ILLUMINATION Writing Challenge
Who is Ann Venkataraman?
Response to a Challenge as a Techie Wordsmith!
This post is my response to the writing challenge initiated by Rasheed Hooda and Timothy Key to describe yourself using your name as an acronym. The original challenge link and example are here:
Not As Easy As it Looks!
As a techie in the financial industry, I face a laundry list of acronym jargon every day — JIRA, UAT, RFP, AML, SEC, SOX, etc. So I naively assumed this challenge would be easy. However, I forgot to ACK (acknowledge) how the ego comes into play. When I sat down to write, I was besieged by FOMO, and all my STEM genius evaporated into oblivion.
Still quitting is not in my nature. Plus, responding to challenges from other editors was one of my goals, so here is my humble attempt to straddle both.
Reminder — although my callout name is “Ann”, I have used my full first name “Anupama” to respond to this challenge. Added trivia, the name is of Sanskrit origin and translates loosely to “unparalleled” or “undefeated champion”. [Talk about name pressure! :D ]
A — Adaptable
This comes from having grown up in various cities and living in multiple countries, as stated in my detailed bio.
N — New Ideas.
Throughout my career, I’ve made a conscious effort to meet and learn from people who are NOT like me. Plus, being an avid bibliophile opens me to new ideas and the ability to approach problems with solutions from other domains. I try to gather as many ideas as possible from a variety of sources — most are duds but some are winners and make up the losses from the others! This “quantity” of new ideas allows me to “create serendipity” as Dr Mehmet Yildiz often likes to state.
If you would like to turbocharge your innovation and creativity muscles, then take a look at some tips here.
How to Boost Your Creativity & Innovation Muscles.
7 easy techniques to spark creativity.
medium.com
U — Unstoppable
This trait is something only close friends and family members know since I am usually a very calm and laid back person. But for all my highest priority goals, I am relentless. I choose to concentrate my attention on limited items, and I will move mountains to achieve them, galvanizing whatever help or resources I need to accomplish it.
Recently learned the “do not do” list from Bill Abbate which complements my process even more.
P — Positive
Most people who meet me remark that I have the ability to look at the positive side in every situation. I am definitely grateful to my family and friends for bringing joy to my life that allows me to be this way.
More recently, I will add our fantastic ILLUMINATION magazine to this list — it warms me to read the amazing submissions from all of our brilliant writers. Hopefully, our weekly editorials spark the same cheer in your life as well.
A — Analytical
Being an engineer will do that to you. Plus, my dad was an accountant so I fell in love with numbers at an early age! Now, this skill is really useful since I work in the fintech industry in the exciting domain of analytics and datascience.
M — Music
Music is a huge part of my life and I learned classical Indian vocal music for 7+ years. That said, I do listen to multiple genres of music, vocal and instrumental. I love Adele as much as ancient Indian temple chants.
A — Author
After publishing 2 books and getting paid to write, I’ve finally felt comfortable calling myself an “author”.
That is it about me!
If you liked this please do consider responding to the challenge and remember to tag me and/or the other editors here at ILLUMINATION so we add your post to our list. Or participate in some of our other challenges listed here:
IMPORTANT LINKS to bookmark.
Editorial guidelines, processes, and FAQs:
Our recent “Viral” stories:
Until next time, Adieu!
