The Career Advantage of an Ambidextrous Brain
Sophia Matveeva
CEO | Founder | Board Member | Strategic Advisor | Digital Transformation | Innovation | Technology | Keynote Speaker | Podcaster | Education | Learning Development
If you want to make a big career leap this year, you might be faced with the left brain / right brain fallacy. According to this un-useful myth, you can either be creative or technical.?
This means that many talented professionals don't even try to get involved in digital innovation, and just stick to what they know.
Meet Janina Conboye at the Financial Times. Last year, she made a decision that would terrify most writers - she learned to code.?
Today, she combines traditional journalism with data analysis to break stories that would be impossible to find without technical skills.
What does this look like in practice??
When investigating NHS waiting times, Janina had to figure out how different political constituencies matched with healthcare commissioning groups - essentially, who was responsible for what in different areas.?
Traditional journalism would rely on official statements and individual cases. But by learning to code, she could map population data across different regions and reveal the real picture of healthcare waiting times across the country.?
This is what modern journalism looks like: using technical and journalism skills to find stories that would otherwise remain hidden.
"One big myth is people think that techie stuff is not creative," Janina told me on the Tech for Non-Techies podcast.?
Truly creative leaders have ambidextrous brains.?
The great Renaissance artists - Leonardo da Vinci, Titian and Artemisia Gentileschi weren't just painters, they were technical innovators who created their own custom pigments for their works.
Different tools, same creative spirit.
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To have a truly great career in the Digital Age, we cannot sit in silos. ?
When you are thinking about your career vision for 2025, exercise your ambidextrous brain.?
Most people won’t bother, that’s why most people don’t have newsletters written about them.
Don’t be most people.
Listen to Janina’s story on the Tech for Non-Techies podcast:?236. Combining Creativity with Data: Inside the Future of Journalism at the FT
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Sophia Matveeva