Thing 6 - Online networks . . .

I joined Facebook when it first started. I haven't got a huge social circle so my 'friends' number about 50 (almost all the female family members, including my 75 year old mother). Pathetic compared to the 1,500 'friends' my young niece has on her FB page - but then - that's a whole other issue . . .

I use FB mainly for storing holiday snaps, saving mine to 'albums' and looking at those of my 'friends' (again, mainly family!).

I go hot and cold over FB. I've closed it down a couple of times (once when a status update was misconstrued and another time because someone took exception to me ticking 'like'). I guess I was blown away by FB at the start, like everyone else, but it's becoming less and less useful to me. I realise this has probably got a lot to do with my age(I'm being practical here; I'm over 50).

I can see that for professional or pressure groups, it's developed to become something very useful. Although PGs certainly use it to greater effect (e.g.the UK street riots earlier this year, as a tool for incitement http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-15756260).

A member of our local CDG set up a group page, about 2 yrs ago, but, as with the majority of FB group pages that I've seen, the interest wears off after a while and people stop visiting.

I don't think FB is going to go away anyime soon though. It's rapidly developing and changing (often to the despair of members) but this proves that, if you want something badly enough, you will adapt.

I've been a member of Linked In for a couple of years too - but have never seen any benefit (again, this is probably to do with my age - there aren't many over 50 librarians who are headhunted - lol!).

I don't know about LISNPN or LATNetwork, so I'll have a look. Cilip Communities I have definately visited and I think I may have joined (?)I must re-visit!.

Thing 5 - Reflective Practice . . .

It’s been really busy at the start of term with wall-to-wall inductions and workshops. I’m afraid that CPD23 has been way down on my list of priorities. Now that the madness is over though – I’ll plough on. I really would like to complete this worthwhile project by the Christmas holidays, so I’ll make this date my new deadline.

I went on a really useful (Cymal sponsored) free course, covering Web 2.0 technologies, some time ago (on my days off, of course). The trainer, Sangeet Bhullar, introduced me to the joys of ‘Tweet Deck’ and the skills that I need to develop to set up a ‘professional’ blog. As I job-share my role as Information Librarian, I spoke to my colleague about the idea of a joint blog and finally, last weekend, I set things up and started populating it with content and links. Rob, my colleague, provided the first post – so I feel we’ve got the ball rolling, at last.

My problem was (and still is) what to do when things go wrong. I must learn to just LEAVE IT and return at a later time, with a fresh brain and new ideas. Because I’m such a fiddle-faddler I tend to twiddle about trying to get things to work and then find that hours have passed and I’ve achieved nothing. Not a good way of working . . . !

I’m thinking about RSS feeds - and although I’ve previously set these up - I feel I must be doing something wrong as the feeds come to me as e-mails, but then I still have to find time to visit them and read them . . . loads of these e-mails remain unread, so I’m obviously missing the point. . .

There is a follow up workshop tomorrow, on the Web 2.0 course that I spoke of earlier. I will ask the trainer about RSS feeds and a few other things that I haven’t managed well with my ‘professional’ blog. For instance, I’ve got a live twitter feed linked to it – but if you click on the links they don’t load up properly, i.e. they only appear in a very narrow band and don’t automatically expand – to enable the content to be easily read.

I feel that all this (new technology) presents a huge learning curve. It’s brilliant, I know, and I really do want to learn and improve my skills – but I’m also very aware that there is no real end in sight. . . .As soon as something is mastered, something new comes along and the learning continues; but at an uncomfortable, accelerated pace (or maybe it’s just me getting on a bit – 55 and paddling fast to keep my head above water, or so it sometimes seems).

My orange phone contract ends mid Dec and I can’t tell you how delighted I’ll be to get my hands on a brand new ‘smart’ phone. In the space of a contract, mobile technology has sky rocketed and I feel as though I’m being left behind – I WANT APPS AND I WANT THEM NOW!

Thing 4 - RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote

I already use Twitter, to a very limited degree, and RSS feeds (although I often forget to look at them). Pushnote is something I've never tried, so I'll have a look at what my colleagues say about it first, before I give it a try . . . .  more later.

Update @ 5th Dec, 2011 . . .

Had a look at Pushnote and can't see any benefit to me, in my present circumstances. Couldn't really get the hang of it either - so had a look at Laura's blog (one of my more able tecchie colleagues) - she wasn't impressed either, so that's good enough for me.

RSS - revisited a few blogs to try to work out where I was going wrong and it seems that I'm not really 'going wrong' at all - you still have to check Google Reader or another similar space to read all your RSS feeds - so have to be disciplined enough to do this . . .

Thing 3 - Consider your personal brand

In considering my 'personal brand' I regret that, for the purposes of this project, I didn't start up an entirely new blog, rather than reinstate something which I'd set up in 2008. 'DayDreamBeliever' is the name of my blog and  having read posts by other librarian colleagues, I can see that it's important to keep the personal and professional separate. I will certainly find this difficult - because my ramblings tend to occur when I'm trying to talk about something else - it's just the way I am (I'm thinking fondly of Ronnie Corbett here) . . . 

Seriously though, if I want to use my blog for the benefit of the Faculty that I support (Care Sciences) then 'DayDreamBeliever' simply won't do, will it? However, for the purposes of the 'CPD23 Things' project, I'll carry on as I am. . . . I'm not even sure how to rename my blog anyway (I'll have to tackle that later) or start up an entirely new 'professional' blog (probably a much better idea).

I really like the idea of using a blog to promote and discuss new developments within the library; updates on the  e-databases we subscribe to etc. (i'm an Information Librarian). As a colleague pointed out (thanks Emma) if I've blogged about it, then I know where to find it - so there's no need to keep re-writing information in response to queries from students or academics.  

Thing 2 - Explore other blogs . . .

Did I mention that I'm the world's greatest procrastinator . . .

I've investigated some of the other blogs, which seem to range from very technical 'group' blogs, with several members & lots of interesting stuff going on down the side of the page, to people like me - with not a great deal to say and not much idea how to do any of the 'fancy' stuff (to jazz up the look of the page and make it more visually interesting) . . . Anyway, I'm now in the habit of visiting blogs written by my colleagues - most of which are very commendable - but a few, like me, have barely got started. . . . I found a lovely blogger called Jo (Jokemi), who had actually visited my blog and made some comments. . . she's probably given up on me now though, because I haven't written a thing since the end of June!