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    Al Spicer

    Al Spicer

    Author / Editor

    London, United Kingdom

    I'm an experienced and reliable wordsmith, with a background in a wide variety of business andsocial organisations. I’m currently working as Stakeholder Communications Executive...Read moreI'm an experienced and reliable wordsmith, with a background in a wide variety of business andsocial organisations. I’m currently working as Stakeholder Communications Executive for a TV company. I used to edit the quarterly magazine of the Civil Service Retirement Fellowship and presently have responsibility for the online presence and print production for an independent vintners. Other recent clients include Dennis Publishing, Darnley Career Academy, Basildon District Council Haymarket Customer Publishing. I frequently contribute both writing and editing at Rough Guides, I’ve also recently assisted in the redesign and provision of copy for the corporate website of an important Hampshire retail centre and, in association with English Partnerships, worked on the design, layout and editorial of publicity and marketing materials for an outer London borough.
    I’ve worked on the BBC’s online music channels since the late 1990s and I’m the writer of 100 Essential Rock CDs (published Rough Guides 1999) and the Rough Guide To Punk (pub 2006), and joint editor of their Playlists and Rock Music titles.


    Area Covered: London
    Work Experience Summary: My last full-time role was as Editor in Chief of a set of 3rd party websites:
    • In charge of editorial content across Affinity’s stable of wholly-owned sites at www.breathe.com, www.BlueCarrots.com and www.myTaxi.com.
    • I was responsible too for the e-commerce content on managed web presences for Powergen, Eastern Electricity, West Midlands Co-op, Compaq Computers, Tiny Computers, Royal Bank of Scotland and other nationally-known corporations
    • On taking control of editorial I oversaw a streamlining of overheads and procedures that dramatically cut production costs whilst increasing audience size.
    • My role required me to establish myself in totally new areas • from adult products to teeny pop music • by building relationships with the major players in online promotion, interviewing some of the top names in entertainment and by delivering what I promise, always within budget and always on time.
    • I developed relationships with the major corporates above, as well as on new business leads - including WHSmith, the Mall UK chain, Bluewater, Brigantia, e-yield, Chalkface, Farmers Weekly, Click4home, First-e, Rivals, Computer Week, itsWine, Chalkface and Plymouth Online, encouraging them to think of breathe as a premier route to market for major names and new releases, whilst keeping the independent sector onside to maintain breathe’s edgy’ sensibility.
    • A key element of my role was research, and reporting on developments in the fields of technology, music and film / TV entertainment.
    • As editor in chief, I was responsible for a team of 5 full-time staff including several new-starters who I mentored through their earliest steps in editorial and who went on to achieve success both within Affinity and outside.

    Areas in which I excelled in this role
    • Creativity • I developed content planning and development systems to cooordinate publication across a chain of related websites. I wrote the bulk of the content published in the last 18 months and sourced new areas as suggested by site demographics
    • Targets - responsible for the provision of compelling and timely content and consistently exceeded my production targets
    • Team Work • As the ideas-man of choice’ for marketing and sales team brainstorming sessions, I created an editorial department from scratch and oversaw the merging of that department with a production team and marketing division.
    • Communication • I was frequently called in as corporate copywriter to ensure that marketing communications and press releases were pitched correctly.
    • Career Progress • taken on initially as web-editor to a small e-commerce site, I gained promotion to corporate editor in chief in less than 2 years.

    Before this, and going back to the earliest days of mass-usage internet, I had responsibility for Rough Guides electronic presence. I built the first brochureware’ site for , and was closely involved with its growth and development, helping shape the look and functionality of the huge second-generation site that was in place when I left. These technical issues were however secondary to my role in creating the music departments of the RG, where I was online music editor and editor of the RG to Rock (book and website).
    I moved to Rough Guides after 10 years spent in the foreign language industry, training adults with widely differing employment backgrounds (from Iranian PetroChemical engineers to South Korean service industry staff) and from all over the world. I started as an EFL teacher in 1982, and was promoted through supervisory, teacher-training and management positions at some of the best-known institutions in the business (including Berlitz • where I wrote a teacher-training course and several Teachers’ Guides - Linguaphone and Regent Schools), before transferring into publishing in the early 80s. I boosted my income from teaching with translation and corporate voice over work, where I would be required to turn an Italian presentation or showreel into equally effective and appropriate English before going into the studio.


    Education Summary: SKILLS, EDUCATION AND TRAINING
    I’m an expert user of Windows and Macintosh computers, of Microsoft Office and all end-user applications for the internet (including image-manipulation and web-management tools). I’m a trained and experienced writer of training materials and instruction manuals, and have delivered in-house training and tutoring to new employees. I was involved in staff training and management in various capacities for more than fifteen years. My full-time education took place at Roan Boys Grammar School Blackheath, London, SE3, where I gained 4 A’ Levels and 9 O’ Levels.
    Since then, I’ve concentrated on purely practical topics including TOPS Computer Programming (COBOL), Macintosh Troubleshooting and numerous application-specific courses (including Quark, PageMaker, Photoshop, Word, Dreamweaver etc) taken throughout my career in print and online publishing

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    editingproofreadingsales lettersCopywritingjournalismletter writingmarketing writingsalesman

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