My kids teach me something new every day – little things like how to get marker off the walls, that our black Newfie looks good in pink bows, and that play-doh is one of the greatest inventions ever. But occasionally, I am amazed by what they teach me about the bigger things in life, and how they encourage me to look at my job in a whole new way.

I thought I’d take the opportunity to impart some of my 4-year old’s knowledge on to you, too. Just the other day, my daughter Maisie got a hold of my new Finn Partners post-it notes; I think we can all learn a little bit from the results.

Lesson #1: Tracing doesn’t always look the same as the original, and it shouldn’t. As hard as we try to copy where we’ve had success in the past, we shouldn’t be afraid to try new things.  Technology is one of the fastest moving industries and we must keep up. Maisie’s drawing of the hand has some good qualities on its own – it doesn’t need to look like the one I would draw. Just like a press release I write for a client shouldn’t look just like the one I wrote a month before, and no one pitch should look the same as another.

Lesson #2: It might be unclear what kind of animal this is, but that’s the beauty of it.  We all see things with a unique lens. Our individual experiences as technology consumers gives each of us a different perspective on the benefits of the technologies we represent. I use my mobile phone to distract my kids in restaurants, others use theirs to tweet about their service. When we can collaborate for our clients, bringing together our unique perspectives to achieve a common goal, we are providing them with a service they will grow to expect, and appreciate.

Lesson #3:  Happy people draw happy faces. When we care about our clients and we are passionate about the difference their technologies are making in the world, when we care about each other and when this care genuinely comes through in our work, it makes everyone involved happy. Positive attitudes beget positive results. This inevitably leads to happy people with happy faces.

Lesson #4: A rainbow looks better with many colors (or in this case, lines because she only had a pen). In tech PR, it takes many layers to build a meaningful story. Your “red” layer might be the company message, orange the products that support the message, yellow are customer use cases, and so on. The most important thing? They work together to form a timely, relevant story.

Lesson #5:  This might not look like my name to you, but it does to my 4-year old. And maybe it’s about time we all started thinking about words in a different way. Think twice before using the word “leader” or “disruptive” and write what you actually want to say. Is your client’s product important because it’s “leading?” No, it’s probably important because of what it can do – track a package, protect a computer network, or enable a text message. We must challenge ourselves, and our clients in the process, to use new words and ways of describing the most complicated products, services and technologies to make them relevant and understandable to all.