The Journalist

One of J’s friends, Alex, trained as a journalist and now does a lot of freelance work using  new media. I’ve never met him myself but thanks to J, and Alex’s website, I know something of what he is up to and am impressed at his initiative and independence. He had a big break back in the spring when he created a website to report the G20 protest in real time – video footage and Tweets from the demonstration were beamed back to the site as soon as they had been recorded. The site got 80,000 hits and some of its footage was picked up by the BBC.

Today Alex and four other journalists are launching The Berlin Project, which is based on a similar ethos to the G20 Live site. To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November, the team will be publishing seven days of coverage, using techniques which they claim are “markedly different from standard TV, radio, and print journalism”. That means using smartphones to push content straight on to the project’s website from around the city.

There’s already content up about the iconic Ampelmann, the Turkish community and of course the wall, so take a look at www.theberlinproject.com

Autumn inspiration

Our neighbours got creative with their pumpkins this year. These orange lovelies were lined up on the wall outside our house the morning after Halloween.

Finally ready for commitment?

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve always found it difficult to commit to pursuing any one particular job or tying myself down to a profession. Well, it looks like I might be in danger of doing just that.

This last month has been busy busy. At the beginning of October I was suddenly propelled from long days of unemployed boredom into a whirlwind of flat moving and full-time work.

I should clarify that this was more unpaid, temporary work; but of my many internships this has been one of the more exciting ones. I have been working at a digital creative agency.

Of course I had the usual mundane tasks to get through – in this case data entry and product testing. But I also learned about the process of pitching to clients, and took part in trendy media agency-style ‘Ideas sofa’ sessions where the team threw wacky ideas around and doodled on big sheets of paper. Part of the reason the company take on interns is to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in new media. This meant doing lots of fascinating research which really opened my eyes to how dramatically digital media are changing the way we live. Just think about how much Facebook and YouTube have altered our ways of socialising in a few years. Then imagine what could be to come.

Fellow intern Charlie and I condensed some of our research into a blog post about the potential and problems of real time search. With Google and Microsoft striking deals with Twitter just the other week, it was quickly out of date. But that’s real time for you – easily outpacing anyone foolish enough to write with more than 140 characters…

But it’s exactly this changeableness which excites me about new media. The market is so dynamic that there’s always something new to learn. And learning is what I really enjoy. So I’ve been considering doing some kind of training in web design… For me, that kind of commitment would be completely new.

Job Hunt Hate

Argh, job hunting. Everyone hates it. But here are the two reasons for my particular brand of hunt hate. Perhaps you identify with one or both of them.

1.  I don’t know what I want to do.

I have never had a clear idea of what profession I want to work in. As young as fifteen, at least one of my friends had picked A-levels that would lead on to a medical degree and ultimately a job as a doctor. Eight years later and I still haven’t made a commitment like that. But to this day I am told that my unplanned approach is not a problem. Many acquaintances have told me they still don’t know what they want to be, and up until now I did indeed feel that this was a positive thing; that I was an all-rounder with a wide range of interests.

But in an ocean of job vacancies, it helps to have some kind of destination in mind…

So far I have only one fixed requirement – that I be in London. I am pretty much fixed on getting paid as well, but even that isn’t set in stone if I come across an amazing internship. I am keen to find temp work just to get myself out of my rut but I’m far from ruling out permanent positions. Any position that requires one or more of the following interests me: fluency in French, an interest in new media, a relatively modest amount of admin experience, a passion for literature, theatre or history, or experience of radio or broadcasting. Which is why my browser quickly gets overrun with tabs all fighting for attention.

2.  Every recruiter wants experience that I don’t have

I feel that I’ve managed to notch up a fair amount of work experience during and after university. I’ve had a couple of admin jobs, been a waitress, had unpaid placements in the media, worked in France and produced a play.

Even so, (and I know I’m not exactly the first to realise this) trying to get your first proper paid job is a catch-22 situation: you can’t get a job until you have the right experience, which you can only get by having the job… It is of course possible to get round this by carefully building up useful experience gradually. Trouble is, because I have never known what I want to do with my life (see point 1) the experience I have acquired is too varied; I don’t have enough in any one sector to make me a viable candidate for a job. I’m loath to do more unpaid work just to get experience, so where do I go from here?

