Be Creative

Ever heard the expression “Ask and you shall receive"? While the phrase is taken from the Bible, it clearly applies to more than just spiritual matters. I firmly believe the reason so few people achieve great things is because they fail to imagine—or believe—that great things are possible. When you fail to conceive, you invariably fail to try.

For over two years, I’d worked with a group of youth who were members of Tenants and Workers United (TWU) and were seeking to implement Restorative Justice in their schools. Restorative Justice is a community-building and dispute-resolution tool that allows one to learn from and make amends for mistakes. The practice can repair a school community because it allows both the person who has created harm and the person who has been on its receiving end to reconcile.

Concerned about racial disparities in school discipline, the young people (with the assistance of TWU) embarked on a path to bring Restorative Justice to their schools. The school system expressed a commitment to the approach but offered what students saw more as platitudes than substantive change. We’d garnered some media attention in the Washington Post and in the local Alexandria paper, but we needed to make a bigger splash.¹ At the same time, I was short-staffed and out of budget. So, I decided to host what I called a pitch-a-thon. I trained the group of youngsters on how to pitch reporters and worked with them to practice actual pitches. It was a huge success. They even managed to engage a few reporters on the issue, including Khalil Abdullah, formerly of New America Media; and David Coles, a producer with PBS’s Newshour. This approach stood out to reporters for its novelty: reporters don’t often hear from youth who can concisely explain who they are, why they’re calling, and why the journalist should care. It is a prime example of creativity on a budget, and I will try this approach again in the future.

Another opportunity for being creative involves the method you select to share information. Using social media tools to share information can be a creative approach. I discuss social media in greater detail in Chapter 6. In an attempt to highlight complex information or present information in visually appealing ways, many organizations repeatedly turn to infographics. For example, I wanted to document the various threats voters of color might face at the ballot box, so I hired Design Action Collective to develop a visually appealing infographic.² The infographic, which cost under a thousand dollars, could be quickly shared on various social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Infographics are also useful in TV segments since broadcast media places a premium on communicating through visual means. I’ve also used infographics to document the school-to-prison pipeline and the impact it has on students. In short, infographics are a visual way to explain complex information. They are an appetizer of sorts and provoke further study.

Being creative is not just something you should do. It’s something you must do. Having noteworthy campaigns is of little consequence if the public doesn’t know those campaigns exist. The Guardian reported in April 2014 that the ratio of public relations professionals to journalists is 4.6 to 1.³ Creativity is the way to break through in the media. To get anywhere in this business, you must distinguish yourself and your organization. And while being creative could mean hiring a big-budget communications agency to design a campaign that really pops, you have other options. The keys to being creative have nothing to do with budget. It’s about challenging yourself, thinking big, and being bold.

Challenge Yourself

The first step to being creative is challenging yourself to conceive. Set a goal of trying something new each month, whether it’s reaching out to a new reporter or media outlet or creating a different kind of media piece outside your skillset. If you achieve the goal, find a small way to reward yourself. Then repeat the process until trying new things becomes second nature.

On a regular basis, I allow myself time to conceive, time to think of what’s possible. I make a list of my goals for a given period—some attainable and some mildly unrealistic. The mildly unrealistic or difficult-to-achieve goals sometimes become possible with persistence and hard work. The stretch goals may appear implausible but some may be attainable. They all push me to keep trying. And here’s the thing: if I’m successful, even a small victory will buoy my confidence. The boost encourages me to work even harder.

One area of challenge is stepping out of your comfort zone to engage reporters you may not know as well. As a manager, it’s infuriating beyond belief to listen to communications professionals recommend the same reporters over and over without at least trying to reach others who may be interested in the story.

I can appreciate the alluring temptation of comfort and familiarity. I know it’s often easier to pitch the same network or beat reporters who typically cover your issue. For instance, if you’re in a racial justice organization, it can be tempting to think the only ones who care about racial justice issues are people of color or progressive media outlets. If this thought process sets in, you might start limiting your pitching solely to progressive and racial justice bloggers and reporters. Or, maybe you’ve had prior success with a particular outlet or reporter. It is true that it is often easier to go with the same batch of friendly reporters each time an issue in their subject area arises. While it’s nice to start with the people you believe will care about and cover your issue, I’m urging you to challenge yourself. As important as it is to touch this demographic, there are additional people worth engaging as well.

Perhaps your employer or client wants you to successfully pitch C-SPAN on livestreaming an important court hearing, rally, or event. Unless the event promises tens of thousands of people and is major in scope, most media outlets charge a fee to livestream an event. Your employer or client doesn’t have funds to pay for the livestream and wants you to convince the outlet to do it for free. While you may not be able to convince a media outlet to cover the event for free if they are intent on being paid, the process of developing your best pitch and engaging them requires you to stretch. Occasionally, you may accomplish a stretch goal if you continue to try. Or, as in the case of livestreaming an event, perhaps you’ll identify a lesser known entity to do the livestream for you. Of course, securing a major media network to do so enables you to reach a broader audience. If you have a good story—one that defies expectation or contains an element of controversy—and you’re engaging the press far in advance, you’re in an excellent position to pitch all media outlets who cover that subject area.

