THE MYTH OF ‘LATERAL THINKING EQUALS CREATIVITY’

Hal 25
By having a clear understanding of the distinction between the two types of thinking, a practitioner can make far more productive use of time can make far more productive use of time, and employ techniques to greater effect, generating more and varied creative ideas the offer added value.
Chapter 4-6 on creative ideas, brainstorming, and evaluation, examine in detail the skills of using Green Light and Red Light thinking.

Look back on when you have previously tried to come up with a new idea. Try to recall how you used the different thinking modes of green and Red Light thinking. Did you clearly separate their use? Did this have any effect on how ideas were actually generated?
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THE MYTH OF ‘LATERAL THINKING EQUALS CREATIVITY’
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Mention the subject of creativity , or the task of coming up with ideas, and many people think of ‘lateral thinking’ as the route to being creative. It has almost become a generic description for a different way of looking at a problem: ‘What we need is some lateral thinking on this’. While it is an important element, it is essential that practitioners should understand its proper meaning, role and context in creativity.

Convergent thinking believes that the mind’s natural processes are ordered and logical; creativity, in contrast, is haphazard and illogical. It considers rationality and creativity to be different mental processes that are generally in conflict. Most problems are not new – the challenge in to view the problem in a new way.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines lateral thinking as: “Seeking to solve problems by unorthodox or apparently illogical methods’. It was a concept defined by Edward de Bono in his book, The Use of Lateral Thinking (de Bono,1990). In essence there are two modes of thinking, he says: the vertical mode and the lateral mode (earlier identified in this book as Red and Green Light thinking).
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Vertical thinking looks for what is right. It maintains that one thing must follow directly from another, concentrates on relevance and moves in the most likely direction. Lateral thinking changes; it......
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Key Word for Creativity Vocabulary
- Green Light thinking
- Incremental thinking
- Lateral thinking
- Red Light thinking
- Vertical thinking
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THE CREATIVE PROCESS

The five ‘I’s
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Contrary to the popular perception of creativity being a will-o’the-wisp type of activity, the creativity process can be divided into a number of distinct stages. In some instances it will be possible to trace the inception and development of an idea through each of these stages; on other occasions and idea may consciously appear to develop simultaneously through all the stages at once.
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It was only about 40 years ago that scientists discovered that our brain, not our heart, was responsible for our intellectual activity. Real advances on how we go about being creative were not really significantly investigated until the early part of the 20th century. The physiologist Helmholtz and the mathematician Poincare were first to divide the creative process into different phases.
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Joseph Wallas, back in 1926, believed the creative process had four phases: a preparatory stage, followed by incubation, illumination and, lastly, verification, Joseph Rossman in the 1930s saw seven stages:
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1. Observation of need or difficulty;
2. Analysis of need;
3. Survey of all available information;
4. A formulation of all objective solutions;
5. A critical analysis of these solutions for their advantages and disadvantages;
6. The Birth of a new idea – the invention;
7. Experimentation to test out the most promising solution and the selection and perfection of the

of the final embodiment by some or all of the previous steps.
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Alex Osborn, who in the 1950s was one of the great pioneers of applying creative techniques for commercial use in advertising and marketing, also divided up the creative process, as follows:
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1. Orientation: pointing out the problem;
2. Preparation: gathering pertinent data;
3. Analysis: breaking down the relevant material;
4. Ideation: piling up alternatives by way of ideas;
5. Incubation: letting up to invite illumination;
6. Synthesis: putting the pieces together;
7. evaluation: judging the resulting ideas
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More recently, Professor Morris Stein established a three-stage model:
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1. Hypothesis formation;
2. Hypothesis testing;
3. Communication of results

