This beautiful young woman above is named Chimamanda Adichie and I just found her via the TED website. Tomorrow TED opens in my hometown of Long Beach, and like many, I will be proud my city is hosting this extraordinary event and wishing I was on the inside listening to inspiring talks.

But let's go back to Chimamanda. Her talk on TED is called "Rejecting the Single Story" and it's excellent. It's smart, wry, engaging and personal. I hope you'll watch (or you can become a fan of her on FB!) And though she is talking about a universal theme in our everyday lives, a habit of looking at a people or a place through just a single lense of a single story and then making up our mind (on very little information), it is also an excellent idea to ponder for your own public relations campaign.

The truth is we can tell a lovely charming story to death. We can squeeze out all of its juice and interesting bits, we can wear it out - whether it's for a business or a person, a product or an idea. How many of us cringe when we hear a friend or family member bring out that same old story we've heard so many times that we've wanted to yell, "Tell me something different!"

And if we've felt that way, certainly others have felt the same about us, haven't they?

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they attempt public relations on their own is that they try and finagle or force the press into writing about their same old story, again and again. Hey, they wrote that lovely profile on us last year, maybe they'll do it again!

Ah no. Maybe you are the oldest restaurant in town, maybe "so-and-so" has done the most for local charities, or maybe you are #1 in your market. So what? Don't be Johnny one note. Shake it up, look at yourself in new ways, your business, your product, etc. from many angles, and then start sharing different stories. How is what you're doing relevant to what's going on in today's headlines? How are you growing and changing with the times?

There's a very good reason why we ask friends and family, "what's new with you?" when we see them. We like fresh stories, new angles, fresh juice.