My Journalism Portfolio

This is my portfolio writing and journalism page. Below, you can read and take a look at some of my writing samples published on numerous online networks, media and for various companies. They are mostly related to technology, but some are straight AP news samples or relate to various subject matters. These samples are not tied to the main blog on here, although I republished some of those blog posts as longer stories on Medium.

Here you can find my current journalism, technical writing, and content writing or copywriting resume aka CV as well as my cover letter.

One thing to keep in mind is that I was born with a Polish name and legally changed my last name a coupe of years ago to my grandmother’s family side from my dad’s side whom I never even knew, so you can seen some of my work under my older Americanized name of Mike Lata (articles from three years ago and earlier). I can prove this with an official name change document if it needs to be.

I still have that photo from above as I was on a hike in Cupertino hills area with a Pete’s coffee ice mocha:

A mix of technical articles related to IT software and blog posts marketing in nature from my in-house positions (around two years) at CKSource:

CKSource Writer’s Profile

Being a content writer at CK Source was my last full-time and in-house position as a writer or journalist. I wrote blog posts, technical articles and guides with SEO implementation and edited the landing pages, thus this position also gave me some UX writing experience. I have a knack for technical writing although I am not a software dev myself, nor an expert in a coding language, with the possible exception of HTML Markdown, which I know quite well. However, I can make complex topics seem easy to understand and flow well for the reader.

Some of my best overall work if you have time to just check out a few samples:

GitHub Writer Flowchart Guide

This was a technical guide I wrote for CKSource on how to use a flowchart-generating language called Mermaid within GitHub. I wrote this guide showing various examples of diagrams that I created from scratch by experimenting with the Markdown syntax.

Mermaid is a Javascript-inspired languages made for GitHub that uses Markdown syntax in order to generate flowcharts.

The Challenge:

I have not had much experience using GitHub, nor using this software meant for GitHub users, called Mermaid. I had to draw all of my own diagrams and make it make sense for those new to using it or reading about it for the first time.

The Outcome:

I did a pretty good job I think with this technical article showing many variations of examples and screenshotting them for the average reader. I used other sources that covered Mermaid, but did it more in-depth and used I think better examples than what was available on the Web. Not sure how it did in terms of metrics or analytics, but in terms of what it accomplished technically, I think it did its job — hence I am adding it here as it was mostly just me working on it solo.

A Starter Guide to Collaboration

This analysis was originally a comprehensive technical article of the on-premise and cloud options CKSource offers companies that want to integrate the editor into their applications or workflows for their own clients to use. I interviewed and collaborated with developers ot get it complete and originally it was much longer, but had to be shortened for the blog.

The Challenge:

I had to interview sales team members, marketing, and developers to get the right information on how the servers and the company’s entire backend work for this article to be successful and be both technical and informative for the average site visitor or blog reader. My aim was to explain it effectively for those potential customers — which could be software devs but also people like CFOs or CEOs within companies that could utilize it — interested in using CK Source software by integrating it into their products.

The Outcome:

The article or technical guide (in blog post form) ended up being successful and drawing many new readers and company executives onto the blog. I did not see direct metrics or analytics, but my former content team lead, Piotr Maciejewski, whom I also use as a reference in the resume section of this site (and in his LinkedIn is linked in my actual CV or resume) can confirm that it did well.

How WYSIWYG editors represent the future of content editing

I go into the details of how What You See Is What You Get type of content creation tools are the future of creating content online.

Installing Windows 7 on a Mac Guide Using Bootcamp

I choose to pitch this guide to Trainsignal (now Pluralsight) about a project I at the time completed on my own to be able to mostly play games on an iMac. I still own the iMac, by the way , and occasionally still use it for gaming within my Windows 7 partition.

Introduction to Machine Learning: A Technological Revolution

A feature I wrote for online learning platform Pluralsight about the differences in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. I go into the differences between the three concepts and also go into other more abstract ideas on general AI for example.

How Augmented Reality is Redefining Entertainment

A feature piece I wrote for TechHive as part of IDG Consumer (included PC World and Macworld as part of company). It was referenced even here, for example, relating to the Google Lens and other technologies not yet existing I do not believe even in concept when I wrote this piece. It was also referenced here and here.

Being an Apple Employee

My own design

An investigative reporting feature I wrote for AppleMagazine by interviewing a friend without giving his name or full details while he worked (and from my understanding continues to work) at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. All the years later I think i will reveal who this friend was as he no longer works there, nor did he break Apple’s confidentiality agreements as an employee because I did not tell him I will later write a feature on the conversation we had, nor did I even expect to at the time and just saw an old friend. His name was Damian Kaleta.

Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything in Tech

My own design

I predicted that AI would start taking over many tasks and even industries and not just augment them, but I would not say I was the first to predict this as this article was written in 2020. However, I did feel that there are not many industries where it will not have a presence felt soon if not already and realized when writing it that Ai will be utilized in industries full scale while oftentimes replace traditional employees or their roles. This is good and bad as it opens up new opportunities or roles for companies as well.

How iSpot Became the Number One Distributor of Apple Products in Poland

Photo I took of the staff and main person I interviewed for the story

Traditional AP style journalism story I wrote when I lived in Warsaw about the Polish Apple-like stores, called iSpots, I witnessed walking around that looked very similar in nature to the official Apple Stores I remember going to in California.

An unpublished press release I recently wrote using research based on what the source gave me about the company and a video by a spokesperson or company rep that I used to add quotes u to the press release.

Gamelo.ai to Soft Launch Its Real-Time Conversational AI Avatar System

It was unpublished due to the event being rescheduled, but I still got paid and by now if the event took place another release was already published, so I feel like adding it to my portfolio here is worthwhile to show my unedited press release writing abilities.

