Repurpose

Give your best work a bigger audience

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,
the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the
new world of work where location and hours are more
flexible than in the past. Today's tip is to figure
out what you can repurpose rather than trying to create

(00:28):
everything from scratch, see what you can reuse with a
new spin. This can give your best work a longer
shelf life and more reach, and maybe save yourself a
bit of time too. Now. I know many New Corner
Office listeners have to come up with new ideas all
the time, new marketing campaigns, new content, new programming. Coming

(00:54):
up with lots of ideas increases the chances that you
have more good ideas, but that does mean that all
your ideas are great. We all know that some of
our ideas are much better than others, So when you
do come up with a great one, there are a
lot of upsides to figuring out ways to use it
more than once. Let's say that you give a talk

(01:17):
to your department on a topic you've been researching. People
find it fascinating, so why not give the talk to
another department? How about to a senior leadership retreat? How
about to nearby college students who are studying something related.
There's no reason to put the talk away just because
you've given it once. Plenty more people can learn from

(01:37):
it as you hone these ideas. You might also turn
the talk into an article, or into a series of
short podcasts. Or let's say you need to write a
short piece introducing yourself to your new colleagues. Years ago,
you wrote an essay for graduate school with a great anecdote.

(01:58):
Haul that thing back out, reshape it so you're not
plagiarizing yourself exactly, and then use it again. Since that
anecdote has already been honed through your past thinking and editing,
it will be much more effective then trying to come
up with something entirely new. Repurposing is a time honored tradition.

(02:21):
Centuries ago, Johann Sebastian Bach was producing a new cantata
every week for his church jobs in Leipzig. You bet
he was repurposing some of his earlier melodies that seemed catchy,
or instrument and voice combos that worked really well. Creativity
benefits from a volume strategy, and repurposing helps volume. I

(02:47):
don't think anyone listening to Bach would say, boy, this
is tired stuff heard this before. Even the repurposed can
be made new and interesting. But it helps to have
a base to make those innovations. So take some time
to look through your old stuff. I'm currently looking through

(03:08):
old blog posts, newsletters, book sections, podcasts. What has more legs,
What topics interest me enough to remind and which people
seem fascinating enough to re interview. You don't want to
keep producing the same stuff, but repurposing isn't repeating. You

(03:31):
do it in new ways. You combine an existing thesis
with three new stories. You rework an essay topic to
show how coronavirus has changed things, and not. You interview
someone for a podcast because she made a great point
in a panel that you helped orchestrate. Not starting from

(03:51):
scratch saves time too, But the key benefit is producing
better stuff. We seldom see everything the first time a round.
When we repurpose, we gain deeper insights, and that is
a big plus two In the meantime, This is Laura,
thanks for listening, and here's the succeeding in the New

(04:15):
Corner Office. The New Corner Office is a production of
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