In aggregate, the penchant for the negative – if it bleeds, it leads – is at an all-time high. Were an alien to visit America and listen only to major news outlets for a week or even a day, he/she/it would probably conclude that America is a dangerous place where little good happens and humanity mostly cares about Donald Trump and the Kardashians.

But I think there’s a much brighter reality to the current state of affairs than the news has far too many people believing. In 2015, there were dozens of good things that happened we heard much too little about, or their significance was lost in the din of negative media bombardment. Just a few examples of many are:

Decreased Poverty

Global poverty continued to fall – the World Bank announced that for the fist time ever, fewer than 10% of the global population now lives in abject poverty. Just 25 years ago, one-third of humanity lived with barely enough to subsist. We’ve of course much further to go, but the good news trend is clear and profound.

Environment

Almost 200 countries, including China, signed an unprecedented climate accord. There is finally global, cohesive recognition that humanity cannot continue on the current course of planetary abuse and expect to hand the planet to future generations the way we found it. Yes, Earth has a natural assimilative capacity to soak up carbon, but it’s not infinite. That 2015 was the year we finally seem to be coming to our senses is something to feel good about.

Technology

Tons of advancements! Just one in 2015 is that humankind took close-up, high-def pictures of a planetary body only 1,400 miles wide but more than three billion miles from Earth! We flew a craft to Pluto, didn’t forget to take the lens cap off and beamed photos billions of miles back across space. But I think the biggest tech accomplishment is the aggregate of technology continuing to flow information ever more freely around the globe. It’s increasingly difficult for dictators to fool their citizens, and humanity to ignore the plight of millions of refugees from man-made and natural disasters.

Much More

Whether it’s the country of Paula designating a new marine reserve the size of California, Myanmar/Burma finally holding elections, violent crime in the USA continuing to decrease (35% less than 20 years ago), Ebola being defeated in Africa, same-sex couples in America finally having the right to marry or the U.S. women’s national soccer team winning the World Cup with a record-breaking 27 million American TV viewers… a great deal of good happened in 2015.

It is these positive developments of 2015 I reflect on, and why I’m optimistic for 2016.

Sure, more bad things will happen, messages will continue to be shaped and the media will continue to obsess the negative. But this doesn’t mean there won’t be a concurrent reality of extraordinarily good things happening, too.

Information transparency will continue around the globe, we’ll be one year closer to self-driving cars and ending the 36,000+ deaths on American roads each year, technologies like 3D printing will spawn exciting new industries and there will be more breathtaking scientific discoveries.

At (W)right On, our continuing growth is founded in our willingness to embrace change with gusto, leadership and optimism. I can’t wait to dive into new opportunities this year and continue to do our part to help leave the world just a little better of a place than when we inherited it. How about you?

10 Feelings Anyone Who Works in PR Will Relate To

 

By Erica Gadbois, Communications Strategist

  1. That feeling when… you nail the lead paragraph of a contributed article and it all just flows from there.

kanye

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. That feeling when… your favorite reporter comes through, yet again.

ron burgundy

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. That feeling when… you’re in back-to-back meetings and realize the office is out of coffee.

gaga (002)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. That feeling when… the reporter at the other end of a great HARO opportunity says they’ve had too many responses.

britney

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. That feeling when… you’re out in the field all day and your cellphone gives you a low battery notice.

lauren conrad

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. That feeling when… you and your client partner have the same great idea at a meeting.

samantha jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. That feeling when… you handle a crisis comms situation perfectly.

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8. That feeling when… you’re in annual planning meetings with your client partners.

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9. That feeling when… you can’t stop your mind from wanting to correct every PR fail you witness.

miley

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. That feeling when… you try explaining to your friends and family what you do from day to day.

Bowie

REI Wins Big with Black Friday Boycott… So Far

Photo via REI
Photo via REI

By Shae Geary

As part of the growing group of people who are turned off by the endless consumerism that surrounds the Thanksgiving holiday, I was thrilled to hear of REI’s recent decision to shun Black Friday and instead #optoutside. The outdoor gear company announced in October that it would close all 143 locations on the day after Thanksgiving AND pay all employees to take a day off and explore the outdoors. REI’s news made headlines nationwide with some estimating that whatever REI may be sacrificing in sales, they’ll have made up for in publicity. So what is it about REI’s decision that has turned it into a PR “win”? Let’s break it down…

Authenticity: Rather than seeing themselves as just another big box retailer competing for market share, REI recognized that they are a different kind of company that is “dedicated to one thing and one thing only: a life outdoors.” REI’s decision perfectly aligns with the brand’s personality, mission and guiding philosophy.

First to the Market: REI has dominated the Black Friday conversation for two reasons. First, the company’s announcement was well timed a month before Black Friday and before other major retailers announced their own Black Friday strategies. Second, they are the first major company to publicly own the concept of staying closed on one of the biggest shopping days of the year. It doesn’t hurt that they also did it with gusto, conviction and a solid alternative to spending the day shopping. No one else can claim this space.

Bucking the Trend: REI’s decision to take the “less traveled fork in the road” has been described as a bold and possibly risky move. However, by bucking the trend, REI has essentially become a trendsetter in its own right. As every PR professional can attest, the media loves trendsetters.

Leading a Social Movement: REI has successfully started a new kind of holiday conversation with its social campaign #optoutside. The company is now the poster child for a social movement of people fed up with endless holiday consumerism. #Optoutside is likely to be a conversation relevant long after Thanksgiving and forever associated with choosing outdoor adventure over shopping mania during the holidays.

While there are critics of REI’s decision and the possibility exists that financially the retailer won’t be able to adopt this strategy for the long term (in which case, the company could face some negative PR backlash), I think I’ll be opting outside this Black Friday. Where will you be?