How to be
Creativewhen you’re
In an article called “Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! Former Financial
Times and Silicon Valley Watcher journalist Tom Foremski declared that
the press release was dead. This was in 2006.
As early as 2004, a whole host of SEO blogs were declaring that SEO is
dead. If you type “SEO is Dead”into Google, you now get 55 million
results.
In April this year, The Atlantic declared that “Twitter is dead”, writing a eulogy for Twitter and declaring that
the beloved social publishing platform enters its twilight. The problem is… SEO, Press Releases, Twitter
and a whole host of other formats, that have been declared dead for years now, are all still alive and
kicking. And what else is alive and kicking?
ZOMBIES!!!!
The reason people keep saying that press releases, SEO, even Twitter is
dead is because of a lack of creativity. It’s lazy journalism and lazy
blogging to call something dead. You’re just not thinking.
You write lazy, boring press releases or blog posts or creative, journalists
and bloggers hate writing it up and readers hate reading it, or even worse
don’t read it at all.
There are thousands and thousands of journalists out there who just want
a well written news release that they can edit easily to fill their pages of
regional papers, weekly papers, trade magazines.
As long as search exists, SEO will exist. And you’ve all been tweeting all night long, so Twitter isn’t dead.
It’s not that these format are dying, it’s just that it’s getting harder to take advantage, manipulate or game
them. If you’re lazily sending out press releases, not thinking through your tweets, over optimising your
SEO, then you’re going to lose. You’re dead.
This is where creativity comes in. The winners are those that put creativity
into supposedly dead formats. You want to know what creativity is?
Robocop riding a unicorn. That’s creativity.
And by creativity, I also mean Hard Work. “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99%
perspiration.” The woman who drew that Robocop riding a unicorn has a whole
series of them up on her Flickr page. This is her 5th or 6th attempt, so she’s
working hard to get that Robocop and unicorn just right.
So when you go back to the office tomorrow, and have to write a press
release or an article or think of a new creative idea for a really boring
client, don’t be a zombie. Remember this instead.
Less zombies, more Robocop riding unicorns.
