What is wrong with my portfolio?

Okay, so it's almost time to send off my portfolio to The West Australian so what I've been doing is trying to update my portfoilio but also get it up online. Now, I'm hoping this will show the power that be that I'm not neccesarily a techno-wizard but I'm all for exploring ways I can use technology to reach new audiences.

The portfolio is basically a mix of everything I've done so far, which happens to be a pretty broad range. I also included some unpublished stuff I can't include in the actual West Australian application so that they can go to the site and see what I can do with features and business.

Okay, so what I did is scanned copies of articles I had onto my hard drive, and used Nitro PDF to publish stuff up on websites into a PDF file. Once I had the PDF files I wanted I used Scribd to upload the documents. Once I did that, I grabbed the embedding code from the site and put it into the site proper. Now, employers can go to the site and have my PDF examples loaded in-browser instead of downloading the file, finding the directory you downloaded the file to and waiting for the relevant app to open up.

It's a remarkably simple system, and I recommend it to any aspiring journalism as a way to get your portfolio 'out there' and show employers you're ready for "Web 2.0"...whatever that is.

Anyhow, you can find it here but what makes a good portfolio?

Well, the first thing people assume is that you want to show work from a broad range of areas. Well, that's certainly true but you've got to be mindful that you show a range which is broadly crap. By this I mean, don't throw something in there just because it shows you can write in a certain area because it will count against you if you're not fussy about what you choose to show people.

For example, I could have put in a couple of more feature articles into my portfolio but I didn't because I looked at it honestly and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't one of my best. Remember, ideally a portfolio is a sample of your best work, not just a sample of your work.

'Till next time.