KREASIKU, TRIAL AND ERROR

You & Me

Continue Creativity : Some Myths Debunked

Green Light/Red Light Thinking
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A better way of looking at creative thinking than left/right brain is green light/red light thinking, with is stronger visual cues. For green light thinking, the colour, like that in a traffic light, is useful for symbolizing that anything can go, where the accent in on positively encouraging as many ideas as possible, whatever their status or validity. This equates with Captain Kirk (or what has been called right-hand brain thinking). Red light thinking is sober analysis of what will or will not work, the rational judgement of an idea, equivalent to Mr. Spock (and left-hand brain thinking). It is the ‘Stop’ sign for any idea that appears ludicrous or far-fetched- the rational mode of thinking for evaluating the relative merits of a proposal. Table 2.1 highlights the different characteristics of these two modes of thinking.
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Green Light Thinking ……………………………………….. Red Light Thinking
Anything goes and is permissible………………………………Analysis
Anything is possible …………………………………………..…Judgement
The big picture is the context ………………………………….. Practicalities
Combinations of new elements…………………………………Functionality – will it work
Positive impact of risk ………………………………………… Negative impact of risk
Looking at pictures, sound and movement…………………….Details
Emotional and intuitive ………………………………………….Logical
Anithing can happen in the future ………………………………Examine what worked in the past

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By having a clear understanding of the distinction between the two types of thinking, a practitioner can make far more productive use of time, and employ techniques to greater effect, generating more and varied creative ideas that offer added value.
☼ Look back on when you have previously tried to come up with a new idea. Try to recall how you used the different thinking modes of both (green and red light thinking) . did you clearly separate their use? Did you separate their use/ Did this have any effect on how ideas were actually generated?

Creativity: Some Myths Debunked

This lack the Big Idea.
……………………………. Words of a prospective client, which changed my life
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Understanding the so-called ‘Big Ideas”, the different types of thinking processed used, and the context of lateral thinking, are crucial to being creative.

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THE MYTH OF THE INSTANT ‘BIG IDEA’
My inspiration to study the subject of creativity came after submitting what I thought was the perfect pitch document for a prospective client. I felt that it offered the definitive solution to the client’s needs, that it was full of good creative ideas relevant to this situation. I was genuinely taken a back by the client’s response. He said: ‘This lack the Big Idea’.
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Driven by a need to prove the client wrong, I racked my brains for a Big Idea. Nothing came to mind, and neither did the client’s…..
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Contemporaries of Mozart described him at work as ‘taking dictation from God’ in the way he seemed to translate a concept in his mind on to paper. Research has, however, showed him to be very meticulous, making changes and additions to his work. Music from a more recent era provides contemporary examples of this incremental process in practice. The Beatles anthology albums offer a fascinating insight into how their ideas developed. The original versions of their songs often bore little resemblance to the final product, then hailed as ’creative masterpieces’. The reality of producing a creative work of art, whether it is in music, painting or writing, is of artist constantly making changes and adding incremental new ideas to their work.
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So how has the notion of the Big Idea come about? One explanation may be that, in order for us to be comfortable with the world we inhabit, we like to package things in a neat and orderly way. This includes our understanding of how creative ideas are arrived at. It is much more convenient to believe great creative people some how intuitively and instantly arrive at Big Ideas rather than recognize the creativity can be a messy, unglamorous and protracted process.
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The individual egos of creative people, coupled with the need for journalists and historians to write a story with a clear beginning, middle and end, contribute to perpetuating the Myth of the Big Idea. Commenting on this phenomenon, Professor John Jewkes, in his study of famous inventors, 1970, wrote:
Successful inventors contribute to the romantic aura … its much more agreeable for them to think of their achievements as the outcome of a flawless chain of brilliant decisions an deliberate planning than as the result of desperate groping and frequent back tracking … Subsequent writers possessing more complete records of the lucky strokes than of the numerous failures, and searching for a tidy story rather than a muddled one, carry on the building up of the legends.

