Thing 4: Current Awareness

Twitter
As I mentioned at the end of my last post I have been meaning to join Twitter for ages and I have now finally signed up.  You can find me at @laurasletters.  However although I have managed to tweet a couple of times I find the interface confusing and it's not very intuitive to use; a work colleague who is an avid Twitter user has kindly agreed to give me some pointers this week so hopefully I will soon be wondering what I was so worried about. 


RSS feeds
This looks like a really useful tool although I'm a bit overwhelmed about the sheer number of items to read after I subscribed to the bundle of CPD23 participants.  I fear that I will keep hitting the 'mark as read' button and never actually have the time to read any of them.  I maybe need to set aside some time during the week (maybe when on the bus to work) to keep on top of this.  Another option may be to delete the bundle and instead build up slowly the blogs/websites that I want to follow.


Pushnote
I had not heard of Pushnote before and I am finding it hard to understand why you would want to use it!  I have decided not to join but I may be persuaded at a later date to sign-up if I come across fellow CPD23ers who have found it useful.

Thing 3: Personal Brand

I have been extremely busy this week after two weeks away: catching up with emails, attending a cpd25 training course, learning how to use our new library management system which goes 'live' next week and going on an organised Harry Potter walk in London in preparation for seeing the last film next week!  All of which I will write about soon when things have settled down a bit at work. 


As a consequence I have fallen behind on the 23 things programme but have lots of plans about how I want to re-brand my blog.  I feel my blog doesn't look very professional, so although it's colourful, the background picture of jellybeans will probably be the first thing I will want to change!  Instead I hope to add colour by uploading some pictures, I will also add my real name and a recent picture of myself and in addition I want to be more consistent with the fonts and style of headings used.  This will keep me busy for the next few days!


One of the activities for Thing 3 was to Google your name and look at the results.  I couldn't see anything relating to me on the first couple of pages which is not surprising since I have quite a common name; most of the hits were for an American actress who shares my name and an American author who has published a book called: 'Clever letters: fun ways to wiggle your words!' which I am definitely going to look up :)


I am looking forward to setting up a Twitter account for Thing 4 as I feel I should have done this a long time ago. 

Thing 2 continued...

Looking at fellow cpd23-ers blogs seems to have become addictive!  I have left some comments and it's nice to see so many creative blog names.  I'm off to (hopefully!) sunny Devon for two weeks on Friday and I'm hoping I won't fall too far behind or lose my enthusiasm while trying to catch up when I get back.

Thing 2: Investigating other blogs

Having already set up a blog and published my first post I have been able to skip straight onto thing 2.  This thing involves looking at who else is taking part and leaving comments on any that I find particularly interesting.  The sheer number of people taking part makes this a little daunting but hopefully it will also provide a range of blogs created by people in different library sectors; I am aiming to become a follower of around 6 or 7, with half from a sector different from my own (higher education).  Having logged on to write this post it was a nice to see I already had two comments on my own blog which suddenly makes this programme feel very real and will encourage me to try and post regularly.

Introductions

So here it goes - my first ever blog post!!  I've started this blog so that I can take part in '23 Things for Professional Development' but hope to continue blogging after the 'Things' have been completed.  I'm still working on the design of my blog so there may be a few colour changes in the coming weeks.



I have been in my current post at Kingston University as an Information Assistant for two and a half years; the time has flown by and I am now at the point of wanting to consolidate my experience and skills to enable me to find a professional position.  Hopefully this blog will allow me to reflect on what I have achieved and help me to decide where I want to go next.



I anticipate that taking part in 23 Things will broaden my knowledge of social media and help me develop ways of incorporating what I have learnt into my work routine.  It starts next week and I'm looking forward to all the new discoveries I am going to make!