10 techniques to generate more creative magazine ideas
Call it a creative block, call it blank page syndrome, call it being stuck in a rut: sometimes, it’s tough to come up with great story ideas.
It’s one of the reasons that people hire Capstone!
My clients know that I’ve seen just about everything in my 25+ years in the alumni magazine business, and I can recommend ideas that are all but guaranteed to succeed.
Still, I know that not everyone can afford Capstone. That’s why today, I’m excited to share the exact approaches I use to generate tons of ideas.
You can add one or more of these approaches to your own playbook, and I promise you’ll see a difference.
1. Peruse the newsstand
Years ago, when I worked at Carleton College, the whole editorial team would head to a nearby bookstore and pluck anything that caught our eye from the magazine racks.
It didn’t matter the subject — current events, travel, sports, business, crafts — everything was fair game. If we saw an irresistible cover headline, a surprising feature, or intriguing packaging, we’d grab it and use it as inspiration.
Over the years, we got incredible ideas from Entertainment Weekly (RIP), ReadyMade (RIP), and Talk (RIP).
Sure, that last sentence alone tells you where things stand in the consumer magazine world today. But there are still lots of cool magazines out there worth studying. I buy magazines from the newsstand at least once a month, and use them as references constantly.
2. Ask your peers
The CASE College and University Editors community is fantastic — it’s filled with folks with tons of experience who are happy to help.
I’ve seen it used successfully by editors who want examples of stories on a specific topic, who want suggestions for local writers who can do on-the-ground reporting far from campus, or who want an amazing photographer or illustrator who can breathe life into a story.
CUE is great not just because there are 2,000+ folks who want to help — but because you can get their advice even if you’re not a member of CASE.
3. Open the floodgates
Your campus community (and beyond) may be an untapped reservoir of smart ideas.
Ask for them to share their story ideas with you through a simple form that you can share widely or strategically as needed.
One of my favorite examples of this approach is one from LeeAnn Shelton at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
She created a simple form that users can use to submit their ideas:
The responses get added to a linked spreadsheet that she can review, add to, and change.
Think of it as your little idea greenhouse, where you and others can plant ideas, nurture them over time, then harvest them for use when they’re ripe. (Okay, yes, even I am weary of that metaphor.)
4. Review the winners
I love poking around the CASE Circle of Excellence pages, which contain hundreds of examples of the very best communications work in higher ed.
You can review the general interest magazines, of course, but there are also incredible anniversary and campaign publications, if those are on your to-do list.
Even better, there are years of winners on the site.
Many of them include judges’ reviews that offer a helpful synopsis as you dive in. Almost all of them contain PDFs of the actual pages that you can analyze.
5. Build your own spreadsheet
Beyond community suggestions, I find it helpful to keep a private database of my favorite ideas, inspirational approaches, and unexpected approaches.
I’ve got a database in Airtable, with 1,000+ ideas: great headlines and profiles, feature stories and packaging ideas.
The items in the spreadsheet aren’t just from magazines (though of course there are lots of those). They include books, websites, course syllabi, studies, and more.
I can filter and sort it, and I consider it a big part of the secret sauce that I can deliver to clients.
I use it all the time, and I recently recommended a story idea that came across my desk in 1999.
You guys, I’m old! And I’m also basically an alumni magazine historian now.
6. Spend time in your own magazine archives
Sometimes the best source of ideas is your own magazine.
Are there some campus news stories from a few years ago that are worth an update? Are there story concepts that you could use again because the world is in a different place than when your magazine first reported on it, or the players are sufficiently different?
For example,
- Years ago I did a “big idea” story for Macalester
- More than a decade later, I tackled it again
7. Host a happy hour
An editor once shared that he liked to host “headline happy hours” where he and colleagues would grab a beer and workshop headlines to make them better and more clever.
Of course, you can do the same with stories.
I have my own informal group of friends and colleagues who help me generate and hone my story ideas, though we often do so over coffee or walk around a nearby lake.
8. Get on some mailing lists
The CUE community has a magazine exchange list that you can add yourself to — and of course import and use to send your publication to them.
But you can also get more proactive: I often reach out to editors directly to ask them to send their publications my way.
And if you’re not sending Capstone your magazine — well, add us to your mailing list! I love to see what you’re up to, and I often share my favorite examples of work in this newsletter, in my talks, and beyond.
9. Take a stroll
I don’t spend nearly as much time on campuses as I used to, but when I do, I soak in every minute of it.
I read the posters taped on lampposts and pinned to cork boards, I pick up every available campus publication, and I’ll sit in the most popular areas of campus and listen in to conversations so I can learn more about what’s going on.
Sometimes I get an idea from what I’ve seen, and sometimes just getting away from my keyboard and up into the world helps me generate new ideas.
10. Go to a conference
The CASE Editors Forum is, hands down, my favorite conference related to alumni magazines. (Though there are lots of great conferences out there.)
One of my favorite parts of the Editors Forum is zipping through table after table of magazines from all over the country, stashing them in a FedEx box, and sending them home as a little present to myself.
There are all sorts of amazing things to learn from your peers, and since you’ve just been to a conference with at least one person on the masthead, it’s easy to reach out and start a conversation later if you’ve got questions.
