By Racha Semaan, media manager, Initiative
I like to do puzzles, big and complicated ones. They get me so intrigued from the first piece until the last; for me, the reward is the satisfaction I get when I have completed the puzzle.
So why do I see this as my secret weapon at work? Well, in my opinion, media has got the best puzzles to work with and around.
I have always loved the chase for the information which is required, whether it is internally when I have to jump from one department to the other or externally, through different research tools, probing client data, etc. This made me become the go-to person for projects with high levels of ambiguity.
Every time I start working on a brief I pause, think, and go on. I pause, to make sure I am starting off with a blank slate, with zero chances of pre-assumptions, copy-paste incidents, or God forbid, not being able to leave my mark on the piece of work.
Then I think. What am I trying to say and achieve? So I outline my ideas and start identifying the missing gaps to link the ideas together.
And so I go on. Collecting data, analysing data. As I continue the task, my story starts building up. Sometime it doesn’t, so I throw the unwanted data away, keeping the important ones until my story makes sense, is credible, believable and on spot.
Just like real puzzles, putting a meaningful piece of work together with the required elements requires time and effort, and in most cases extra time and effort. However, the pleasure of seeing the completed puzzle puts a smile on my face. Every time.