- Wed Jun 26, 2019 11:00 am
#26001
Hi everyone. This is a piece that I prepared to explain my 3 main roles : Wordsmith (Writing) Stone-Turner (Research) and Cocktail Mixer (Content Creation). I'm going put it in my main about section in the LinkedIn profile . They will also serve as material for my cover letters. Feedback is much appreciated!
Wordsmith, Stone-Turner and Cocktail Mixer: A Description of my 3 Roles/Skills (Long-Version)
*An exposition on my 3 main skills: Research, Analysis and Writing.
Writing (Wordsmith):
Writing is simultaneously effortful and effortless; painful and therapeutic; compulsive and cathartic. Being a writer isn’t entirely a choice. It’s a natural manifestation of my essence.
This description, controversially attributed to Hemingway puts it well “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed."
I delight in choosing the right word in the right place and I relish in using a colorful vocabulary.
I honed my skills by writing frequently at my blog paradoxically-paradoxical.wordpress.com. In the Amman Writing club, my pieces tend to be the most academic so I was challenged to present that academically-slanted content in a way that would be palatable to a room full of poetic wordsmiths. Here’s feedback I got from founder Dalia Al-Shurman on my piece Please Hold On: Your Question Will Be Answered in a Few Years:
"(You need to make a living off of creating Facebook posts because they're great!)
Your use of references is intricate, and intriguing… The academic additions to a creative work in your case I felt enriched your piece. The psychological aspect, too, and connections, and maintaining coherence, though it is a complex piece, I admire My only comment would be, maybe, edit form or structure. Other than that, I would definitely be in the audience if this were a creative talk, or lecture, like Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own!"
Research (Stone-Turner):
I’m addicted to a “no stone unturned” research lifestyle. Using advanced search engines is enjoyable. I’ve often found myself restless; waiting impatiently for the next work day to begin so that I can find the sought-after lead. Compiling a list of research findings immensely satisfies the completist curator in me. There’s a special joy when I find a rare or hard-to-find item. For example, I was searching for a telecom company that warns against technology addiction. Finding such a company is a needle in a haystack challenge. I still savor the time when I dug up Motorola’s Phone-Life balance campaign from the almost barren telecom land.
I like to thoroughly immerse myself in the topic I’m researching. I’m proud that Talentology’s library is filled with books that I bought from my own money in order to understand and analyze talent better. Positive feedback on my research skills invigorates me. For example, it was a pleasure reading this feedback from Dr. Orin Davis, (Quality of Life Laboratory):
“I’ve been rather enjoying your content and hope you keep up the good work…..You’re asking really good and important questions and taking a real, honest stab at them based on some actual research and a clear line of logic (however correct), and you write it up well.”
I was recently honored that I was approached by Social Science Space (from the prestigious Sage Publishing) to submit an article. The article was published at their site Zoom-in vs Zoom-out: Resources for the Generalist-Specialist Trade-Off
Content Creation and Curation (Cocktail Mixer):
Research results and written text are important but often inadequate to grab one’s attention. Videos, images, assessments and activities will serve as the honey, spices and milk that will be prepared to be mixed with the previous research and writing fruits. Consuming content should be pleasurable and memorable so you need a creative brain. Equally important, it should be cleansed from dirt so the process requires critical thinking.
Striking a balance between the heart and the brain; between education and entertainment is my role as a content creator.
Critical thinking is important for content creation. If you cut my head open, you will find etched in my brain "Why?" and "How do we know?". I lust for evidence. Content is strained and sifted through the quality colander and evidence sieve to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I dread a mediocre “Nothing new under the sun.” reaction to my content. Hence. I exert extra effort in crafting my content from exotic ingredients and little-known sources. For example. I spent hundreds of hours editing and improving one presentation “Rethinking Career Choice: Why 80,000 hours Should Give us Pause”.
Synthesis:
The relationship between my role as a researcher, writer and content creation is symbiotic. The wordsmith and the analyst are intertwined. A question pops up. The mind is obsessively inquisitive so it grapples with the question. The fingers relentlessly strike the keyboard trying to satisfy the intellectual itch with compulsive research. The words bleed out from the veins through the pen onto the paper with the answers and more questions along the way. Content is created through the meticulous sifting, synthesizing and mixing of information and media: paper scraps, digital bookmarks, spilled ink, creative blood and exotic fruit cocktails.