A detailed examination of the world’s greatest inventions highlight the perpetuation of the myth about the Instant Big Idea, masking the reality of the incremental process at work. Ask who invented the steam engine and you will most likely get the answer of James Watt, with the image of the young James sitting in his mother ‘s kitchen being inspired by watching a kettle boil. Yet the reality was of Watt cleverly adapting wider applications for the steam pump, which had been invented earlier by Newcombe; Watt’s inspiration came from extending the use of a machine used for pumping water out of coal-mines, not from the vision supplied by a steaming kettle.
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Moreover, the actuality of invention reveals that great discoveries were often achieved more by chance than from being the result of someone’s Big Idea. Coca-Cola was originally a hangover cure. Dr Marten’s boots were originally conceived as orthopaedic shoes for elderly German maidens.
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Inventions are perfected by step-by-step improvements, and each step itself an invention. Paying tribute to this incremental process, Sir Isaac Newton observed: ‘If I have seen far, it is because how he could only have made his major discoveries by incrementally advancing ideas developed by others. Thomas Edison provided valuable guidance for any would-be creative when he recommended: ‘Make it a point to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas the others have used successfully. Your Idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.’
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Some practitioners, keen to uphold the concept of the instant Big Idea, use examples from their own careers as evidence of its existence. Usually what emerges is that they have subconsciously used a technique described – The scamper checklist, which encourages you to use a series of ‘change’ words or phrases. One of these, such as ‘to make bigger’ or ‘to make smaller’, is placed against the situation, and the individual then thinks through the consequences of applying this to the task at hand. Invariably, the proponent of the Big Idea has actually employed a technique in response to the question: ‘ What can I do to make this the biggest idea/event/theme ever?’, and comes up with something that is usually big in scale rather than necessarily large in added value – which would be the true criterion of any genuinely Big Idea.
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People also confuse Big Ideas with what can instead be called a ‘Big Provocation’, which challenges the assumptions of an orthodox way of thinking or doing. The writer Tom Peters, for example, is a good example of someone who passionately believes in Big Ideas, yet in reality his writing is describing a process for challenging a mindset, or what is described …. as a’ paradigm of a situation’.
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To pose a question that can attack or undermine an assumption is not a creative idea itself. A Big Provocation may set in place a train of thought that can lead to a major added-value idea – this process is essentially incremental rather than being the instant creation of a Big Idea.
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Sometimes a ‘Big Vision’ is confused with a Big Idea. An Individual may possess a vision of where in the future they would like to be, or may have a major goal to achieve, such as ‘ I want to find a cure for cancer’. This may be a Big Vision, as it provides a vivid visual reference point of a desired position, but it is not a Big Idea, as it lacks an added-value combination in a new context to provide a solution to a goal.
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Remembering our definition of creativity from Chapter 1, which a creative idea is defined as a product created from a combination of elements in a new context, it is clear that neither Big Provocation nor Big Vision can be called Big Ideas.
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Another cause for confusion is the ideas that come to us seemingly out of the blue. These are often confused with Big Ideas. In reality, they are merely ‘illuminations’.
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The instant Big Idea – created as an initial illumination, isolated from the task in hand – does not exist, except perhaps in consultancy pitch documents and picture-postcard-sized studies of history. The myth of the instant Big Idea is a fundamental point for public relations practitioners to consider about creativity, for two reason. First, practitioners work in a environment where their client or management may at times demand an instant Big Idea for the task in hand. …… page 23.
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Convergent thinking, the so-called left-sided thinking, is the intellectual ability lo logically evaluate, criticize and choose the best idea from a selection of ideas. Divergent thinking, the apparent right-sided thinking, is the ability of the intellect to think of many original, diverse and elaborate ideas. These contrasting thinking approaches are embodied in the two lead characters in the science fiction television classic, Star Trek. Mr. Spock was the cool, analytical character, where everything was rationally observed an logically thought through; Captain Kirk, in contrast, was seen to employ more emotional, intuitive thinking, and being inspirational in his tackling of problems.

