OK, I thought that blogging was going to be the biggest barrier to doing this course, but that's nothing compared to my fear and loathing of networking! Face-to-face or online, they're both as bad as each other as far as I'm concerned, it's not that I don't see the value in it, it's just that I'm really not any good at it!
I joined LinkedIn a few months back, but haven't really embraced it - I was slightly bemused to receive an invitation to connect with a consultant at my workplace who will actively look in the other direction rather than acknowledge me when we pass in the corridor (unless he needs my help of course).
Other attempts at networking have been similarly half-hearted, eg lapsed CILIP membership, de-activated Facebook account, skulking in the background at library events - it's the same story every time and I suspect that I'm too set in my ways to change now!
I have just got an invite to Google+, so maybe that will be the way forward for me, who knows...
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Thursday, 14 July 2011
Not just reflecting....
Reflective practice is something that we've recently introduced in our workplace as we felt that we were losing our way a bit! All staff are involved, identifying what they want to achieve for the following week (big or small) and completing weekly worksheets noting their progress and also anything that prevented them from achieving their goals. If nothing else it's a good way of identifying the main time stealers and trying to do something about them! The last Friday of each month is 'Reflection Friday' where staff pair up and discuss how the previous month has gone, the pairings are different each time so you get a different perspective which has been very useful.
Reflecting on this course has been interesting - almost all staff members are signed up to it, so there have been a lot of discussions and comparisons about how we're getting on.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 - blogging/commenting
Initially this was the hurdle that almost prevented me from doing the course at all, I was very unsure about publishing to the world - however it turns out that I quite enjoy doing this! I've noticed though that my posts tend to be on the long side (this one will be no exception either!), this is also true of my emails so I shall aim for brevity next time.
Thing 3 - personal brand
I'm still considering how much of a personal presence I want to have online. I've always avoided putting too much information about myself out there, and although I've been thinking about it a lot over the past couple of weeks I'm still not very comfortable with it. Thing 3 has made me think about my professional profile though which up until now has been very patchy, so I will have to work on that. More importantly I think, it has made us consider our Library brand, and made us much more aware of the need to portray a more coherent 'brand'
Thing 4 - rss, Twitter and Pushnote
My favourite Thing so far! I can play around with these tools for hours.
Looking at the Borton model of Reflective Practice that more or less covers the 'What?' and 'So What?' -
the 'Now What?' is more interesting...
We're developing a new set of resources for our members which are snapshots of the latest research in a particular subject area. We've been talking about producing something like this as a replacement for an existing service, but it's really been consolidated by this course, and we are incorporating a lot of features that we have learnt about so far.
I suspect that because our reflective practice at work and participating in this course coincided so neatly we've become much more focused, and have had the space to think more clearly about what we really want/need to do - so far it's had very positive results for us!
Reflecting on this course has been interesting - almost all staff members are signed up to it, so there have been a lot of discussions and comparisons about how we're getting on.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 - blogging/commenting
Initially this was the hurdle that almost prevented me from doing the course at all, I was very unsure about publishing to the world - however it turns out that I quite enjoy doing this! I've noticed though that my posts tend to be on the long side (this one will be no exception either!), this is also true of my emails so I shall aim for brevity next time.
Thing 3 - personal brand
I'm still considering how much of a personal presence I want to have online. I've always avoided putting too much information about myself out there, and although I've been thinking about it a lot over the past couple of weeks I'm still not very comfortable with it. Thing 3 has made me think about my professional profile though which up until now has been very patchy, so I will have to work on that. More importantly I think, it has made us consider our Library brand, and made us much more aware of the need to portray a more coherent 'brand'
Thing 4 - rss, Twitter and Pushnote
My favourite Thing so far! I can play around with these tools for hours.
Looking at the Borton model of Reflective Practice that more or less covers the 'What?' and 'So What?' -
the 'Now What?' is more interesting...
We're developing a new set of resources for our members which are snapshots of the latest research in a particular subject area. We've been talking about producing something like this as a replacement for an existing service, but it's really been consolidated by this course, and we are incorporating a lot of features that we have learnt about so far.
