You’d think, having taken almost two years to reclaim my website password from the guardians of the internet, that I’d have made more effort to update said website…
but who asked you anyway…
Still, here’s what you missed.
I helped this happen… I wrote the pitch, the script, did some editing, consulted, promoted and gave high fives all through the campaign…
I also helped these guys…
I wrote this… (and there’s a whole lot more to come…)
I also wrote a film script, loads of blogs, more content than you can count and all sorts of written sparkle… and some MEMES…
Speaking of blogs, here’s one I did earlier…
Oh and this…
I’ll write more soon… well, I might…
The internet has become the world’s most important resource for news. It has overtaken press groups and stock libraries to become the go-to destination for anyone wishing to know anything. Seconds after a world changing event, tweeted pictures and live streams bounce around the globe at the speed of fibre optic and nothing and no one is sacred.
Information Utopia at last? …if only
The problem with this sudden availability of info is that it doesn’t serve those who seek to control the flow of news and those who have this power have a hidden ace… namely us.
The media only needs to let us poison our well and the sudden powerful access we currently share will be worthless… in short, we need to stop sharing crap.
I am writing this article because of the sheer volume of spin, nonsense and disinformation I have come across on the internet recently and we really need to sort out how we are using our new super power.
So how do you spot a fake news story?
The answer is surprisingly simple and here are some tips to prevent the flow of crud.
1. Google it – Yep crazy as it sounds typing the baby eating story into Google is often enough to separate the fact from the fiction. For deeper analysis use Snopes and hoaxslayer too.
2. Check the date – This year I’ve seen pictures from the 1960’s Woodstock festival masquerading as peaceful pipeline protests in Aug 2016 and four-year-old war reports from Syria pretending to be tales from the front line. Human beings have been around for a long time and if you look hard enough you can find an image or a headline to fit pretty much any idea.
3. The devil is in the details – Beware of sensational headlines with vague details. If atrocities occur at least allow the victims to be remembered. Don’t fall for ‘a man from a village was eaten by ISIS.’ People like Donald Trump need people to be scared of ISIS and by spreading these awful tales you are only helping him and others like him. When terrible things happen records will exist. Name, age and location or it probably didn’t happen.
4. Check the source – This can be tricky for a number of reasons. For one it’s very easy for anyone to own a domain name and put up a slick looking news site and secondly, the state of the UK press means they are capable of just about anything. As a rule, crossreference the story. It’s unlikely that everyone bought it, so even if the BBC was daft enough to share it, Channel four or Reuters might have had some reservation.
5. Use your commonsense – We all have a built in bulls*it detector. If something is worrying you about a story, go with your gut and apply tips 1-4 until you discover the truth.
That’s it, go tell the world… the truth
*pic above creative commons
https://youtu.be/4zlzDzV7eVI it’s a slow burner, but I am happy with the way it came out
No not real fires… we’re talking about spiritual, metaphorical and technological fires… In other words crowd funding projects.
Here are some in which I have played a part.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cinder-iphone-6-curved-9h-gorilla-glass-protector
Cinder was my first success had it been up to the PR firm the company had hired Cinder would have been called Curve and probably lost forever in the Search Engine Jungle… I came up with the name, the pitch, the video concept and even the script…
Efoldie is a great invention; I worked a lot on the project and wrote a lot of the copy on the website. The Kickstarter above was cancelled, but only because the government made a u-turn on their promise not to tax the vehicle as a mobility aid. It later went on to smash over £100k on another crowd funding site.
I love the Aura Visor and it should be delivered any day now. I had a hand in the name and the campaign and I can’t wait to see the finished version.
So I’ve rescued my password from Microsoft and WordPress and finally managed to kick in the back door of this my personal website.
Many updates will follow… but before all that I think it’s high time I linked this little site to my Freelance Profile.
I was fortunate enough to have worked on this project… It’s a new project promising to deliver a taxi service for disabled users. I sincerely wish them the best
I loved this job and I hope I’ll be doing some more for More Case.
I am a freelancer, my roles and skills are many and varied and no two days are ever Groundhog Day.
Updating this site, sadly isn’t my one of my strong points so… in a bid to amend that, I am going to do a bit of catching up…
Firstly I have begun specialising in writing crowd funding pitches. I written about 20 now and they are a bit like snowflakes… no two are alike, some may vanish before the morning and others might be the start of a great avalanche.
Anyway I’ve caused two avalanches this week and I’m feeling a little bit tickled about it.
One of them is wrapped up in a 8 page NDA, but the other is here and as of this moment has just hit 57% funding in under 5 days…
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cinder-the-holy-grail-of-iphone6-glass-protection#home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idBTyAbXYHU
I wrote the campaign, came up with the name, the tagline, the video concept and I even wrote the video script. I wish them best of luck and I’m confident they will smash their target. (EDIT… they DID beating it by 200%)
The other (which I can’t name) netted its commissioners 2 meetings with world leading angel investors a day after they submitted and their future is looking peachy keen.
In other news, I have been working with Lewes based Specialist Language Courses on their medical based language course as producer and engineer. This time I take no credit for the writing, but merely the directing, recording and editing of course elements and of course the audio for the video which you can see here… (well I did the voiceovers at any rate)
The other bit of news this weeks was my Sci Fi fashion guide is finally in print in the wonderful Space Monsters Magazine… here I am proudly clutching my copy.
You can get your paws on one here!
I have also wandered into the world of memes and I shall be presenting them sporadically.
And I promise I will be better at updating my website…
And today is a day for Memes… I commissioned the first two and created the last two enjoy…
intheventofire 