(by Andy Green)
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My Creation

Me & my niece

Animasi Kaca Pembesar

Continue : Creativity in Public Relations

BIG ‘C’ OR LITTLE ‘c’
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Any study of the subject of creativity will sooner or later come across what can be called the ’big ”C” or little ”c”? argument. For some, the act of ‘creativity’ is the preserve of the great artist or practitioner, where only the truly great can be called ‘creative’. In the other corner are the advocates of little ‘c’ , believing that creativity is available to all for use in whatever task – whether in art, house work, or filling in your tax return.
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Many people in the public relations business employ the convenient cop-out: ‘Oh, I Haven’t got a creative bone in me’, an use this as an excuse for not being creative and not taking part fully in group exercises such as brainstorming. Other say: ‘You are either creative or you are not’. Practitioners should take heart from the great writer on the advertising scene, Winston Fletcher, who says in his book How to Capture the Advertising High Ground (Fletcher, 1994) that creativity ‘is like height, weight, and strength …, we all have differing amounts, but we all have at least some’. Make the best use of your own creative capabilities by understanding the creative process, use the many creative techniques available, and be aware of what influences individual and group creative skills.
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It is a fundamental belief underpinning this written that we can all strive to make greater and more effective use of a talent we all possess, and that we are all creative.
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SUMMARY
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Creativity has previously been defined as: an individual skill; a process; the product of combining two or more elements; and by different value placed upon the creative product.
There is nothing wrong in borrowing or re-using an idea. All Ideas are presented in a new context.
Added value is the fundamental element of anything that is defined as creative. The measure of this added value is determined by its context.
Creative thinking uses the same mechanisms as non creative thinking.
Innovation is the use by a third party of a creative product.
Creative public relations practitioner have to work within brand values.
We all have varying degrees of creative talent.

Key Word : Added Value, Innovation, New Context

Creativity Versus Innovation

CREATIVITY VERSUS INNOVATION
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As this is a public relations study on the subject of ‘creativity’, it is only right there should be some public relations effort to create greater understanding on be half of the subject of ‘creativity’ it self. For Many, the word ‘creativity’ has what may be called a touchy-feely nature to it, not really suitable for the hard world of business. Yet, mention the word ‘innovation’ and suddenly the act of creating news idea takes on a more credible resonance in certain quarters such as the business media an various government-backed development agencies.
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Professor Simon Majaro of Cranfield School of Management defines innovation in this manner in his book managing ideas for Profit (Majaro, 1992); ‘Creativity is the thinking process that helps us generate ideas. Innovation is the practical application of such ideas towards meeting the organization’s objectives in a more effective way.’ But this means all ideas are creative. In reality, many ideas will be rejected. Using the working definition of creativity put forward in this written, to be ‘creative’ the idea must offer some form of added value. Also, creativity is not just a means of coming up with ideas, but actually has a far wider meaning – which will be highlighted in the study of the creative process.
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Innovation can instead be defined as ‘the adoption, adaptation, or implementation by a third party of someone’s creativity (.ie an added value product)’. When appraising a painting , one does not say: ‘ The artist is being innovative’. Should another artist adopt some element of this work, such as its style, subject matter, materials or techniques used, then the original work can be said to be innovative; it has inspired the application of some creative element of the original work by a third party.
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CREATIVE THINKING VERSUS NON-CREATIVE THINKING
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What is the difference between creative thinking and non-creative thinking? The answer is ‘None’. They both use mechanics of combining different elements to create something new. It’s the value achieved that differentiates them.

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When the great British snack of baked beans on toast was first made, it was an example of creative cookery. A chef somewhere recognized the potential is combining a serving of baked beans with a slice of toasted bread. Now, however, the snack has been eaten a countless number of times, and it has long ceased to be an example of creative recipe.
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Non-creative chefs will make a meal with such a recipe, combining ingredients that have been used before but in the same way. Create chefs will use the same process of combining different ingredient while displaying originality in their choice of these, making the unusual or distinctive in some way. The way finished meal in presented, or the context it is served in, also provides opportunities for added value. It is synergy produced by the creative chef’s use of combinations that marks out his of her creativity, not the use of a different form of thinking or the mechanics of combining different elements.
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Non-creative thinking combines different elements, but will apply exactly the same combination of elements previously used, without any novelty or significant change in the context in which they are applied. The creative person will display more originality in the sourcing and choice of items the combine, or in their permutation, or in the context in which the combination of elements is used , and may even challenge the context itself. As a result, the creative thinker has the potential to achieve added value – in contrast to the so-called non-creative thinker-but will still use the same mechanics of combining different elements to create something new. (by Andy Green)

