Week 3 update

So, week 3 of my new business! I thought I should let you know how things are going.

It’s been busy (I’m glad to say) with some interesting and very different projects booked in or possible in the weeks to come.

If you follow my business on Twitter, you’ll have seen some work in L.A. – this is radio and web production work – is now dependent on a sponsor. If it comes off, this’ll be a unique piece of work starring Karl Pilkington, see right.

So, if you know a business with some marketing spend which would be a good fit for Karl, please let me know!!

Closer to home. Much closer...the folk at Northumberland National Park, the beautiful land from Hadrian's Wall to the Scottish border, have hired me to speak to staff and volunteers about basic radio skills. We discussed the uniqueness of radio/audio as a medium and the different kinds of programme aswell as an introduction to writing, production and presenting.

It served as a particularly interesting session to those staff that’re used to being the other side of the microphone or asked to do down the liners with local radio. I explained how they need to prepare for their interviews in a similar way, whether they are interviewer or interviewee i.e. ask ‘what do I want to achieve from this interview’ and ‘what are the key questions / key messages I want to get across’.

The participants took part in practical tasks for writing and presenting and did brilliantly I have to say – even though they shared very different views on the merits of Simon Bates and John Humphries!! (Which went to demonstrate the very personal choices we make when tuning in.)

Further a field, as I reported before Christmas, I have some work booked with Czech Radio. These will be my first sessions through an interpreter which will be interesting. We’ll be focusing on investigative journalism.

What else, some likely training at the BBC and some more European work I hope.

So far, so good and I’m loving it!