Thing 5: Reflecting and reflecting

One of the key components to undertaking your chartership, revalidation or teaching qualification is the R word should be central to what we do! One of the hardest things which Emma comments on is time, I think we all reflect on what we do, whether we had handled a situation badly or how we can do it better a second time. Whether this process is written down or how you remember it is just important to take time out to do it. Getting into the habit can be very differcult, but what is more difficult to trying to remember what happened weeks or months after the event. I think that it is a great way to be honest with yourself - but try not to be too hard.

There are lots of different ways of recording your thoughts, albeit whether it is a blog, diary or just comments on a calendar. In the health sector, nurses are expected to be constiatncly reflecting on their practice and so there are a lot of books on the sheleves about this. I personally like Gibbs reflective cycle, as it shows that it reflection is a constiant and one which we should be doing and using. One of the things which I found useful is to try and take 20-30mins a week thinking about what you have done and how if you were asked to do it again, what you would do differently.

There is a great word document  reflective writing on the web which has come the university of portsmouth, it is a great tool to help you think about the terminiology used to help you think in a more reflective way, http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/studentsupport/ask/resources/handouts/writtenassignments/filetodownload,73259,en.pdf when I do the chartership workshop for the Career Development I always show and point leaners towards this.

Things 4: Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Storify

I will admit that I have a twitter account, but because I can’t easily access it from work I do find it hard to follow. Although saying that it is very useful and you can find out a lot of information from it. I do struggle to keep within the word limit. The very nature of twitter is that it is a conversation and I do struggle with the speed of the responses.  So joining in can be difficult as I think that I am just catching up on the conversation. I suppose, as long as I have something to say, people will not mind.

I recently took part in a chartership chat and I was blown away by the speed and found it difficult how to follow conversations. The next time I took part I asked how to other people followed it and used Tweetdeck this made it much easier to follow and responded to the different questions that were being asked.

I have be brave and but a link in to a blog post which I had written and was impressed with the number of people who did read my post. So twitter is a really good way of getting your thoughts across to other professionals. I am also really impressed by how concise you have to be and it is a very skill, to be able to get your message across in 140 characters.

RSS feeds

I have used these in the past, during the day job and they are useful. I struggle to try and find a reader which works for me. I have tried google reader but get a bit lost I suppose I should and work at it as it would be easier to follow the latest goings on.

Storify

I will admit that this was completely new to me, and on first glance I don’t know if it will be that useful. I looked at some of the links which you gave and the reflection one on the chartership chat was really useful. This would be a good way to find out what other people are thinking and then reflect on what they have thought. It would be interesting to use this tool to keep the twitter feed but I am not sure if this will be useful to me. I suppose it would be useful to keep photos of a process which you could refer back to if your students were more visual. But I am not convinced that this will be a useful tool for me, although I will have read other peoples posts to see what they think.

Scoop.it

I really do like the look of this tool especially after reading Ian Clarke's blog. This is something which I am going to investigate, with a focus on e-learning, an issue which I am really interested in. I look forward to posting my results:)

Thing 2: investigating other blogs

Wow - there are so many blogs out there. I really was not sure where to start. I have to admit that I am a bit of a lurker, I read and do not post comments. I suppose that is a nice way to hide, so I will admit that I did try and leave some comments on wordpress, but as I do not have a wordpress account it did not seem to work. But I have been able to follow people and comment on some blogger blogs.

As I am based in Health library, I decided to focus in on this area, just to make it easier for me to find people. I suppose it is not so important to follow professionals in your sector, but I suppose it is good to get started. One of the things which is not worrying me, although I know that it is still early days, is that other people's blogs look so much better than mine. I suppose that this should give me some encouragement to look at the features and see what else I could add onto my blog.

It is reassuring to find out that alot of people are having the same thoughts and comments about joining this course. There is such a wide range of blogs that I will continue to work. I while ago, I asked a couple of colleagues how they manage to keep on top of blogs: there were numerous answers, the most popular were:

• Take time out once a week to look through blogs and search for information
• Use twitter to follow interesting people and then read what they have written (looking forward to the twitter piece which is coming up soon)
• Create searches which will appear in your inbox, from google alerts.

One thing is very clear from this activity, the information is out there - you just have to search and find it - as a librarian, this is something which I am familiar with:)

Thing 3: consider your personal brand

This is a very interesting topic, as the Internet has made everyone more searchable. I will admit that I did google myself and wow,up came the reports and articles which I had written appear. Although some of the results do not include me. I had some business cards printed lasted year and I was not sure what photo I should use on the front of the card. It took me ages to work out which one I wanted to use. I am not the must comfortable of people and I do prefer to stay out of the limeline. My twitter account has a avatar rather than a photo of me. My linkedin profile does have a photo of me, but it is a couple of years out of date, so this post has made me realise that I do need to do some updating.