Continue : Creativity in Public Relation (by Andy Green)

WHO DECIDES WHAT IS ADDED VALUE
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If creativity is adding value, who decides the measure of the added value? the answer lies in the context of the creative act. In the context of my daughter Charlotte Charlotte’s family, her picture provided added value in the eyes of her parents, knowing the skills of their chills. The new work of art provided added value as evidence of her growing development and talents. I a wider context, the picture may have very little added value; another painting by a child, which in the eyes of a dispassionate observer has provided no new insights. The same work of art has a different value in different contexts.
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The examples of a public relations practitioner producing press release reveals how the added value within a creative piece of work can vary according to its context. Here are three different contexts to illustrate the point:
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Context 1: The PR agency. The draft release presented for approval to a senior manager or client may appear to have added value as a result of some creative element within it. In this example, the practitioners may have previously had problem getting material approved for being regarded as insufficiently creative. They now regard their new work as truly creative, because its added value has enabled them to achieve a key objective- in this instance, that of providing their abilities to their manager or client.
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Context 2: Overloaded media. When the news release is subsequently issued to the media, the story may bomb, perhaps as a result of a large number of other major news stories at the same time. The creative element inherent in the news release may appear to have had insufficient added value, as it failed to be used by its target, the media.
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Context 3: Underused media. Maybe a year later, exactly the same news story could be updated and reissued at a quiet news time. As a result, it may achieve extensive coverage. In this exactly the same creative product, but in a different context. Its …..
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Page 12 & 13 ?

Hal. 14
Compromised. An example is when of the UK’s most outstanding creative practitioners, Mark Borkowski, launched an alcopop product named ‘Thickhead’ in 1997. as Mark takes up the story:
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It was a classic case where we came up with a very creative campaign – we even came up with some advertising straplines for it. But we didn’t understand the process inside the client, a brewery, who had given the go-ahead to some bright young things within the company to go up and create this brand. No one seriously considered the impact. And because of the type of PR they always got. No one expected (the product) to explode in such away that (it) provoked strong parliamentary an pressure group reaction to the idea of encouraging young people to drink. They had no fabric of actually dealing with it at high level, so the immediate reaction was to kick it into touch. It was a case of ’Give me dangerous radio’. But when you are given ‘dangerous radio’ or creative PR, the client has to actually know what they are dealing with.
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Reflecting back, Mark adds:
A Failure on our part was to really drive home and make sure people within the organization fully understood what they were getting involved with. If you don’t set the ground properly, and get all the details in place with your clients – so they cand understand them – then you can have a creative failure on your hands.
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☼ Consider whether you know of any examples from your own work, or elsewhere, where an organization’s brand values have been compromised by so called creative public relations activity.

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Continue : Creativity in Public Relations

A Definition for Public Relations Practitioners
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Public relations work creates or manages change. A working definition of creativity must contain some form of process in operation within the wider society, and so some reference to its context should also be made.
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By examining these different approaches to defining creativity, a working definition for public relations practitioners can be given.
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Thus :
Creativity is the ability each of us has to create something new by bringing together two or more different elements in a new context, in order to provide added value to a task.
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A Creative act consists of not only originating but also evaluating the added value it contributes. It is not novelty for its own sake, but it must produce some form of value that can be recognized by a third party.

