Creative Ideas Newsletter - Best100Ideas.com

Dear friends,
Welcome back to the creative world!
This is the second issue of Creative Ideas Newsletter from Best100Ideas.com.

Before we begin, I am glad to announce that the first creative ideas e-book is now available for purchase on the website.

It is the "100 Creative Presentation Ideas" e-book and I am really excited about it.
You may read all about the e-book on this webpage, or on section C below.

As always, your comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Sincerely yours,
Amir Elion
E-mail: amir@best100ideas.com
Website: www.best100ideas.com

A. Creative Ideas: for SMB Public Relations

This section lists creative ideas in different fields and subjects: business, products, services, personal life and more.
If a particular subject interests you, please tell me, so I may try to include it in upcoming issues.

Many Small and Medium businesses (SMB's) struggle for a piece of the action in very competitive markets.
They find it difficult to spend great amounts of money on advertising, yet fear being left behind if they don't.
Public Relations can be a cheap or even free alternative to regular marketing and advertising efforts,
sometimes producing even better results (since news items are considered more trustworthy than advertising).

This time I list some ideas to help you run creative Public Relations campaigns.
Better get those phone lines ready!

Clearly the following ideas must be adapted to your type of business, your strategy, your clients, and the available media and journalists, but they should provide you with a general direction you may follow:

• Turn a part of your business into a unique community meeting place:
  • Getting people to come to your business is obviously the first step on the road to making them your costumers.
    If your business is off the beaten track, or if there's a lot of competition in the area, you can start getting people to visit your business by providing them with a special meeting place.
  • You need to choose a theme for the meeting place which fulfills the following criteria:
    • Provides an interesting activity to members of your community (such as a mini-museum, a lecture, some fun game).
    • Is more likely to be a "Hot" news item - something that has not been done before, that deals with an issue of concern to the majority of the community.
    • Is related to your business service, strategy and reputation as much as possible (if you are selling natural food additives, for example, a meeting place related to environment perservation).
  • Organzing all this does not necessarily require high costs. You may find ways to keep this cost very low, for instance:
    • Offer young performers and professionals a place they can gain experience and recognition, without having to pay them much (these could be aspiring artisits, comedeans, hairdressers, etc).
    • Invite volunteers to help you with the project. This should not be too difficult if you link this meeting place with some good-will or charity activity - such as preparing gifts for kids at the local hospital, etc.
      
• Try to break a record or hold a special competition:
  • If your place is a diner, for example, organize an event in which people will attempt to break a Guinness World record in eating a certain food. If you are a carpenter, try to set a record yourself for making a chair in the shortest possible time, and invite costumers and their families to bet on the result.
  • Organize competitions for special groups of people, that are likely to make it to the news, such as:
    • Competitions for unique and "interesting-news-items" groups of people (children, homeless people, disabled people)
    • Provocative competitions - do this only if it is what you wish your business image to be - provocative!
    • Man against Machine" type competitions - against the computer, a vehicle, a robot (all should be related to your business)
      

B. Creative Tool: Unlikely Restriction

"Necessity is the mother of invetion" as the famous saying goes.
Impossible situations often bring out creative ideas and solutions, as it turns out.
The reason for this is that when you are thinking in normal circumstances, you are satisfied with making small changes and adjustments that offer a partial solution to the situation. However, when a major restirction is invloved you are pushed to question your basic assumptions, as you realize that something very different from what you know is required.

Here are a few steps you can follow for using "Unlikely Restriction" as a creative tool:

• After a regular goal or problem is chosen, write it down in it's "normal form":
  • Example 1: I want to have more time for myself in the evenings.
  • Example 2: The company needs to cut costs by 10%.
• Make the goal or problem outrageously more difficult to achieve, and add a restriction to it:
  • Example 1: I want to have 4 days a week absolutely free, without giving up my standard of living.
  • Example 2: The company has to cut costs by 75%, without firing any employees.
• Work on ideas to reach the redefined outrageous goal:
  • This may require some time to get going, but you can make things even more "stressful" and restricted by setting a time limit for coming up with suggestions.
• Do one of the following:
  • Use the creative solutions you have reached to achieve the outrageous goal.
  • Implement a "softer" version of the radical solution to achieve your original, normal goal
    

C. New on Best100Ideas: 100 Creative Presentation Ideas E-book

The "100 Creative Presentation Ideas" E-book is now available for purchase on Best100Ideas.com.
It is packed with 100 creative ideas that will make your presentations outstanding, as well as some more helpful content.
Here is the book's Table of Contents:

• Introduction – What this book is all about
• Chapter 1: Basic steps for a creative process
  • Step 1: Motivation & Mood
  • Step 2: Focus and Detail
  • Step 3: Manipulation
  • Step 4: Make Real
  • Creative Process Diagram
• Chapter 2: Creative Ideas - Presentation Content
• Chapter 3: Creative Ideas - Presentation Planning and Order
• Chapter 4: Creative Ideas - Presentation Design and Delivery
• Chapter 5: Creative Ideas - Audience Participation
• Chapter 6: Creative Ideas - Atmosphere & Environment
• Chapter 7: Special Ideas
• Chapter 8: Two final Ideas
• About Best100Ideas.com

The regular price of the book is $15.95.
I am sure you will find the e-book instructive and helpful.

You may take a look at some of the ideas for business presentations,
and buy the 100 creative presentation ideas e-book here: http://www.best100ideas.com/ideas01.shtml

D. Recommendation: De Bono Thinking 24X7 Software

This time I would like to recommend a software to assist systematical creativity and innovation management.
You could start by using it by yourself, and later use it as a sophisticated tool for making extensive team creativity efforts.

It is based on thinking tools developed by the leading researcher and practitioner of creativity and thinking - Edward De Bono, and while you are using it, you learn the powerful thinking tools he has devised and tested.

You may learn more about it and download the Trial version at: http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/24x7/

End note

Thank you for registering to this newsletter.
I hope you found it interesting, and will be glad to receive your comments.
Until next time.
Amir

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