Projects

You're going to make a real 15 to 25 minute podcast episode: research it, record it, cut it tight, and publish it on Spotify. The skill is the edit: explaining one thing cleanly to a stranger, then listening back and cutting the filler and rambling until every minute earns its place. That's the craft at the core of content creation, the part that makes something a stranger will actually finish, and doing one tells you fast whether that's your kind of work.

You're going to pick a topic you care about, find a real angle, research it (verifying every source yourself), and publish a 1,500 word piece that actually argues something. The skill is building an argument you can defend: finding what the sources actually support, writing it in your own voice, and cutting any claim you can't back up. That's the core of journalism, having a real point and proving it rather than just summarizing, and doing one tells you fast whether that kind of thinking is your kind of work.

You're going to take a real question you care about, find a public dataset that can answer it, and publish a piece that argues a finding with real charts. The skill is analytical judgment: deciding what the data actually supports versus what you hoped to find, and not over-claiming when it's close. That's the real work of a data analyst, the call about what's true and what isn't, and doing one tells you fast whether digging for an honest answer is your kind of work.