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As a mathematical sum it could read:
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When 1 equals an element to be used in the creative process and C = creativity. By Introducing the creative dimension, practitioner can product a new synergy so as to achieve greater value than the individual component parts.
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To elaborate on what is meant by bringing together different elements to create a synergy to provide added value, Table 1.1. gives some examples.
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Table 1.1 Combining element provided added value

Area of work:
First Element:
Second Element:
Added Value:
Artist – creating a new painting
Raw materials: paint canvas, the subject matter.
Individual vision, craft and skill in creating images.
An Image that may bring pleasure or new insight into the world.
Poet – creating a new verse
Raw materials: pen, paper, the subject matter.
Individual vision, craft and skill in using language.
A text that may bring pleasure or new insight into the World.
Public Relations Professional – devising a photocall.
The subject matter. Props to use in the photograph
Person or celebrity to use in the photograph.
Extra media coverage and a visual dramatization of a story.
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ADDED VALUE
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An editor of a marketing magazine once remarked to me ;”as far as I can see, there are two types of public relations people; those whose immediate reaction is to say “ What creative thing can we do?”; and those who respond by saying “ We don’t bother with this creative stuff. We just get on with the nuts and bolts of a story or campaign.” ‘ My reply was swift; ”They are both wrong.’
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The public relations profession can be divided into three tribes. Some practitioners may be members of the ‘dash-off-into-dottiness brigade’ – those who instantly propose an offbeat idea before considering any real need for the end product. Or they may be members of the second, ‘nuts-and-bolts tribe’ – those who decide not to be creative and seemingly fail to exploit the full potential of an opportunity. Third, there is a growing number of the ‘added value connoisseurs’. The mark of an outstanding creative practitioner is to analyze the situation coolly and to assess what is required – and only then, crucially, to decide what added value is needed.
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Here is an example of demonstrates the role of ‘added value’ in public relations work. In the early 1990s I helped win a major account; the launch of a major aluminium can recycling scheme across the UK. The client, unhappy with the low level of media coverage it was receiving, was looking for an agency that was ‘creative’. In our proposals we came up with all sort of at we thought were wonderfully creative ideas, such as having pop star Gary Glitter jumping out of giant cans. Despite which we still managed to win the account! ( Ten years later, the pop star was convicted of possessing child pornography – an example of the impact ’a new context’ can have on creative product).
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However, we were surprise by the fact that the company was getting disappointing coverage. The campaign was at the time when the environment was emerging as a major public issue so that interest in all things ‘green’ was very tropical, and the company was launching a new recycling concept of paying for items to be recycled ( in contrast with other schemes that merely involved leaving your item in the recycling bin). This, we felt, had a very strong news interest and should get media coverage without the need for gimmicks.
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Once we had won the account, close inspection of the company’s previous press release material revealed why is was not getting adequate media coverage. The reason was not that the company was being uncreative, but because its new release were, in our view, badly written. In reality, like the porter’s tray in Maureen Lipman’s story , they were getting in the way of the message. All that was necessary to achieve the desired result was to produce well-written material that conveyed the news of the story clearly. There was no requirement for ‘added value’ from the creative function.

☼ Pause for a moment. Reflect back on your own work. Try and identify examples of ‘added value’ for your creative contribution to a situation.

Continuation : Creativity In Public Relations

1. A definition of ‘creativity’

This is very creative, but … …__-----………An anonymous client
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Far to often the word ‘creative’ in public relations is used to describe the off-beat, the irreverent and, at times, the downright silly. This ‘creative’ activity can be likened to the experience of actress Maureen Lipman when staying in a hotel. There was a knock on the door while she was in the shower. ‘Hello, I Have a telegram from you’ said the porter. ‘Can you slip it under the door?’ replied Ms Liman. ‘No I can’t, replied the porter, it’s on a tray.’ Rather like the porter’s tray, so much of what of what constitutes ‘creativity’ in public relations practice actually gets in the way of delivering the message.
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One of the goals set for this writing is to establish a definition of ‘creativity’ that is readily understandable, memorable, and relevant for your work. This understanding of creativity will help you analyse any activity that you are likely to meet in your work, and so make you a truly creative public relations practitioner

