Being "Weird" Can Be Part of the Job

The thing you think you need to hide at work may be the thing making you good at it.

Maybe you collect photos of the carpet in airport lounges. Maybe you mentally redesign signs while you wait for your kid’s pediatrician. Maybe you meet up with a college kid in your neighborhood to play Pokemon Go in the evenings (looks sheepish). Maybe you can identify a font at 20 paces, have strong opinions about mascot backstories or regularly begin sentences with, “This is going to sound weird, but…” Good. Keep going.

Higher ed marketing is not improved by pretending our brains only contain strategic plans and enrollment funnels.

Our weird interests give us range. They provide references, metaphors and connections that would never emerge from staring harder at the same brief. A fascination with reality television might teach you how to build narrative tension. A love of theme parks might sharpen the way you think about experience design. An embarrassing amount of knowledge about true crime podcasts might make you better at pacing a story and withholding just enough information to keep someone listening.

Creativity is often just your brain dragging two unrelated things into the same room and seeing whether they become friends.

This does not mean every peculiar idea belongs in the campaign. Some ideas are weird and brilliant. Some are weird and should remain forever in the group chat. The job is not to unleash every thought your brain produces. The job is to stop dismissing an idea simply because it arrived wearing sequins. Apply strategy. Ask whether it serves the audience. Test it. Refine it. But do not automatically send it home and tell it to change into something more professional.

Your weirdness is not a detour from your expertise. It is part of how your expertise works. It shapes what you notice, the questions you ask and the connections only you can make. So bring the obscure reference.

Follow the peculiar instinct. Say, “I know this sounds strange,” and then finish the sentence. The idea that makes you feel slightly ridiculous may be the one that makes everyone else pay attention.