Today I really felt the effects of having what is dubbed a “blue brain” in Emergenetics terms.  Blue-brained people are the thinkers who sit there, rationalizing things and using logic to solve problems.  Learning is done best by mental analysis.  And that, is exactly how I am.  I’ve been laboring over a project this past week, trying to turn all the information for our training branch into a simple, comprehensive slide show.  I had originally written a script for it, typing out what I thought should be spoken and what images/words could coincide with that.  I sent that out to the boss to look over and got back his edits, showing me the type of language he prefers to use and the style he was looking for.  From there, I changed things up as needed.

However, Marylin then told me about the time she made a Powerpoint of what she wanted and then turned it over to our creative head to edit and touch up as needed.  So, of course, I decided to give it a try and make his life easier.  Little did I know the ensuing headache that I would encounter.  First of all, this type of thing takes a very yellow brain.  What do I mean by that?  Yellow-brained people are conceptual learners, with vivid imaginations, reliance on their intuition, and a penchance for the unusual.  They are the groundbreaking visionaries who try out new things and don’t mind experimenting around to find what they like.

I amnot very strong in this area.  AT ALL.  Though I have some ideas for certain transitions we can use and ways we can display the words and pictures, I am far from the artsy creative type.  No, in fact, my creativity is more in terms of words and thoughts.  I also don’t like to make mistakes.  So you can see, there’s a bit of a clash here, between my learning and working preference and the nature of the project I am trying to produce.  Marylin is very much a yellow brain, which probably has something to do with why she was able to whip up a presentation.

Instead, I have spent days first figuring out how to cut down the message yet still convey all the information.  It’s still not enough!  On top of that, I have all these ideas for images I’d like to use, but I don’t know where to find them in past event photos.  I also have very few new ideas on how I can display the pictures once I do find them, so they sit lamely on a page, surrounded by text.  Not exactly the eye-catching presentation I was aiming for.  So today, I started to get rather frustrated with all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t and all the things I knew I should do but didn’t know how.

Thankfully, I took the issue over to the green brain in the house and he put his practical, structured way of thinking to work.  Green brains learn best by doing and that is exactly what he set out to do, helping me explore the options I had and how I could go about creating the effects I was looking for.  He also asked me a lot of questions to figure out what I want to convey (but still, I had the issue of HOW to do it nagging at me).  With his help, I have planned out more of what I need to do.  Now there’s the issue of getting that out of the way so I can get back to how, how, how!

I have always appreciated people with great artistic abilities, from dancers to pianists and interior designers to graphic designers.  My respect was built off of the simple fact that I just don’t have a knack for that!  My deep appreciation for skills such as video editing stem from a certain intimidation though.  Because it looks so daunting to me and something so out of my reach, I put it on a pedestal and call it a day.  When I do go about trying to tackle that task myself, it takes painstakingly long, but I can do it.  I don’t think I do it very well though; there are certainly people who have a natural talent for those things.

So, with this work sitting here, waiting to be done, I am trying not to get too discouraged at the prospect of all the effort it will take me.  Instead, today I got to distract myself by helping Marylin edit some material she was writing.  I have a near anal tendency to pick out grammar and spelling errors and it comes quite easily to me, so it’s almost fun for me to read through documents over and over, picking out all the typos and awkward sentences.  I was quite happy to have some “mindless” work to do as I took a break from the video/slide show haunting me.  Sadly, it seems that I am quite good at the very work that people get interns to do.

Thankfully, I am also a brainstormer, constantly getting little epiphanies about random ideas that have been floating around in my head for awhile.  That is why creative consultant work sounds perfect to me!  I get to sit around and analyze things like I prefer to do and also tap into my red brainedness – the social part that is sympathetic, empathetic, and socially aware.  This part of me learns from others by interacting with them.  But for the life of me, I cannot get my yellow brain to come to the forefront, much as I need it now.  That’s a pity.