Think Big

To conceive great things, you must first expand your thinking. That’s hard for some of us. How do you think big when everything and everyone around you reminds you of the seeming impossibility of your goals? There’s a beautiful quote by Nelson Mandela that sums this up precisely: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” The quote is especially applicable for communications professionals who should be constantly thinking about ways to share their message to grab and sustain the attention of the media and the public they serve.

Unless you are already predisposed to creativity, you may have difficulty maintaining big-picture thinking. There is a way to recondition yourself, however. Surround yourself with a diverse group of people from inside and outside your organization. The people don’t all have to work in the communications field; they just need to be creative and strategic. Engage people who accomplish great things. Ask them for their tricks of the trade or for recommendations of books you can read to develop your thinking.

Several years ago, I read a book I would not soon forget: Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi.⁴ This New York Times best seller outlines concrete steps you can take to accomplish goals; it inspires me to be creative, persistent, and diligent in building and using personal and professional networks. I also routinely start my mornings by listening to YouTube videos of motivational speakers such as Les Brown and the Hip Hop Preacher, Eric Thomas. Both help me to remember that anything is possible and to bravely dream big.

If you surround yourself with people who think big you will find ways to incorporate this frame into your thinking. You will eventually think and do great things yourself. Moreover, the more you practice thinking big, the easier it becomes.

Be Bold

There will always be voices (internal and external) telling you why you cannot accomplish big things. Don’t allow self-doubt or the opinions of others to prevail. Learn to silence them.

Let’s say you want to meet with editorial board members at a local paper but are unsure they want to meet with you. Be bold and ask anyway. The worst they can say is no. Maybe you want to pitch a guest column to the New York Times, but you step back after considering the small number of unsolicited opinion pieces from nonprofit organizations that they publish. Well, if you do not make the effort, you have no hope of seeing your issue on the opinion pages. Rather than abandoning the idea, think about a high-profile messenger who the paper may be interested in publishing. Carefully review the pieces they publish to see what you can glean from them in terms of writing style, bylines that gain traction, and other helpful tips. But maybe you aren’t aiming to get a piece published at all. Perhaps you’d like to pitch your principal or leader for Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday but you have no idea where or how to begin. This was me.

I had Oprah on my list for months before I finally decided to get serious about pitching to her team. I asked a staff member for the contact information, and that person asked an external ally who surprisingly had and was willing to share this information. I pitched Oprah’s then communications director, Chelsea Hettrick, in late October and then again in mid-November 2014. I received a phone call from a producer at Harpo Studios on December 19, 2014, to discuss my pitch. When Hettrick called, I was on a flight and missed the call. We played phone tag but never ultimately connected. While my guest has yet to appear on the show, I believe it’s only a matter of time before this dream comes to fruition. I will continue to pitch until it does. The point here is we never really know what’s truly possible until we try. And trying doesn’t cost a penny.

Implementation => Ideas

If I am a proponent of thinking big, then I am an unwavering disciple of tenacity when it comes to implementation. Some people think big ideas are the hard part. They’re not. If you give me an hour to think, I’ll give you half a dozen ideas that could be implemented. But what good are the ideas if you are not disciplined enough to put them into practice? In his book, How to Become CEO, Jeffrey J. Fox quotes Ted Levitt of Harvard Business School: “Creativity without implementation is irresponsibility.” Fox echoes this sentiment: “Ideas are nothing without execution. So few people in a corporation actually execute ideas that the person who does becomes visible, and is often sought to do more.”⁵

Fox isn’t the only one to hold this view on implementation. In the book, Not for Bread Alone, Moe Foner similarly remarked:

Ideas are the easy part. You can put a group of smart people in a room and come up with all kinds of fantastic concepts. The hard part is making them happen. When I first went to the endowments in 1978, I’m sure they said to themselves, “We’ve heard this kind of stuff before, but not from a union. We’ll give 1199 a shot because we need a labor program. But chances are this guy Foner will never do half of what he says he’ll do.” We proved the doubters wrong. We made all of those ideas work.⁶

How many people have you met who spend their time ruminating on one brilliant idea after another? In tragic instances, some of us even sit on those great ideas only to watch someone else come along with the chutzpah to put them into action and enjoy unparalleled success. This doesn’t have to be your fate.

When I draft strategic communications and marketing plans, I am not doing so because I can’t think of better ways to spend my time. I am doing so because I believe the plan, if followed, will make a measurable difference for the candidate or cause for which I am working. Therefore, I take implementation as seriously as strategic planning. To dream and not act is failure by another name.

