AUTHOR

Stephen has written for multiple digital media platforms including news, lifestyle, technology and business websites.

He has previously worked for a former award winning Business Journalist and Newscorp editor.

In 2020 he published his first ebook examining how to earn money from digital content.

‘Make Money Selling Content’ started as research into the specifics of how photographers, videographers, writers and podcasters are making money in the modern digital media landscape.

It ended up as an ebook that is now available as a PDF through Stephen’s digital media and online publishing company Franklin Media Australia.

The book is also available for Kindle on Amazon.

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BUSINESS GRADUATE

In 2011 Stephen went back to school at the age of 30. Beginning with Nutritional Medicine he soon realised his interest was focused on the business, not the clinical.

He had managed and worked in multiple small and medium sized businesses, some successful and some not so successful.

SR Smedley
“I wanted to formalise and codify my knowledge and skills, I changed to a business degree focusing on management and communications. I completed it in two and a half years.”
SCUBA DIVER
Scuba Diver underwater taking photo of sea turtle from underneath

Stephen started diving in early 2003 and became a recreational instructor in late 2004. Diving is a great equaliser where it matters not what we do in our daily lives.

This is where he developed his love of teaching and built on a desire to be good at what he does and be recognised for it.

There are so many risks and variables in diving, working together ensures every divers safety. Smart divers dive with buddy’s and teams that are good at what they do.

EXPERIENCE

Over 25 years experience in customer and guest services, sales, security, eco-tourism and training. Stephen has a degree in business with a focus on management, marketing and public relations. He has worked for some of the biggest names in aviation, security, retail and managed small and medium size businesses. Stephen has worked in and coordinated teams during dive recovery operations at sea, aviation operations and lead teams providing specialised assistance with people with special needs.

SKILLS
CASA Endorsed Remote Pilot

Stephen holds a Civil Aviation Safety Authority endorsement to fly commercial Remote Piloted Aircraft (Drones) up to 7 kilograms in weight.

AROC

Stephen also holds an Aviation Radio Operators Certificate with commercial experience on ground to air radio communicating with commercial aviators.

MROCP

Stephen holds a Maritime Radio Operators Certificate with previous experience operating for extended periods at sea.

A variety of Linux Varietals

Stephen has been researching and training on a variety of Linux based operating systems for almost a decade. Building and rebuilding virtual and hardware systems utilising Ubuntu Desktop and Server, Kali Linux, Mint and Parrot OS to name just a few.

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi single board mini computer is something Stephen has been experimenting with for several years building small desktop computers, ADSB receivers and for the use as a virtual computer lab, working with:

  • Networked Systems
  • Network Attached Storage Setup & Management
  • Arduino

Stephen has experience with several programming and scripting languages including;

  • Bash
  • Python
  • PHP
  • CSS
  • HTML
  • JavaScript
Web Development

Stephen has been building websites for a decade as a hobby and is highly proficient with the WordPress content management system. He is self taught writing in HTML, CSS, JS and Python and has built and developed more than a dozen websites.

He is capable of producing custom sites integrating third party API’s such as FB, Insta and Twitter. As well as incorporating ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, and WooCommerce.

He also has a familiarity with Joomla and Drupal and has experience building themes and plugins for the WordPress platform.

A sample of his current portfolio

Adobe Creative Cloud

Stephen is highly experienced with the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite of programs including Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop & Acrobat. Regularly using them for web design, photo editing and graphic design.

He is also proficient with Adobe Illustrator and has had experience with Adobe InDesign.

Stephen has always been a talented writer, honing his skills as part of his university studies his focus was on communications. Although able to write in a variety of styles he favours a journalistic, matter of fact approach.

Experience has taught him the value of finding the most appropriate way to communicate with the intended audience and this means knowing how to write for a variety of purposes including:

  • Journalistic articles
  • Technical manuals
  • Press Releases
  • Narrative Prose
  • Essays
  • Personal and reflective writing

Every writer knows that you need to write for the audience, this is just as true for anyone who intends their work to be read or for the comedian or speaker who is presenting it on stage.

The Instructor

Stephen has always had a passion for educating people and finds that it is better to take the time to teach a person to fish, to paraphrase an old proverb. He spent 7 years working part time as a diving instructor.

Here he gained experience teaching both in theory and in practice how to take a novice with no training or experience to being a competent open water diver.

He has used this experience and training throughout his life and brought these lessons on working and communicating with people into teaching a variety of skills and retraining a variety of people in different areas in ways to be more confident and effective.

Much of his career as a dive instructor was spent retraining certified people who had either not been trained well or who had not gained a great deal of practical experience.

Working with experienced school teachers he has often been praised for his practical approach to working with people to build their skills.