Knotch connected with Taha Ebrahimi, Director, Tableau Public for our "Own Your Voice" series to hear her story, and to learn what drives Taha in her career.
My story started as soon as I could speak because I needed to invent and imagine a space for myself. I'm the first person on both sides of my family to be born in the US, so I didn't feel like I had the authority to totally own my Iranian story (I have the worst American accent when I speak in Farsi!) and, even though I was a book-worm growing up, I wasn't always confident I'd pronounce big English words correctly when I spoke out loud. I loved telling my own stories because it gave me ownership and helped me feel like I could belong. I started out as a journalist for The Seattle Times.
I was given the opportunity early in my career to start a marketing/communications department for a publicly-traded company. At first, I wasn't sure if I would know how to do something like that, but then I realized that all marketing was essentially storytelling. It suddenly clicked for me that I had always been "marketing" and it was something I definitely knew how to do. I'll always be grateful for that leap-of-faith confidence in my abilities and the opportunity to prove myself.
My mom taught me empathy and optimism, and my dad taught me to interrupt early and often.
The best content is always about people - find a way to fit a person into every piece.
I love Joan Didion's line, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