It bears mentioning that some of us are hardwired to be creative, some to be detail oriented, and some to implement. Sometimes you find a single person who possesses these gifts. Often, that’s not the case. As a communications strategist, you should assess the skills within your shop. Start with yourself: Where are you strongest? What are your deficiencies? Think about your team members: what are their individual skills? You can learn more about your team by conducting routine surveys.

Surveying the staff can be done through Survey Monkey; simply design questions to assess how people feel about their roles and whether they believe their skillsets are being maximized. Here’s a possible survey:

• Tell me about a time you thrived in communications.
• What skillset do you pull on to thrive?
• Do you feel your skills are being fully utilized?
• What aspect of your job is most rewarding?
• What aspect is least rewarding?
• Do you have passions and interests that are not presently being tapped? If so, what are they?
• Do you feel you’re in the right position? If yes, why? If no, what would you like to do if there were an opportunity?

Their responses will help you understand the resources you have internally and create an opportunity to have deeper dialogue with team members outside the context of deadlines or routine tasks. People are often multitalented, harboring a variety of interests and talents. I’ve often hired staff for one position and realized they had passions far greater than the roles for which they were hired. As I learn about my staff’s interests and talents, I can determine what they bring to the team, and what I need to hire consultants for.

In 2015, I hired recent college graduate Drew Ambrogi to serve as a communications associate. In this role, Drew was responsible for building relationships with allies, writing press releases and other communications collateral, and pitching the media. When I interviewed Drew, I knew he had some experience with graphic design and video production, but I didn’t realize this was his passion. After serving in the communications associate role for a year, Drew expressed a desire to transfer to a vacant digital media position. Once in the new role, he blossomed, creating engaging websites, graphics, memes, videos, and other digital tools. Upon discovering his skillsets, I realized I didn’t need to have a graphic designer on a monthly retainer. I needed to hire design and video consultants only during crunch times when we had more work than one person could comfortably handle.

Once you’ve completed the assessment, your goal should be to fill in what’s missing. If you don’t have funds for a full-time staff person, consider bringing on an intern. Harvard College’s Institute of Politics has a summer internship where the university pays the costs for the internship and looks for employers to provide fulfilling internship experiences. Other universities may offer something similar.

Creativity in Action

I gave myself the challenge of meeting with the New York Times editorial board because the paper plays such a pivotal role in shaping public perception. I carefully reviewed the editorial board section of the newspaper’s website, scanning the respective board members to determine their areas of interest and who would be susceptible to a pitch on my issues: voting rights and overly harsh school disciplinary policies. I identified a couple of editors for each topic area then drafted a note pitching the idea. In this instance, my note was simply an invitation to sit down with me and discuss my organization’s work. I tried to place myself in the editors’ shoes and thought about whether I would be responsive to a pitch from a spin doctor, as public relations staff are sometimes called. I realized I needed to go BIG. I needed another important guest to make the meeting worth the editors’ time, so I brought in the leader of the sprawling grassroots movement in North Carolina whom I mentioned earlier, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. I refined my pitch note to illuminate the variegated and multi-issue campaign that Barber, an African American man of only forty-nine at the time, was leading in the South. I was firm in my belief that it was in the editors’ best interest to meet not only with me and my organization but also with the leader of an organization that held massive weekly protests at a southern state capitol for more than a year. Of all the partners and groups I worked with, I believed Barber was unique in that the movement he was leading was multiracial, intergenerational, impactful, and bold. His Moral Movement was the perfect partner to highlight for this initial stage of relationship building because I knew the movement could benefit from exposure in a national paper such as the Times, and I believed the Times would want information on a movement that would have an impact on not just the South but states across the country. I wagered correctly. In the end, one of the members of the editorial board, Jesse Wegman, who covers voting rights, agreed to meet with me and my crew.

The conversation with Wegman was helpful. Since that February 2014 meeting, the editorial board has published several opinion pieces about voting rights in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states we discussed in the editorial board meeting. This tells me I targeted the right outlet for my cause as our interests regularly overlap. It also tells me there is a possibility of getting the New York Times to cover other voting rights issues.

Of course, my work hasn’t stopped with that meeting, but that one on one was an important step. Although it took several editorials for the paper to begin mentioning my organization by name, our topics were being covered. This, in turn, allowed our fund-raising team to utilize the media clips and solicit funding to continue our work. It bears noting that when we weren’t mentioned by name, I didn’t become irate with my contact on the editorial board. I gently asked and encouraged him to include us by name in future editorial pieces.

Like many things in life, the sky is the limit; and if you aim for the sky, you may fall among the stars. The point is to try something new. Below are examples of creative and budget-friendly tips to garner media attention.