I also have experience writing press releases and interacting with game developers and press to get quotes or detailed info when I wrote iOS, or mobile game, press releases for PRMac.com. I did it though for a PR mobile game rep and under an anonymous name (she submitted them and paid me ahead of time for my work herself).

Beaides this, I wrote a press release for in voice ocean aka Fakturownia in my brief time working for this company as a marketing lead for the English-branch (little chance of the product or software taking off there, but I took the job anyway for experience and to get in-house office exposure within Warsaw, Poland) of their invoicing software.

(The reason I soon came to find out there was little chance of the product taking off was because it lacked the structures necessary for U.S bank transfers like routing numbers within the transfer options and other things like invoices in USA being used differently than in Europe, where they are often required by law and sent to government auditors later by companies operating B2B.)

Edit, I found it or the press release I wrote as the English language marketing lead or head for Invoice Ocean aka Fakturownia:

InvoiceOcean.co.uk is Celebrating its UK Launch

I did it in first person, unlike the Gamelo.ai one above. However, this could have easily been changed or can be and shows how I can cover such topics and even do press releases in both first and third person if needed be.

RunnerClick Gear Reviews

Chatbot Creation Guides

Other technical guides or articles

TouchArcade Reviews

TechTimes News Stories

Link to my profile with stories

AppAdvice Mobile News & App Reviews

Link to my profile with stories

Currently Unpublished samples (although most of these were published on UBM Techweb sites when they existed as part of Information Week, some below were used as samples for positions I applied for):

G4toMiniDownload
foldablephonesDownload
Google DriveDownload

Test article for a publication regarding innovations in server design:

serverdesignDownload

Currently (was published before) unpublished samples I wrote for UBM TechWeb sites or blogs, thus these are B2B topics I covered:

a-cloud-data-warehouse-explainedDownload

My Medium samples also show my skills as a wrote and researcher as most are self published with no editing involved; keep in mind many were sample articles for job purposes I felt like reusing in this way by uploading them to Medium:

Medium Profile

Script Writing:

(Intro Storytelling or script writing)

gameintroDownload

Please also see my mobile app and gaming coverage here (under former U.S. name or byline of Mike Lata).

Medium Self-Published Articles

Latest Articles Published Across Various Tech (byline or name shown on bottom of most of these articles):

Most of the above was done as part of an SEO effort by BairesDev – a South American offshore development company – that hired me to write content daily (four or five days a week with an article per day) with SEO keywords within each article I had to work with to give them presence within the U.S. market.

Case Studies

Please note, even though the byline or my name is not shown on these case studies. You can verify it was me who wrote them, and interviewed subjects from market leader at CKSource Piotr Maciejewski: LinkedIn Profile.

Flowcharts/Technical Guides (see more two sections below in Pluralsight guides for similar content)

Remote Work / Business Topics

Pluralsight Guides


The Digital Enterprise

Gaming Coverage

Although I already have this linked above, in case you missed it check out some of my iOS game reviews on TouchArcade here.

UX writing samples

 All of the main section microcopy under “This is CKSource” is my work (below is just a small section of overall landing page copy):

Source for above to collaborate it is my work is former CKSource marketing leader Piotr Maciejewski: LinkedIn Profile. Keep in mind, some editing was involved and the above has some slight differences to what I would have it or what I remember having written it as such. I discuss this within this blog post.

Same thing applies to landing page microcopy descriptions of both InvoiceOcean (U.S. branch) and InvoiceOcean (UK branch) and this also includes the testimonials or me editing the previously existing content.

Note the difference above. It was my idea for the U.S. version of the software to focus more on how it can enable businesses to handle transactions easier or payment vs just an invoicing software since from my experience living most of my life in the U.S. I understand many companies rely on free invoicing software like PayPal and invoicing in general is much different or less mandated by the government (especially when it comes to freelancers or independent contractors) than in Europe.

Some of my signature catchphrases I used (and you can see throughout my writing) include “ease of use,” “staying ahead of the pack.” I also tent to use a lot of double dashes or m dashes to separate thoughts (not too much info in one thought, so the reader can breathe) and to keep sentencing from being too long or being run-on sentences.

Below is a UX writing challenge of various questions & answers that I completed for a role as a UX writer for a company that got back to me after this assignment for another interview (sign they were interested), but I have not heard from since (note I am just learning UX writing at this time and I am sure they had many applicants for the position):

uxwriterchallengefinalDownload

It is also worth noting that although the position was for “UX Writer,” the assignment above also included questions related to more of a “UX Designer” position (such as the white space around buttons and how I would change the layout).

TV Show / Film Coverage

Misc. Copywriting

InvoiceOcean: Financial Software (SaaS)

I ran their blog, which focuses on various financial topics and invoicing SaaS software. I also did the online marketing for the .uk and .us products pages (invoiceocean.co.uk & invoiceocean.com/us) and ran google AdWords campaigns for them. Lastly, I edited and translated majority of these two websites (offshoots or branches from fakturownia.pl).

IDG Consumer (PC World, Macworld and TechHive)

TechTimes

Tech Times Profile with Stories Linked

Technical Writing (How-To Instructionals)

Apple Magazine (this is a digital magazine in ePub format)

Here is an entire issue you can check out where I wrote the cover story, titled “Outsourced.” The cover story was based on Foxconn and Apple’s controversial partnership that later prompted Apple to audit Foxconn factories:

Gawker Media

Traditional AP-Style Journalism

Kraków Post 

Here is a 2017 freelance feature I wrote for a Polish news site (possibly paper as well) called Kraków Post:

Palo Alto Weekly (published in Both Print & Web)

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