But to end on a more positive note, while I’ve found most recruitment websites frustrating I would recommend the government’s Graduate Talent Pool where you can search for internships – crucially, including paid ones. Also worth a look is ratemyplacement.co.uk although I’ve only scanned it so far.

Gecko at Bar Music Hall

On Thursday night J and I went to see his brother Will playing at Bar Music Hall in Shoreditch. When faced with going to places like Shoreditch I sometimes mix up my clothes in odd combinations, my theory being that I will look unique and quirky. Unfortunately last night I somehow ended up looking like I was off to work at a smart/casual office. Hardly quirky. Next time I try this experiment I’ll take a photo and ask for feedback.

Anyway, on to the important bit. I’ve seen Will play quite a few times now. His band Gecko is composed of him on lead vocals/guitar and his best friend Si on bass, plus a rotating team on drums, backing vocals and accompanying instruments. Last night the band was in one of its smaller incarnations and the audience dispersed around the bar, but I was impressed by the energy and confidence on stage. I think Will is really developing as a performer as he notches up the gigs (at 21, he has already played an impressive number of venues).

I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of the name Gecko, but I am a fan of the music, which is catchy, playful, at times moving, and genuinely original. Will is influenced by acoustic, pop, rock, ska, reggae and African music and the way he delivers his lyrics verges on rap, à la Jamie T. His sense of humour comes across strongly in many of his songs as he throws in surprising images and plays with tenuous rhymes. His more straightforwardly light-hearted stuff doesn’t always work for me, but when his wit, clever wordplay and prosaic images are mixed with themes like ambition, friendship or heartbreak his songs become something really special.

Here’s a clip, but I recommend checking out www.myspace.com/gecko as well and giving him a few listens.

Manifesto, or What is This?

Appropriately enough, the Gradlands blog was inspired by a job vacancy. I was applying for the position of ‘Media Trainee’ in a company specialising in online programming but my chances of getting it were slim. I am fascinated by the power and potential of new media but I have only recently caught the bug and am no expert in iPhone apps or Cloud Computing. Although I have been developing a website over the last six months (www.picaresque-play.co.uk), it was only yesterday that I gasped “This Spotify thing is amazing!” and started crunching down website addresses to cute little nuggets in TinyURL. So rather than leading the pack, you find me here, squashed up against the door in a very crowded bandwagon.

So you see why I have decided to create Gradlands; as a means to better understand website creation. But what is it going to be about? Well, my kind of blogging, like charity, starts at home. What I want to do is write about the exciting, terrifying, and uncertain period of finding-your-feet after graduating. My friends and I are living through that experience right now.

I cannot hope, and wouldn’t try, to represent all recent graduates out there, but I would like this to be more than a self-portrait. Part of what makes post-graduation an interesting time is that friends you have made during all those years growing up are now going in different directions. My friends want to be artists, surgeons, writers, riding instructors, lawyers, musicians and all sorts of other jobs that are difficult to define in one word. Some want kids and some don’t. Some want money and others need more than anything to express themselves. But their plans, interests and ambitions continue to change. I hope Gradlands will be a series of snapshots of people choosing their own paths, but perhaps also one of the strings holding them together.

I don’t want to define the post-graduation phase too narrowly. For some people it is a training scheme which may lead to a steady job. For others it’s further studies. For some graduates, including me, it is a mixture of internships, temporary work and unemployment. My generation are suffering the consequences of economic implosion. The papers refer to those of us who are out of work as a ‘lost generation’ (apparently there are a frightening 835,000 of us). It is almost impossible not to be daunted by the headlines and stats. But we struggle on, sending out CVs and traipsing off to interviews in our smartest clothes and comfiest pants (or is that just me?)

So Gradlands is about learning, making decisions, developing, and being ambitious about the future. That is why it is appropriate that it was inspired by the desire to get an interesting job. But it’s also about friendship, and how our personal lives intertwine with those ambitions. And perhaps that’s the tricky bit.