I normally consider this blog something rather personal, a place to express my thoughts. But more people know of me thanks to this blog, and thanks to some of the projects I have managed to launch here, than through anything else I do. Long term professional connections, and plenty of friendships as well, are somehow tied to this blog. Plus I’ve also always tried to use this blog for open collaboration, to test my ideas, and to make the most of the knowledge of my readers.

With all of that in mind, I need your suggestions. I need a job.

Or, to put it more precisely, I need to make some change to the work that I do. I also don’t think that most of the people who’d ever read this blog would possibly think I was even looking for work – hence the openness of this blog entry.

I’ve essentially been self employed for almost a decade, and in the last few years my paid work has almost uniquely been running training courses about online communications for political purposes. But as online communications and social media have become more and more paid media, rather than earned media, I am starting to face some ethical difficulties in my work – I did not end up in this business to spend my time explaining how to do Facebook advertising campaigns. Also I am beginning to reach the limits of what can be done with short (1 or 2 day long) training courses – I can explain the technology or outline a content strategy in that time, but I cannot really see change in the organisations I work for. That needs cultural change, and you cannot do that in a day or two of training.

So what do I want?

I am not sure I want a regular job (the flexibility of freelance life suits me well), but I am looking for some contracts are are a bit longer and a bit deeper than the ones I have at the moment. Some more financial stability would also be very welcome.

I am based in Berlin and like it here; I’d ideally like to spend more time in Berlin and not have to travel somewhere every single week, but if there are good opportunities somewhere other than Berlin of course I will go there.

I have a bunch of skills that ought to be useful – I can write (if 2000 blog posts and 600000 words here are anything to go by, plus numerous things published elsewhere), and I know how to make social networking function in politics. I know how to organise campaigns and to build networks. English is my mother tongue and I can speak French and German. I can do press and media outreach work, and appear on television and radio. I have really detailed knowledge of how the EU works, and have followed the Brexit issue incredibly closely. When it comes to policy fields, I know my way around EU environmental and transport policy (especially rail). I know how party politics functions, and I have experience working with high level politicians. I know how to moderate and facilitate events, and to run training courses and workshops. As well as working in professional training I teach students at the College of Europe, Bruges (and have given guest lectures at a dozen other universities). I know how to build websites and do server admin to host them.

So might you know an organisation or someone who might be able to use those skills? If so then do drop me a line.

(Note: if you are a client of mine who happens to be reading this, don’t worry. I am not about to abandon my current work. Just view this as an invitation that you might find other ways to use my skills!)