Last year at the CDG New Professionals Suzanne Wheatly spoke about the importance of your online presence, as a way for employers to do some "research" on yourself. So it is important to ensure that everything is upto date and correct, it is also important to make sure that all of your online persona say the same thing. She also commented that it was important to keep your personal and professional life separate

I do have a very clear line between my professional and personal life. My twitter and linked in account is for professional purposes and my facebook account is for personal use. I am now going to investigate how my blog can be used as a promotional tool. So there maybe some changes, watch this space.....

CPD23 - second time lucky

I am going to attempt to complete CPD23 again, last time, I found that work, home and life got in the way of trying to get myself through the 23 weeks. I also found bloging really difficult - mainly because I thought who would want to listen to my thoughts and comments about the library world and my experiences. But actually I have over the last couple of months realised that my own thougths are just as valuable.

I have now over 10 years of working in libraries - wow - that was a bit of a shock when I realised this. I have worked as a library assistant, librarian, trainer and now I am an e-resources co-orindator. So there is lots and lots of knowledge and experience from all of these years. I do feel that I have not learnt everything that there is and that there is still so more to learn. I am a chartered librarian since 2007, and I am embarking on my revalidation, something which I am hoping undertaking this online course will help me to complete. After all the use of the reflection is something which blogs can be used for.

Over the last ten years things have changed dramatically, the use of blogs, twitter and the internet has made the library world so much smaller. I signed up to email discussion lists, the knowledge and friendliness of other professionals who had been there and tried that, was incredible. This was very much a push experience, as the information came directly to the inbox and their the information is still invaluable. Now  this information can be found on blogs, searching and finding this information is a bit alien to me so I am very much looking forward to learning how to do this.

I am looking forward to finding out about the different social media and useful tools which will help me in my working life - as well as a way of finding new networks.

So here goes.....

The art of networking

Is there an art to good networking and is it a skill which can be taught?

I attended Umbrella last week and I began to question how good at networking I actually am. This question arose as I "people watched" - how they mingled and introduced themselves to new colleagues over tea's and coffees.

I will be honest and really wanted to put spots on everyone in the room, so that I could analyse how they "worked a room", moving around saying hello to people they know and to those they did not know.  Just to find out what are the best ways to introduce yourself and in some case find connections who are going to help you. I know that this may sound a bit prentious, but conferences/meetings/events are an excellent way to find people who you could ask for help or support in your working/professional career. For example, you have set up RFID how did you find it? Do you use this supplier - were they any good?

So thinking about networking, I decided to come up with my top tips -although feel free to add or argue against them. Or what I normally end up doing:)

1. Smile - you will be surprised just how many people will say hello and ask where you are from
2. Ask a question - which seminar are you planning on going to? where are you from?
3. Talk about things which interest you - don't lie, it may come back to haunt you
4. Have a business card ready - just in case you find something which you want to follow up after, these can be quite easy to purchase, mine came from moo.com

Over the two days of the conference, I was surprised as to how many people I recognised - although I will admit a couple of people said hello to me and I was not sure where I had met them! (but I am going to discuss this more in my next blog post).

Also, networking is a great way to met new people and extend your network as well as dinner table mates -

Mandy, Laura, Donna, Emma, Me and Jo

After many years of organising events and attending them, I believe that it is a skill which you get better at the more you practice. If you are a bit nervous, do a bit of people watching and see how others do it.

Don't be afraid to go and speak to people - because for one you do not know who you are going to meet and how you can benefit from them!

First post

So with nervousness I am creating my first public blog, there are a number of reasons for why I have not started one before. I suppose the main one is that I have dyslexia and therefore my spelling (although greatly improved by spellchecking) maybe not always be great and the same goes for my grammar. So please forgive any mishaps.

This year as part of the CDG National Co-oridnator's role, I helped to organise the New Professional Conference 2011, and it was here that I came across CPD23. This I thought was an excellent idea, for  a number of reasons,

1. It is a manageable way of undertaking CPD, as you can be flexible in when you can undertake the tasks.
2. It gives you the chance to experiment around colleagues and peers, so I am hoping to learn and get more confident in using these new technologies

I am going to be undertaking this as a way of keeping up to date with new technology and I am hoping to learn new skills. As well as following others, learning works and what does not. I am hoping that it will give me a chance to express my own opinions and develop my writing skills, something that Suzanne Wheatley commented on during her workshop.

I am also planning to undertake my revalidation and this would be an excellent way of being reflective and having all my thoughts in one place.

Looking forward to all of the activities and finding out new ways of doing things.
until next post
Nicki