Name: Trude Namara
Title: Senior Editor
Location: Midwest
What is one trait you learned in college that you use in your daily life? A professor once told me that “Your perception of yourself is always less than what you think it is.” Remembering that, I constantly try to give myself more credit, even for little things.
You’re your best cheerleader when editing, so be kind to yourself, and it’ll be easier to do the same for others.
Journalism background: I was born in Uganda. Pearl of Africa, as they call it. I moved to the USA when I was 10 years old. And — in classic immigrant 10-year-old fashion, I was told I was to be a doctor.
I’ll let you in on a secret here — medical school is not the best place to find out you don’t want to be a doctor! You could say it was quite a realization.
After I left medical school, I wondered how I would leave my mark on the world. It seemed to me that I had forgotten that I always had a great passion for writing and editing. The expertise had been walking beside me throughout all of my years in STEM. I wanted to value it.
Since 2012, I have worked for three years as a Research Assistant/Grant Writer at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and another two years as the Senior Publishing Assistant of novels and journals at Common Ground Research Networks (CGRN). In these past 10 years, concurrently, I was a freelance editor. I am additionally certified by the University of Cambridge as Copy Editor, Editor, and Content Writer.
From the University of British Colombia, I am certified in Editing and Revision. Furthermore, because of my medical background and the fact that I graduated from UIUC with a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology, I am partial to science writing. So much so that I am completing my Master’s in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University.
So, I’ve had a wild ride. Still, I’m happy to be here. Nice to meet you.
What do you think is the biggest adversity facing brand marketers in 2022? Limited understanding of the current trends in marketing strategies. Because the world is constantly changing and technology is advancing, marketers need to remember that marketing methods from two years ago may not apply to this current year or month!
As such, brand marketers must keep their fingers on the pulse of trends in marketing. Resources like Sprout or SEMRush themselves are great tools.
What advice would you give to writers making the move to a freelance career? Being a freelance writer is as much writing as it is self-discovery. With that, be confident in your capacity to grow. If you know you can learn, challenge yourself with projects outside of your scope. Who knows, you may find out you are really into felt-making or satellite debris.
The world’s your oyster. You’ve picked a fun career!
What should brands know about working with a PowerPublish editor? Having a dedicated editor makes life easier for clients.
I had mentioned keeping up with marketing strategy trends as a weakness of current brand marketers. Working with a PowerPublish editor, you can rest easy knowing we keep up with marketing trends, so you don’t have to. With a personalized PowerPublish editor you can brainstorm together, utilize our SEO tools and get a second pair of eyes on the content that matters most to you.
Additionally, having that second point of contact in the workflow allows you to communicate the nuance of your product or service to a consistent helper. This will keep you worry-free because even if a writer changes or if your organization goes through any corporate restructuring, you’ll know your content can remain consistent.
What is the worst advice you’ve ever received? “You’re not going to make it if you keep choosing to do what makes you happy.”
I have no clue why this person just accepted giving up on their dreams and projected them to me, but that was the worst advice I ever got.
It’s literally not true. Don’t let anyone tell you your happiness is an option or impossible.
Everyone needs a break. What was the last book you read? It’s a little dense content-wise, but The Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb is an absolute bop!
It’s a non-fiction novel about the uncertainty of predictions in our current society. It’s truly a fascinating read. Since the Industrial Age began in the 18th century, scientists started relying on Gaussian risk analysis instead of Mandelbrot-Theory to quantify and predict outcomes scientifically or socially.
Gaussian risk analysis is partial to averages for establishing certainty. The damage of this overreliance on averages as a society has made us vulnerable to “black swan” events like market crashes, accidents, natural disasters, pandemics, etc. Additionally, certain studies that predict economic trends, for example, are highly unreliable when it comes to black swan events. Accidents don’t occur consistently. As such, these studies that rely on Gaussian risk analysis become unrealistic or useless in times of crisis. Ultimately, the “Scientific Method” itself has a vast hole in it in that it does not account for randomness or how to handle it.
Good read. ?