First up was an event put on by journalism.co.uk called news:rewired – it’s a super-informative conference that discusses the future of the journalism industry. In this case we were chatting data journalism and social media, two things most definitely on my radar…

I was invited to join the lovely Journalism lot in planning and covering the event. I was responsible for live-blogging the sessions using Cover It Live, an impressive live-blogging platform program that has some pretty decent features. The speakers were delivering some real ear- and eye-opening content – I’d definitely recommend heading along to the next one (esp. young journos!) One of my favourite sessions is linked in the image below, but you can click on the links further down to see the rest!

Live: Keynote speech with Heather Brooke – talking about data journalism and the process of information scraping from public bodies – really interesting stuff about how the U.K. is difficult to manoeuvre for investigative journalists… Remember that Heather revealed the MP’s Expenses Scandal back in 2009!

Live: Session 2B – Social media strategy – With: Jack Riley, head of digital audience and content development, the Independent; Stefan Stern, director of strategy, Edelman; Mark Jones, global communities editor, Reuters News; Mark Johnson, community editor, the Economist. Moderated by Suw Charman-Anderson, social technologist.

Live: Session 3B – Knowing your audience - With: John Barnes, managing director of digital strategy and development, Incisive Media; Chris Duncan, director of customer management, News International; Ron Diorio, vice-president product and community development, the Economist (via video/Skype); Edward Barrow, chief technology officer, idio. Moderated by Tim Faircliff, general manager, Reuters Media.

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In other news, it’s full-steam with the Guardian; I’m flying with some commissions right now and picking up Tweets, comments and Facebook plugs on the pieces I’m providing for the GProfessional sector.

Highlights this week include:

The majority of my spare time has been devoted to the community journalism website. WannabeHacks is really growing and readily becoming an authoritative voice in the wannabe world; we’re picking up Twitter followers and Facebook fans every day and our content is really starting to show some disruption and innovation.

Take my piece on data journalism (beautifully tailored for the Royal Wedding I might add!) – it’s a great example of not only me spreading my wings, but also the site. After all, we’ve created WannabeHacks as a self-experiment; we have a go and let others in the same position learn from our successes and mistakes.

Data journalism turned out to be a great success, so much actually that Many Eyes – the program I used to present the piece - featured it on their homepage as a top example of using data in journalism. Top of the class and all that!

I’ve also been around a bit (ooh-err) at Men’s Health magazine for some work experience and to the First Post (The Week’s online counterpart) on the freelance desk writing content and hoarding bylines.

I’m also becoming a bit of an expert on the housing sector after writing a few more pieces for the Guardian Housing Network. My online portfolio for the national is filling up and one recent piece really pushed by boundaries and forced me to produce some of my best work so far!

The article was a review piece for a housing seminar at the Guardian offices. The seminar itself was a meeting of minds for the sectors biggest and best executives and financiers – I’ve got to admit I was a little out of my comfort zone, but I live-tweeted the event with absolute confidence and produced a piece on the future financing of the housing sector.

But if anything that’s a good thing because it means I’ve been busy. And busy I have been!

Firstly, I was fortunate enough to score some backstage press passes to London Fashion Week. I was glitzing and glamming it up with a shopping & style blog I write for on the sly and the rest of the team were LFW vets – they’d done a couple of tours already and were pumped for all the pretty faces and fashionistas.

I was really living a life of high-fashion for the week: I was rubbing shoulders with celebrities, having my photo taken a lot, meeting the reporting and model elite and writing some of the most enjoyable pieces I ever have!

Tween Tie-up London Fashion Week

Caroline Charles at Fashion Week

Another big contract I’ve just picked up is for a charity publication called Within REACH. The magazine itself is the official print publication for REACH: a not-for-profit charity that helps individuals and families affected by upper-limb deficiency.

What the charity need though is an online presence that can reach the younger members over certain social networks. That’s where I come in. Put simply, I’m going to be running and creating the site as well as commissioning, writing and editing content. We’re a couple of weeks away from the launch so keep your eyes peeled over at the site for the official drop.

I’ve also been keeping my hand in at the Guardian - one of my most recent pieces was for the Housing Professional Network on how mergers might save the smaller associations from the budget cuts. It was so well received I’m in line for another which I’m just making some adjustments too.

Check out my Guardian profile here…

And find my first housing piece here…

More updates to come soon! I promise…

Biggest news is that – in the last few weeks – I’ve managed to score a series with Guardian Careers:

It’s on getting graduates to reveal their industry insights. It should make for an informative and interesting set of pieces that mean I get to ‘do coffee’ a lot and meet people… Good times!

On top of that I’ve done my first piece for the excellent Fashion & Style section at The London Word…

And here’s also two pieces I wrote for Sartorial Male. One was a wonderful outing to CHASE PR studios in London Bridge – a preview piece on Paul Costelloe’s SS11 collecion – and the other was a review piece for Metique’s Tea Tree Oil range of products:

SS11 Style Preview – Paul Costelloe

Metique – Skin Wash and 100% Tea Tree Oil Review

Wannabe Hacks has also really been taking off: content is good; comments are good; the future is good. I also recently pushed our site’s podcasts – we’re trying to do as many as possible and perhaps team up with SoundCloud for a full-on account! Here’s some I podcasts I edited for the site… Listen below:

Podcast #3: Student Demo 2010

Podcast #2: Internships & Pay

Podcast #1: Student Media Love-in

We were joined by several industry professionals including Chris Wheal, Laura Oliver and John Stepek – not only was I able to hand out a little advice for fellow wannabe journos but I learned a lot in the info exchange.

On that note, I should be close to some new work at The Guardian online and also managed to get a foot-in with the commissioning editor at The Telegraph Sunday Supplement… I’ll keep you posted.

My fashion exploits have also been escalating; this week I was picked up by The London Word’s Shopping & Style section and added a review on Sartorial Male about VIE’s new Guardian Angel Skin Saving Balm…

Got to admit; the freebies do make the life a little less, well… hard.