READ THE NEWS WITH THE INTENTION OF ACTING ON WHAT YOU’VE READ. Constantly ask yourself what you can do with the information you’re receiving. Rather than reading an article and lamenting the current state of affairs, ask yourself what can be done. Should the article be shared with someone? Is the article missing an important component? Think about the action item, then do it. If you find, for example, the article is missing an important angle or voice, consider writing a letter to the editor (LTE) or a guest column highlighting the information you believe has been omitted.

USE A VIDEO TO SHARE YOUR MESSAGE. Rather than sending a press release to promote your issue or cause, consider developing a short one- or two-minute video. You could also create and then pitch (to media outlets) an opinion editorial or guest column.

PROMOTE WITH YOUTUBE. Consider recording short vignettes talking about your issue or cause and then promoting the videos via a YouTube channel or some other digital media platform. Videos are visual and compelling, and they allow people who might not take the time to read a one- or two-page press release (or a ten-page white paper) to learn about and become more engaged with your issue.

ORGANIZE A MEDIA CONFERENCE CALL OR WEBINAR. Rather than holding a press conference to announce a new report or campaign, consider organizing a media conference call or webinar. Media conference calls and webinars are convenient alternatives to press conferences. Attendees don’t have to leave their offices to attend. They save travel time for already hurried reporters.

LAUNCH AN ONLINE PETITION. This is a good response to an infuriating action or to a comment that is homophobic or racist. Petitions may help you engage the media as well as appeal to a sympathetic public. They also expand an organization’s email list.

USE TWO METHODS AT THE SAME TIME. Couple a media conference call with a Twitter Townhall or a Google Hangout. This will allow you to reach an even larger audience.

TARGET BOTH TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL MEDIA. Layer all traditional media (press releases, press conferences, media conference calls, etc.) with digital media (online graphics, infographics, Google Hangouts, etc.). In other words, don’t develop a communications plan that is narrowly focused on traditional media unless your target audience is a group that primarily receives their information from traditional means.

USE STORIFY. If you decide to organize a Twitter Townhall, consider creating a Storify to capture and articulate the essence of your message. The Storify can be shared with reporters and allies who were unable to participate but interested in the content from the online chat.

CREATE A WEBSITE TO SHARE INFORMATION. Race Forward, which utilizes research, media, and practice to advocate for racial justice, created Clocking In, a digital project to document “how people of color and women make up the majority of the low-wage workforce in restaurant, retail, and domestic industries and are disproportionately affected by unfair policies and practices related to wages, hours, mobility, and benefits.”⁷ By clicking on different portions of the animated video, website viewers learn about the low-wage workforce. You can explore the tool by going to https://clockingin.raceforward.org/. But remember, a website can be as simple and inexpensive or complex and costly as you want it to be. You don’t have to invest as many resources as Race Forward did to get your message across. And if you have someone with web design experience on your team, a website can be a very cost-effective way to promote your cause to anyone with an Internet connection.

UTILIZE OTHER VISUALS SUCH AS PICTURES AND VIDEO. With smart phones and related technology, it’s easy to capture or record quality photos and videos. Here’s an example: I was in North Carolina covering the NC NAACP’s first Moral Monday rally on April 29, 2013. I pitched the event to state and national media prior to the demonstration, but the press advisory I sent prior to the event got very little traction. Undeterred, I went to the event armed with a cell phone and camera. I took pictures of the protestors, including Marty Belin, who uses a wheelchair. You can guess my surprise when Belin was arrested. I snapped a photo and sent it off with a short note to reporters. The subject line for the email was “North Carolina Police Arrest Woman in Wheelchair.” The visual of a woman in a wheelchair being arrested was enough to capture the attention of news site Think Progress, which boasts millions of unique views per day. One Think Progress reporter, Ian Milhiser, responded, “Wait, this woman is in a wheelchair and she’s being arrested?” It was a priceless photo begging further explanation, and therefore elicited interest.

The photo allowed me a platform to share with the media background for the work the NC NAACP was doing in North Carolina. From there, we received a handful of media calls requesting information about the demonstration and the woman in the wheelchair. I repeated the same cycle each week of the protest, looking for unusual ways to capture the attention of a hurried media.

North Carolina General Assembly police arrest Marty Belin, who had been inside the North Carolina Statehouse on April 29, 2013, participating in the Moral Monday protest.
Photo Credit: Jennifer R. Farmer

Your goal as a PR professional should be to think of creative methods of capturing a reporter’s or producer’s attention to elevate your issue, organization, or grassroots campaign. But capturing their attention is only the first step. One of the keys to securing sustained media interest is making it as easy as possible for members of the media to cover your organization or campaign, as you will see in the next chapter, Be Responsive. Responsiveness takes many forms, but for the purposes of this work, it’s about being timely, being thorough, and generally doing everything you can to support reporters as they cover the issues you care passionately about.