2009 May 30 | The Adventures of Scribbleboy

You’ve stuck with me through job applications, jobs rejections, actual jobs and temp work so it seems like you deserve a read of this. As promised, here is my application for my dream job, a Social Media Internship out in Asia with Ogilvy PR.

While I was writing this and since I’ve sent it off I’ve been reading through all the pages on what Ogilvy and Thomas Crampton do. I said to Baines, “These people must be big, they’ve worked with the Smurfs.“ When I said that this afternoon it was a flippant comment, now it’s starting to sink in how big they are.

As this is a social networking job I’ve started following Thomas Crampton on various social networking sites. On my LinkedIn profile I class myself as a journalist based on a year’s worth of a journalism degree, an NCTJ Law qualification and a handful of articles published in the local press. Then I looked at Thomas Crampton’s about page, feeling a little humbled right about now.

Hi Thomas,

Two of the key things I love in life are travelling and meeting new people. Last year I spent the most amazing summer of my life backpacking around Asia with four friends from university.

Starting off in Shanghai, we headed across China and into Tibet before flying to Hong Kong. Along the way I walked part of the Great Wall, admired the terracotta army, travelled to Everest Base Camp and saw the world’s largest seated Buddha statue carved into a mountainside.

For six weeks Lonely Planet China was my Bible and this along with the help of the locals allowed me to learn a lot about the culture. My friend took thousands of pictures and I documented the trip by selecting and captioning the best ones in Facebook albums.

Since I returned from Asia, social media has allowed me to keep in touch with a lot of the people that I met along the way and has helped to improve my life in the UK, this very job was recommended to me by one of my followers on Twitter.

I joined Twitter back in February and since then have amassed over 150 followers, making me the seventh most popular Twitterer in my area. In this time I have experimented with a wide variety of Twitter clients, favouring TweetDeck for Windows and Gwipper for Ubuntu (TweetDeck still seems to be having teething issues with 64 bit Ubuntu and Gwipper gives me the option to add additional micro-blogging sites).

I tweet each of my blog posts with the hashtag #scribblog and it is for this reason that my favourite short URL service is ow.ly. I can use ow.ly in conjunction with Hootsuite to monitor my stats and see which links are the most popular. Hootsuite is also used by friends at my local newspaper to manage multiple accounts and has proven to be very useful.

My blog www.scribbleboy.co.uk is a record my life and my attempts to complete challenges as suggested by readers. I update the blog regularly and spend a lot of time playing around with WordPress plugins, trying to get them to both work properly and be standards compliant.

Alongside my passion for social media and blogging I also have a set of well developed traditional communication skills. I currently work with Totem Films, a media production company, as a freelance writer. I work in a office environment and spend a lot of time approaching potential clients via email. I am also responsible for drafting any necessary press releases and most recently have written a short piece for The Main Event (the industry magazine for event organisers) about what companies need to consider when commissioning a promotional video of their event.

I am currently based in the UK but would love to move. I have attached a copy of my CV to showcase some of my more traditional skills and have listed all my contact details below. I look forward to hearing from you soon,

We’re not even a sentence in and some of you are already eyeing the adorable blue bird opposite like he’s a ravenous vulture and you’re a desert-ridden animal in its death throes. Yes, I’ve written about Twitter before. Yes, I’ve written about Twitter again. And yes, I’m going to write about it a third time.

If that really is so objectionable to you why not join the debate about gender roles and the Bible that is taking place on Baines’ blog. Or check out Gingell’s most recent run. She seems to be pushing herself more recently and is truly glowing in these pictures (and I don’t mean that as a euphemism for sweating profusely, more that she genuinely seems to enjoy exercise and this shines through). You could even catch up on Guy’s travel diary (how do I know you’re behind? Call it a hunch).

On a side note, the adorable blue bird to the right (plus the one to the left) were drawn by the good people at webdesign.fm. They are featured in a good selection of free Twitter icons at creativeNERDS.co.uk.

The internet may be a disturbing place to visit but Twitter is one of the nicer communities to pass through. When I last wrote about Twitter I mentioned that @david_elks had tweeted my blog and when I duly thanked him I received the response, “Ney probs. I thought your blog was amusing, you’re local so I linked to you. Isn’t that how it works? :)”

Well, yes I guess so, just I’m not used to internet communities being so nice. @estelledarlings tweets tips such as;

Smile and say hi to someone when they look like they wanna speak with you on the train/bus, crossing the street.

find someone you haven’t spoken to in a while – get their address (could be 15 min away) and write them a letter.

Call someone when they text you. in stead of answering (use ure free minutes!!)

@fattybellybella had her tweeple writing themselves notes, which are simultaneously really positive and really schizophrenic.

Dear Self: when I grow up, I wanna be just like you

Dear Britt, Everyone can’t see the weight that’s on your shoulders but I see it and I’m behind you holdin it right with you.

dear self, just smile. It can’t last forever. Listen to your mom. Cheaper isn’t always better. Stay away from open bars

But this world is made up of more than black women that sing (so I’m told), it’s made up of people that always seem to be there to share juicy gossip, newsy tidbits and dirty jokes. People who want to make sure my transition to Ubuntu is as smooth as possible and that my gran doesn’t get a lousy present for her birthday.

One of my favourite followers at the moment is @nci1, not only did she tweet me the quiz below when I asked for blog suggestions but she also tweeted me my dream job. The first sentence of the job description is “You love it, live it and would crawl across broken glass to spend all day working learning about Social Media across Asia.” This weekend I’m going to be sending off my application and like all my other employment attempts I’ll be sharing it with you, right here on the blog.

In the mean time let’s do this quiz.

The idea is that you take the first two words of each sentence, for example “Jonathan is” (obviously use your own name here), put them in quotation marks and put them into Google. Then paste the first result to wherever you post such stuff. Comedy ensues.

Jonathan is no longer in solitary confinement but prison life remains harsh

I’m too pretty for prison life, I shudder to think of the shower time favours I’d be performing just to keep myself in lipstick for when people came to visit.

Jonathan looks into beauty

Jonathan has been working with transgenic plants for 20 years

Isn’t the top result but the first one that made any kind of sense. You’d think in 20 years I’d have learnt what transgenic means, sometimes I am such a blagger.

Jonathan thinks we all went away

Jonathan needs someone to talk to

The top result is really “Jonathan needs a C compiler” but this one seemed funnier. Since I moved in with Gingell and Baines, two people comfortable with silence and adverse to mindless chatter, I’ve come to realise how much I need conversation. A talkative nature is the second trait I’ve discovered that almost all of my friends have, that and brutal honesty.

Jonathan wears his engineer’s cap to drive his virtual train

Jonathan says “I’m leaving this morning”

This sounds unlikely. The word “morning” clearly suggests I’d be sleeping.

Jonathan asks gas association to support government

Jonathan Wants Co-Stars To Get Naked Without Whining!

I can’t stand actresses who won’t take their clothes off. It drives me nuts. I want to cut their ears off. If it says in the script you’re naked, be naked, instead of moaning and saying, ‘I really don’t want to show my tits, I don’t want to show my arse.’

Jonathan Loves Snowballs

Jonathan Likes It Hard, Good

A lot more innocent than it sounds. This link is safe for work but then I’d be surprised if anything this boring wasn’t. I still don’t know what would compel anyone to write it.

Jonathan eats Qarly’s head flesh

Man eats fruit in comical manner with sexual undertones.

Jonathan was delighted with the show

and on that note tweet dreams,

@scribbleboy