Armed with skills, experience, and the feeling I was almost certainly doing the right thing, I began my post-Poached journalism internship this week.

What’s Up Information is a website dedicated to raising young people’s awareness of what’s happening in their area: be it a gig, show, exhibition, or training opportunity. Following on from my time with Poached, I have started an eight week internship in their office in Hackney.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the level of trust and confidence shown in me – and the considerable responsibility I have. On my first day, I found myself adding text and media content to the website and being asked my opinion on wording and layout. This, and possibly the large desk and impressive leather swivel-chair I had been given, made me feel like a valued team-member. I am heartened by the feeling my opinion is both welcomed and valued – it makes me feel positive and confident and gives me genuine faith in my ability. When this happens I tend to relax more, allowing more space in my brain for creative thoughts.

Self-doubt

My creative streak was certainly required for my task on Thursday. To improve the ‘My Borough’ segment of the site, I had found five little-known facts about the local area, and each one required a snappy headline. Good headline writing is a skill I have always appreciated, but maybe not quite as much as I do now. With more than a bit of assistance from project director Lucy, I managed to conjure up the five headlines needed, but only after some serious doubts over my creative capacity.

Getting to know the place

Delving into vast quantities of information about the surrounding area was of some personal benefit to me. As far as I can remember, I had never even been to Hackney before last week. Being a football fan, I knew all about Hackney Marshes and their continued significance in the development of future professionals, but that was about it. So I was surprised to learn Hackney is twinned with Bridgetown in Barbados, and is the only place in the UK where you can qualify as a professional clown.

New skills

With the possible exception of circus-related facts, I am already finding the knowledge and skills I learn here to be transferrable. I now know exactly how to embed pictures and videos into text, and even understand the most basic of HTML basics. This, along with headline writing, provides assistance in my monthly quest to make the Camden Calling newsletter a more attention-grabbing, professional looking piece of work. One day, eh?

Different, but similar

Like Camden Calling, What’s Up benefits communities and encourages expansion of the mind through new experiences. I have no doubt that making young people aware of the low-cost activities available to them locally is of benefit to society. Organisations like What’s Up mean a significant number of people will find new talents and interests – or find opportunities to pursue and develop existing ones.

Good choice!

With What’s Up, I seem to have found exactly what I was looking for: challenging, beneficial, thought provoking work in a creatively-stimulating environment. I certainly feel I made the correct decision – I just hope my stay here will be as productive as my time at Poached Creative.