Page ….
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This recognition by a wider audience is seen by some an a crucial element in defining ‘creativity’. The creative process is not only at the point of origination with the creator but also in its recognition by others, where they in turn may need to demonstrate creative skills and understanding to appreciate and value the work of creativity. In the example of the artist , it is not enough for him to be creative, but the audience has to be creative in recognizing the creative qualities of the work.
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One of the world’s leading experts on the subject of creativity, Professor Morris Stein, gave his definition in a conversation; ‘Creativity is a process that result in novelty which is accepted as useful, tenable or satisfying by a significant group of others at some point in time’. By ‘ significant group of others’ he means those who have influence or power to determine what is recognized as of value in a group. In a public relations context, significant others’ could be defined as fellow practitioners, or users and consumers of our product service, such as journalists and clients.
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There is still an element of tautology in this approach, where it is saying: ‘ Creativity is what people, who has been recognized as “creative’, do’. Nonetheless, its emphasis on placing value and identifying a cultural context, is and important step in developing our own working definition of ‘creativity’ for public relations practitioners.

A Time and A Place
In variably, as soon as someone in the business hears about my interest in creativity, they give me the line: ‘Well you know there’s no such thing as anew idea in public relations. It’s all been done before’. My considered response is: ‘Yes you’re right. Many combinations of different elements have been used widely in the past’. There are also practitioners who dismiss the efforts of their colleagues who, they claim, have ‘stolen’ ideas that have been used before – they regand these efforts at being creative as somehow almost fraudulent.
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There is a metaphor of great insight from the Greek Philosopher Heracltus, who argued that’ A man never stands in the same river twice’. When faced with the task of being creative, we are in a world that, like a river is constantly changing. Consequently it is perfectly legitimate-and, indeed, creative-to use an idea that has previously been employed, because the context will be different and the word has moved on in some way.
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There are numerous examples of ideas seemingly a head of their time. The reality is often that the combination of element could not produced added value at the time the ideas were presented. With a change in context, perhaps with other technological, social or historical developments, the added-value element can be achieved in a different context. Leonardo da Vinci produced designs for a helicopter, which could only be brought to fruition when advances in other fields of technology and aeronautics could make human flight a reality. In similar fashion, there is nothing wrong in ‘stealing’ other people’s ideas; the context in which the ideas are later used is the important point. However, when it comes to presenting these ideas as your own, that is a matter between you, your conscience, and availability of evidence of the original idea.

(By. Andy Green)
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Creativity in Public Relations

CREATIVITY IN PUBLIC RELATIONS (By Andy Green)
Institute of Public Relations (Great Britain)

INTRODUCTION

The subject of creativity in public relations is something of an enigma. Ask any client of senior manager what key skilis are required by a PR Practitioner and they will invariably include the ability to be creative and to add the creative dimension to their work.
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In the UK, public relations practitioners work in an industry with millions of pounds spent by organizations and clients to pay them to be creative and practice creativity. The Industry also has a well-established series of professional awards, where individual programmers of work are praised (more often than not) for their creativity. Often the creative dimension is considered the crucial element.
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Yet when it comes to studying the subject of creativity in public relations, there are no books about it, or even chapters within text books, and usually not even and index reference.
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Creativity in Public Relations attempts to fill this lacuna. It is written to help public relations practitioners understand the creative process – both how it works and how it can be managed. It also explains how public relations practitioners can improve their own individual creative skills, using and managing a range of techniques and tips to generate creative ideas.
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This writing focuses on the needs of public relations practitioners and includes practical examples from the author’s career in public relations, spanning more than 18 years, as well as reseach among many of the leading figures in the industry who are regarded by their peers as ‘creative’ .

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See Figure 0.1 for some idea of the areas that will be covered.

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This is not catalogue of creative ideas, although there are many examples of outstanding creative work. Rather, the idea is to help practitioners ‘get under the skin of creativity’ to use it to greater effect in their work and in wider aspects of their lives.
As Alex Osborn, one of the great pioneers of creative thinking, observed; “Far too many people leading their lives like they’re driving their car with the brakes on.’ This writing will enable you to take your foot of the brake pedal.