A friend of mine in London, the musician and filmmaker, Philip Clemo, is completing a film, based, in part, on some gorgeous filming from a helicopter with a state of the art camera system. The trailer is below, for your perusal and enjoyment. You can see more examples of his film work, as well as sample and purchase his music from his site at: philipclemo.com
Category Archives: London
Ten jobs for the price of one
Even though I moved to Australia almost two years ago I still get the occasional email form London, UK Recruiters. I usually bin them after I tell them I moved and they should drop me off their list. The following I just HAD to post as it would have been an insult were it not real. They obviously dug out my 1999 CV as there’s no way I would have included Quark after that time.
I do have experience in all of these, I just can’t imagine I would happily take on all these roles at once without a 70% share in the company!
Roles I discovered in the requirements:
- Senior Business Analyst
- Graphic Designer
- Quark Designer
- Database Manager
- Web developer (front and back end)
- Website editor
- Information Architect
- Workflow/Traffic manager
- Project Manager
- QA, Fact Checking, Copywriter
In fact it made me think it might have even been lost in a time warp from 1999, because of the Quark/Filemaker and FrontPage/Dreamweaver references.
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Dear Joseph
Contract Vacancy – Senior Analyst – Quark Xpress production
(N.B. If you are interested please respond with your availability, required rate and an up to date CV asap)
Your details are currently on our database, and your skillset has brought your name forward in my search.
Please let me know by return e-mail whether the role attached is relevant/of interest you:
Role: Senior Analyst
Location: Surrey
Reference: xxxxxxx
Start date: asap
Duration: 12 months
Salary/Rate: Excellent rates for the desired level of experience
Global Investments Management Company are searching for a Senior Analyst for a contract role based in Surrey.
Purpose of your role
In this role, the candidate will be responsible for the co-ordination, technical graphic development and production of business related materials like fact-sheets, performance reports, fund reviews, peer-group graphs etc. within tight monthly deadlines. The jobholder will also assist in the identification and implementation of online efficiency improvements. The role also involves working very closely with other team members and across different departments to assist in the implementation of projects relating to fund reporting and business related publications.
Key accountabilities:
- To build Quark documents using automated and semi-automated processes, perform manual amends as required and produce PDF output for director level sign-off, translation, printing and shareholder mailing.
- With other team members to support and develop FileMaker and SQL database systems for publishing purposes.
- To assist in the building and maintenance of departmental website.
- Prioritisation of allocated workload to meet objectives and ensure accuracy, quality and timely production of reports.
- Assist in the co-ordination of timetables and work within agreed stakeholder and legal filing deadlines.
- Maintain strong liaisons with stakeholders to obtain required input data and information.
- Proof read and peer review of reports.
- Ensure procedures are kept up to date and followed within the daily production processes.
- Establish and maintain strong relationships and process understanding towards external suppliers.
- Assist in the identification and implementation of efficiency improvements
- Assist in the day to day (style-sheet, grid, colour management, library) improvements of existing quark templates.
- Assist in the implementation of project initiatives cross all stakeholder teams.
Skills and experience:
Essential skills:
- Strong QuarkXpress (Mac platform) production experience using style sheets, grids and libraries
- Strong PC experience, including Excel and Word
- Working experience using FileMaker or SQL databases
- Working experience of website builds using FrontPage/Dreamweaver, HTML, on IIS.
- Ability to work to deadlines in a fast moving multi-project environment (Strong multi-tasking ability)
- Methodical approach with excellent attention to detail
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills (daily international interaction with people from all levels)
- Positive attitude, flexible and adaptable to constant change
- Strong planning and organisational skills
- Inquisitive and problem solving interest and skills
- Teamwork, commitment and self driven personality
Desirable skills:
- Exposure to MS Projects, MS Access, Oracle
- Exposure to .Net technologies; ASP and PHP.
- Exposure to financial services industry
- Appreciation of Project Management methodology
- Interest in foreign languages
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE REPLY BY E-MAIL ASAP (ideally) with an up to date CV.
Should you no longer be available please supply your latest CV, your availability details, preferred role, location and rates etc in order that we can update our records.
If this is not currently of interest to you, but may be to a current or former colleague, please feel free to pass my details on.
Best regards,
A Recruiter
Consultant
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If you know anyone who might be interested, let me know. I think he’s having trouble filling the role. 😉
The invisible mayor
For those of you not in London, there is a very heated mayoral election campaign on at the moment, of comparable intensity to the current US Democratic party campaign. For the first time, there are presentable options to the incumbent and it no longer feels like a one horse race, as it was the previous two elections.
So what has the London mayoral election got to do with the WWW?
Quite a lot if you want to talk about user-centred design, accessibility, and public transport (they don’t call it the Information Superhighway for nothing).
Y’see, the incumbent, Ken Livingstone, is someone who elicits passionate opinions like no other candidate has. Pretty much everyone in London knows him and what he looks like and either thinks he is great and has done a great deal for London, or he is a megalomaniac who is eroding our individual rights. Those who know me know what I think. He is a keen supporter of public services across the capital, and has implemented imaginative and controversial schemes, like charging cars £8 GBP per day to drive a car in the capital.
I get the opportunity to see mayor Ken quite a bit as he lives in my neighbourhood and uses the same tube station as me, and I often ask myself how many major world cities has a powerful, well-paid mayor taking the tube/subway to work, sharing the experience of the public transport system with the rest of us? I am certain no other equally public figure shares this activity in London. Particularly interesting in light of the fact that several people over the years have placed bombs on public transport, from the IRA in the 70’s to their more eastern bretheren in the noughties.
So how does he cope? Easy – no one bugs him because he never catches anyone’s eye and focuses on himself. It is amazing how invisible he can make himself. It is an amazing example of someone both accessible and invisible, perfectly open to be approached, but never, at least in my presence, actually approached.
So as a user, he knows the transport system personally, as a mayor he is accessible, yet as an individual he is invisible and remote.
Quite a trick!