- blogs - we looked at producing these on various different platforms, but eventually decided on a blog as the best way to deliver this new service
- rss - we're relying heavily on rss feeds from a variety of sources
- subject searches from relevant databases
- new journal issues
- other blogs
- relevant news searches
- our library catalogue
- twitter - we've installed a Twitter search widget, pulling through the latest tweets which mention relevant subject terms
- bundles - using both Google bundles and Feedstitch
I suspect that because our reflective practice at work and participating in this course coincided so neatly we've become much more focused, and have had the space to think more clearly about what we really want/need to do - so far it's had very positive results for us!
Thursday, 7 July 2011
What a mess!
Realised that my blog is starting to get fairly messy - as I'm playing with new things I'm just throwing them onto the blog. I think I have to decide whether this is going to be a sandpit or whether I should be more thoughtful about what I actually publish on here. I think that I'll probably plump for the former, as the whole reason I'm doing this course is to discover and try out new things - I may have to conveniently forget about the personal branding though!
More on Feeds
Have been playing around with Feedly and Feedstitch today, courtesy of a great post on Dots and Loops. Feedly looks like a good way of managing my feeds, which are a mish-mash of work and personal, I think that the only thing that might stop me from jumping in is that I have Google Reader on my iGoogle start page - however the functionality is virtually non-existent, all you can do is preview and star items which can be very frustrating! I'm going to make the effort to use it instead of Google Reader though, it may be the first small step to wean me away from the Google empire.
Feedstitch is a nice way of bundling together feeds - something that we're currently looking into for our Library.
I did have another look at Pushnote, I'm not convinced that it's really going to be that useful, but I may just have missed the point! (I think I also inadvertently 'trolled' someone...!)
Feedstitch is a nice way of bundling together feeds - something that we're currently looking into for our Library.
I did have another look at Pushnote, I'm not convinced that it's really going to be that useful, but I may just have missed the point! (I think I also inadvertently 'trolled' someone...!)
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Feeds. Tweets and the rest
Having got sidetracked by looking at other blogging platforms for most of last week, I was relieved to see that I already use some of the tools for Thing 4.
A group of us have been tweeting for work for a couple of years, we tend to post relevant news or features about mental health issues, but also anything else that catches our interest. I do have a personal Twitter account as well, but it's been dormant for a long time as far as posts from me go, I mainly use it to keep up-to-date - the people I follow are both for work and personal interest so it's a bit of a mixed bunch. Because of this I thought it would be better to set up a new account for this course, and I'll make an effort to keep the momentum going this time!
I am completely reliant on my rss feeds to keep me up-to-date with any new developments to do with work, social media, etc. I've used Google Reader for a few years now, and have this and Twitter feeding through on to my iGoogle page, so I can keep track of these as well as news. emails etc all in one place. Every so often I have qualms about letting Google have quite so much control over my life, let alone the amount of information they must have about me, but they do make it all so easy! Again my feeds are a mixture of work and personal interest, I do find that if I don't clear them for a couple of days they build up to such an extent that they become oppressive and a huge chore to read, consequently I probably skim them far too quickly and miss a lot of interesting things - another headache!
I hadn't noticed the 'clips' feature on Google Reader until today - you can share items from your Reader account and publish them on your blog (one click to publish it on Blogger of course!), I couldn't get it to work for ages until I realised that my settings were 'private', once I changed them to 'public' it all worked beautifully, and I have now added this to my blog as well, (it's getting a bit crowded on here so I may have to delete some things, and opt for a cleaner look)
The one that I haven't used yet is Pushnote, and judging from the #cpd23 comments neither have many other cpd23ers! I'll try to have a look this week and post back later about it.
A group of us have been tweeting for work for a couple of years, we tend to post relevant news or features about mental health issues, but also anything else that catches our interest. I do have a personal Twitter account as well, but it's been dormant for a long time as far as posts from me go, I mainly use it to keep up-to-date - the people I follow are both for work and personal interest so it's a bit of a mixed bunch. Because of this I thought it would be better to set up a new account for this course, and I'll make an effort to keep the momentum going this time!
