The elevator pitch would be: Five young men. Five vastly different career paths. One capital city. All wannabe hacks and it is exciting times for us.

The best thing about this project (despite the scope and ambition behind it) is it is my project, or at least one fifth mine. Along with the friends I graduated with we have set out to tell the story of our journeys with heavy dose of introspective analysis, industry advice and a dash of humour and hubris.

We really hope the project will grow into a definite resource – we intend not only to write about our own experiences, but to have guest posts, interviews – to link to resources, tools, ideas, discussion and debate.

We desperately want to have a say in the ‘new journalism’ that our world is currently developing and we strong believe the best way to do this is to engage in the conversation and help frame the discussion.

So check out the project, subscribe – follow us (@wannabehacks) and join in with the journey.

Now that is not strictly true, a couple of weeks work experience here and an interview or two there (fingers crossed) but nothing concrete or confirmed. A large part of that is I am not quite sure what I want to do. I know my passion lies in journalism – my undying love for Redbrick and the experiences I had with the paper have taught me that. Yet I am not sure where within journalism, especially in this world of uncertainty within the media industry.

However, I see the intense fluctuations within journalism and the problems born of a collapsing business model coupled with a recession as opportunity. Humans are never more resourceful and inventive than when the chips are down. Creating something clever, special and truly entrepreneurial requires inventiveness – driven by lack of resources and an industry full of naysayers. I want to be a part of this new journalism. We pushed the boundaries of student journalism, community building and engagement and student access to information at Redbrick in this last year, inspired by people like Nick Booth and organisations as varied as Help Me Investigate through to the Guardian.

These ideals and ideas can only be grown and expanded upon.

I have friends taking post grads in journalism, but this is not a path that has attracted me. I think that if I had the money for a postgrad I would look to train myself in the skills I think I need; I have always loved photography – I would take a course to improve my final product. I would learn CSS3 and buy the equipment I need to produce rich and varied multimedia content. I want to be a complete story-teller and each time I want to tell a story in a way it has never been told before and indeed, in a way that I never have told a story before.

Yet the project I want to do most in the world is ambiguous and undefined. I have walked away from Redbrick with friends for life, but even more than that, people I trust to work with. I trust their work ethic, their inventiveness and their intuition. The time is ripe for something new and I am aware of some great projects both in the States and here in the UK, but I still think there is plenty of space for new ideas. We just don’t have one yet.

This doesn’t bother me though, ideas will come and many will fail, but I am confident that what has been christened #projectlondon for lack of a better name has ‘legs’, it just needs a body and some brains. In the meantime I will keep looking to expand on my experience within the industry and engage in the conversations that are taking place.

People such as Nick Booth, Joanna Geary and Christian Payne took the time to speak to me and my colleague Pete Blakemore, they were happy to pass on advice and have been happy to answer a tweet or email asking for help in the last year as well.

Unfortunately this blog has lost all the observations I made post Jeecamp last year, so I will do my best to summarise them now:

• I came away thinking the future was about engaging our readers better, Christian and Joanna suggested we think of them as ‘participators’ or ‘contributors’ rather than readers, which suggests a one-way relationship.

• I knew we needed to be introducing projects that were of value to our ‘readers’ as well as good journalism, which is where ideas such as the Selly Oak Crime Map originated.

• We wanted to build a community around Redbrick using social media, getting students involved in the process of analysis and comment after the fact.

• I thought we needed to be experimenting with all the mediums available to us through the web. There was no reason we shouldn’t be live blogging sports games and tweeting and interviewing using Audioboo.

So, what does Jeecamp hold for me this year? – I am a third year, so I am graduating; I will no longer be involved in Redbrick so I will not have as direct an output to test out ideas. However I am sure that Jeecamp will show me a new way of thinking about old problems, it will offer the opportunity to connect with individuals who are trying to navigate their way through the murky world of journalism and I am sure it will leave me just as excited about the potential for the future as it did last year.

I don’t know what I will be doing in 6 months time; I do know I would like it to be a project of my own. I think journalism is in such a state of flux at the moment that it is time for it to redefined, (as some people are doing) I want to be helping to shape the future of journalism, not training myself in the ways of the past.

When saying this to a friend the other day, she asked me what I thought that future is, I said:

• The future is niche, specialist content, it is local and it is data driven.
• It is about conversations and discussion and debate with your audience.
• It is about empowering people with data and knowledge.
• It is about collaboration and sharing.

These are the components I think will be at the core of what is to come and I don’t just want to be along for the ride.

(I will be looking at what we achieved at Redbrick this year in a different post)

University of Birmingham Great Hall. Photo: Lucy Percival

I would like to welcome everyone back to a new and improved Nickpetrie.co.uk, this blog has been neglected for a while now whilst a combination of a University degree and RedbrickJeecamp through to the ideas, trials and tribulations of Redbrick. However there is an impending Jeecamp on May 21st which will provide a chance to see where we have come in a year and reflect on what has been learnt.

I also have my notes from throughout the year so will be looking to summarize Redbrick’s successes and failures through a series of posts, as well as discussing what it should be looking to achieve next year.

Other content, such as my writing for Redbrick from the past 3 years is stored safely within the archive and over the next couple of weeks I will be re-uploading it so that I can build up my portfolio again. In the meantime – the picture in this post of the University’s Great Hall was taken last week when we hosted the final leaders debate. Redbrick was lucky enough to have BBC press access and our coverage can be found here