Inquisitively Kind Regards,
Hashem
Wordsmith, Stone-Turner and Cocktail Mixer: A Description of my 3 Roles/Skills (Long-Version)
*An exposition on my 3 main skills: Research, Analysis and Writing.
Writing (Wordsmith):
Writing is simultaneously effortful and effortless; painful and therapeutic; compulsive and cathartic. Being a writer isn’t entirely a choice. It’s a natural manifestation of my essence.
This description, controversially attributed to Hemingway puts it well “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed."
I delight in choosing the right word in the right place and I relish in using a colorful vocabulary.
I honed my skills by writing frequently at my blog paradoxically-paradoxical.wordpress.com. In the Amman Writing club, my pieces tend to be the most academic so I was challenged to present that academically-slanted content in a way that would be palatable to a room full of poetic wordsmiths. Here’s feedback I got from founder Dalia Al-Shurman on my piece Please Hold On: Your Question Will Be Answered in a Few Years:
"(You need to make a living off of creating Facebook posts because they're great!)
Your use of references is intricate, and intriguing… The academic additions to a creative work in your case I felt enriched your piece. The psychological aspect, too, and connections, and maintaining coherence, though it is a complex piece, I admire My only comment would be, maybe, edit form or structure. Other than that, I would definitely be in the audience if this were a creative talk, or lecture, like Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own!"
Research (Stone-Turner):
I’m addicted to a “no stone unturned” research lifestyle. Using advanced search engines is enjoyable. I’ve often found myself restless; waiting impatiently for the next work day to begin so that I can find the sought-after lead. Compiling a list of research findings immensely satisfies the completist curator in me. There’s a special joy when I find a rare or hard-to-find item. For example, I was searching for a telecom company that warns against technology addiction. Finding such a company is a needle in a haystack challenge. I still savor the time when I dug up Motorola’s Phone-Life balance campaign from the almost barren telecom land.
I like to thoroughly immerse myself in the topic I’m researching. I’m proud that Talentology’s library is filled with books that I bought from my own money in order to understand and analyze talent better. Positive feedback on my research skills invigorates me. For example, it was a pleasure reading this feedback from Dr. Orin Davis, (Quality of Life Laboratory):
“I’ve been rather enjoying your content and hope you keep up the good work…..You’re asking really good and important questions and taking a real, honest stab at them based on some actual research and a clear line of logic (however correct), and you write it up well.”
I was recently honored that I was approached by Social Science Space (from the prestigious Sage Publishing) to submit an article. The article was published at their site Zoom-in vs Zoom-out: Resources for the Generalist-Specialist Trade-Off
Content Creation and Curation (Cocktail Mixer):
Research results and written text are important but often inadequate to grab one’s attention. Videos, images, assessments and activities will serve as the honey, spices and milk that will be prepared to be mixed with the previous research and writing fruits. Consuming content should be pleasurable and memorable so you need a creative brain. Equally important, it should be cleansed from dirt so the process requires critical thinking.
Striking a balance between the heart and the brain; between education and entertainment is my role as a content creator.
Critical thinking is important for content creation. If you cut my head open, you will find etched in my brain "Why?" and "How do we know?". I lust for evidence. Content is strained and sifted through the quality colander and evidence sieve to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I dread a mediocre “Nothing new under the sun.” reaction to my content. Hence. I exert extra effort in crafting my content from exotic ingredients and little-known sources. For example. I spent hundreds of hours editing and improving one presentation “Rethinking Career Choice: Why 80,000 hours Should Give us Pause”.
Synthesis:
The relationship between my role as a researcher, writer and content creation is symbiotic. The wordsmith and the analyst are intertwined. A question pops up. The mind is obsessively inquisitive so it grapples with the question. The fingers relentlessly strike the keyboard trying to satisfy the intellectual itch with compulsive research. The words bleed out from the veins through the pen onto the paper with the answers and more questions along the way. Content is created through the meticulous sifting, synthesizing and mixing of information and media: paper scraps, digital bookmarks, spilled ink, creative blood and exotic fruit cocktails.
Inquisitively Kind Regards,
Hashem
- By AaronBurns
- By Uolevi Kattun