Effective vs. Efficient

Effective vs. Efficient

by | Feb 4, 2020 | Blog, Intern Insights

I remember when I was in high school and my teacher did an object lesson on the Industrial Revolution. She gave us each plain white sheets of paper and gave us five minutes to draw a person. “Make them as ornate as possible,” she said. The timer started and off we went. Our creations varied in skill, but the true artists in the class generated beautiful works of art. For the time given, I was quite impressed with our illustrations. Then, the teacher changed it up. She told us to arrange ourselves into an assembly line. Each of us would be given five seconds to draw a specific body part and then pass it to our neighbor for them to complete their designated job. We were supposed to crank out as many complete people as possible in five minutes. The timer rang and that second group of drawings we produced were TERRIBLE. We made a lot of them, but the quality was awful. 

Fast forward this valuable life lesson about 7 years into the future. Enter me today. I’ve always been speedy fast. Like, I get yelled at the most for running around like a chicken with my head cut off. “Slow down Rachael” is something that always echoes after my footsteps. And due to circumstances in my life, I’ve been forced to learn how to slow down and pause–and it’s taught me a lot. 

There is an art to stopping to smell the roses. There is a craft to slowing down and taking your time. Admiring the beauty of things is good–actually it’s necessary. While efficiency gets things done, it doesn’t produce the same quality of work that is needed to stand out in a crowd, especially in creative circles. In the creative field, it isn’t the quantity of work that counts, it’s the quality. I’ve found that when I take my time, my skill level increases. The people that count on me actually have less work to do when I take my time and do it right. I am more effective in the impact that I make when I take my time, and that is what ultimately counts.

Photo of Intern Rachael smiling. She is a young woman with dark hair and green eyes.

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The Responsibility of Power							
The Responsibility of Power
 by  | Jan 14, 2020 | Blog, Intern Insights
This week I peeked into the world of photography. I’m marveled by those who can stand behind the lens and capture the world’s beauty–it absolutely fascinates me. But as someone who has stood in the Colosseum and gazed upon the Arc de Triomphe, photography has always seemed to be the last thing on my mind. I’m the tourist who gazes upon ancient piles of stone and speculates how these great wonders came to be. I get so lost in my thoughts and in the world of my imagination to remember to take out my phone and snap a picture proving I stood in the magnificent shadows of the greatest marvels mankind has ever seen.

The thing that I learned about photos was how they use the concepts of light and shadow to create the actual image. For photographers, I’m sure the concept isn’t as mind-blowing as it was to me. But to take the energy of light and darkness and make a likeness to the physical blew me away. At the essence of it all, light is the power force of all things. It is the energy that makes the world turn. So to freeze the light and shadow of things to make a still image is amazing.

Humans have the capacity to manipulate the most powerful source in the universe. They can eternally make light stand still to capture the moments of humanity’s triumph and defeat, their joy and their sadness. If we have the power to use light to make a fixed reflection, what more do we have the power to do? The possibilities are endless, and so is the responsibility.
Photo of Intern Rachael smiling. She is a young woman with dark hair and green eyes.
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Join Rachael every week as she journeys into the world of communications and marketing.
 
  
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