Public Relations is a field I knew I wanted to enter during my Senior year of high school. I was working for a media firm, Creative Visions, where I worked to book clients/entertainers to perform at the night club we ran called DV8. Getting to know famous people, singers and performers was a highlight of the job, but the best part was getting to throw myself out there in ways I haven't before. I had to constantly step out of my comfort zone by conversing and entertaining these entertainers (no pun intended).
That's what PR is all about; always being thrown into new experiences and being outside of your comfort zone. Whether your job is in special events planning or reputation management you need to keep ideas flowing in your brain about how to solve situations and come up with new plans. Attached is a link from the textbook, The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integration that would help any Public Relations major understand how to come up with creative ideas to solve your specific problems, how to relate to your problems and exactly what makes an idea creative.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~moriarts/prcreativity.html

What stood out to me about this article is the word integration. All integration involves creativity. We learned in Creativity Theory class how to take an already established idea and integrate it to fit the current situation when we learned about the SCAMPER solution.
Another way that PR professionals have become creative and a way in which I strive for creativity is through green event planning. We're taught in our event planning class that green events are essential in today's times. We must teach ourselves to think green and plan for sustainability as well as for our events goals and objectives. Green even planning involves finding a way to creative less traffic flow to decrease pollution from vehicles, to use recycled materials and materials that can be used several times for our decorations. We're taught how to use as little food as possible and what to do with left-over foods. Green event planning involves creativity in such as way that you have to completely retrain your brain to be able to plan with sustainability.



When many professionals outside of the public relations field think of PR, they often refer to the profession as putting a "spin" to real issues." In a way, that is a realistic term for PR. As an aspiring PR professional I probably shouldn't admit it; however, when it comes to reputation and crisis management, which are the fields I would like to enter within PR, you do need to put a spin to the situation that your client or company is in. You must always strive to find the good in each situation. It takes an optimist to go into these fields of PR and come out with a successful reputation for themselves and their clients. On the drop of a dime, when something is found as shameful from the company or client you work for, you need to come up with ways to turn the situation around to make your client or company shine again.
A good example for creative reputation management revolves around the Tiger Woods incident. He was guilty of infidelity with several woman; however, his PR people were able to get the world focused on his career again, rather than the trials and tribulations he was having with his now ex-wife.
Word spreads fast in the world or Public Relations. Whether it be through social media, media or word of mouth, everyone will find out the good and bad of every situation and I can guarantee that it will be talked about. It is up to you, as a PR professional, to discover new ways to get the positive talk about your client out there and keep the negative opinions in. There are new and old forms of Public Relations that are excellent for each situation, but you must always, always be prepared and be able to think on your feet.