I am completely reliant on my rss feeds to keep me up-to-date with any new developments to do with work, social media, etc. I've used Google Reader for a few years now, and have this and Twitter feeding through on to my iGoogle page, so I can keep track of these as well as news. emails etc all in one place. Every so often I have qualms about letting Google have quite so much control over my life, let alone the amount of information they must have about me, but they do make it all so easy! Again my feeds are a mixture of work and personal interest, I do find that if I don't clear them for a couple of days they build up to such an extent that they become oppressive and a huge chore to read, consequently I probably skim them far too quickly and miss a lot of interesting things - another headache!
I hadn't noticed the 'clips' feature on Google Reader until today - you can share items from your Reader account and publish them on your blog (one click to publish it on Blogger of course!), I couldn't get it to work for ages until I realised that my settings were 'private', once I changed them to 'public' it all worked beautifully, and I have now added this to my blog as well, (it's getting a bit crowded on here so I may have to delete some things, and opt for a cleaner look)
The one that I haven't used yet is Pushnote, and judging from the #cpd23 comments neither have many other cpd23ers! I'll try to have a look this week and post back later about it.
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
What Personal Brand?
Well, Thing 3 is about looking at our personal brands, which made me wonder if I actually have one! As I've already admitted I've never blogged before, and although I tweet it's for work and therefore part of our workplace brand; my personal twitter account is very quiet indeed.
I did google myself, but as I share my full name with 77 other people in the UK alone (courtesy of http://www.yournotme.com/) and probably 100s or 1000s worldwide, I wasn't surprised that I didn't appear on the first couple of pages. However if I was the person who handmade collectable teddy bears, or the one who ran a website for mail-order brides I would probably be quite pleased with my online presence! Narrowing the search down I did get a handful of results (liberally interspersed with various LinkedIn/Facebook profiles), but nothing that could conceivably be seen as a coherent picture of me - this is something that I will obviously need to address.
I'm still thinking about changing my blog if I have time, even if I stay with Blogger I may tinker with it a bit - I'm not sure that this says anything about me at all, perhaps I chose it to stay under the radar!
I've had a look at a couple of the posts recommended on the CPD23 blog, I especially liked Dave Fleet's post, but then I do love Prezzi - I'll try some of his suggestions, but it's late now so will do it tomorrow.
I did google myself, but as I share my full name with 77 other people in the UK alone (courtesy of http://www.yournotme.com/) and probably 100s or 1000s worldwide, I wasn't surprised that I didn't appear on the first couple of pages. However if I was the person who handmade collectable teddy bears, or the one who ran a website for mail-order brides I would probably be quite pleased with my online presence! Narrowing the search down I did get a handful of results (liberally interspersed with various LinkedIn/Facebook profiles), but nothing that could conceivably be seen as a coherent picture of me - this is something that I will obviously need to address.
I'm still thinking about changing my blog if I have time, even if I stay with Blogger I may tinker with it a bit - I'm not sure that this says anything about me at all, perhaps I chose it to stay under the radar!
I've had a look at a couple of the posts recommended on the CPD23 blog, I especially liked Dave Fleet's post, but then I do love Prezzi - I'll try some of his suggestions, but it's late now so will do it tomorrow.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Was Blogger the right move?
Well, I've only been at this for a day or two and am already wondering whether I should have taken a bit more time to look around rather than jumping straight in with Blogger!
I've been finding Blogger a bit clunky, and my latest discovery is that you don't get an option to reply to a comment!
As it's early days I may look into other blogging platforms and switch over, any recommendations welcome!
(I did manage to track down a hack that lets you add a reply to your comments: http://myfundoo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/05/add-reply-option-to-blogger-comments.html)
I've been finding Blogger a bit clunky, and my latest discovery is that you don't get an option to reply to a comment!
As it's early days I may look into other blogging platforms and switch over, any recommendations welcome!
(I did manage to track down a hack that lets you add a reply to your comments: http://myfundoo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/05/add-reply-option-to-blogger-comments.html)
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