Conferences and note-taking

In the past three months I have been to three library conferences, one big [approx 600 delegates], one medium [I think about 200 delegates] and one small [less than 100 delegates]. I got a lot out of each one as individual experiences, but I also found myself reflecting on them as a group and considering the ways in which my attitude to getting the best use out of them has altered.

In the past I would write copious notes, which I would then turn in to lengthy blog posts afterwards, generate numerous tweets during, and actually find myself having consumed so much information that I struggled to put it to some productive use. In fact I often found that once I had blogged about my experience, I rarely thought of it again.

I recently read this very interesting blog post on conferences and note taking, and as I'd just been to the CILIP Cymru Wales conference in Swansea [the medium sized one!] it really resonated. It advocates organising your notes into categories and assigning action points to them, this should then [hopefully!] translate into a 'to do' list and make your notes more useful.

I made very few notes during the sessions at the CILIP Wales conference, other than to jot down references to various articles or resources and a reminder to investigate them further. I barely tweeted at all, other than to comment on how much I liked the food and being by the beach! In short, I mainly listened, talked to other delegates, and generally absorbed the atmosphere, rather than trying to cram in loads of note taking. As a result I came away with what I felt was a more manageable list of ideas that I could explore later, instead of my more usual overwhelming pages and pages of notes that would probably just end up forgotten in a desk drawer because I didn't have time to go through them.

When I went to a big conference at the beginning of July (the CILIP conference in Liverpool) I felt it was important to continue this practice. I did take notes this time, there were so many sessions crammed in that I thought I might start to loose track of what I meant if I just jotted down keywords and to do lists. However I did still stand by the mantra of 'less is more', and tried to avoid copying everything down and attempting to quote speakers. This was made much easier because the speakers slides would be made available online, so we could access them at a later date.

In the past I have used my tweets as a form of note taking, I find that I am unable to listen properly to the speaker, take notes and compose tweets all at the same time, so combining the tweeting and note taking seemed to be a good solution. I would simply Storify my tweets after the event and then use them to compose my blog posts. However, as mentioned earlier, the notes I took this time were quite specific to me, things I wanted to try out, or explore further, or ideas they sparked. They weren't a record of what was said, and so would be pretty unintelligible to anyone else but me. It seemed pointless putting them out in public, and so I just took notes and didn't tweet very much.

And I actually felt more comfortable not tweeting. I've always been happy to tweet from conferences and believe in sharing what's happening, especially for events that can be prohibitively expensive to attend. But I did always feel a pressure to accurately convey the speakers intent and to provide enough context. There was a freedom to not feeling that responsibility, or having my attention split that I quite enjoyed.

Last week I attended the ARLIS conference in Cardiff. It was my first time at an ARLIS event, and it was also my first experience of being part of a conference working party. I found that being part of the organising team meant that I experienced the conference from a different perspective than if I had been a delegate (unsurprisingly!!).

One of my responsibilities was to blog about the conference afterwards, so I found that informed how I made notes. I didn't get to attend all the sessions, I spent some time manning the reception desk, but when I did I was no longer taking notes for myself, but instead for the blog. It meant the types of notes I took altered, because they had a specific purpose, and I adjusted what I recorded to suit that need.

So I guess what I mainly learnt was;

• For me, notes with a purpose, either because I've been asked to feedback on a session, or as a 'to do' list, seem to be more effective than simply trying to capture everything that happens.
• That it's hard to give my full attention to things if I have a competing obligation (like tweeting, or being an organiser) so if I want to do those things I need to make sure I factor it in.
• And that one of the things I like best about attending conferences is the networking (although I hate that term, and just think meeting people!) and that I find it a lot easier to do at the smaller conferences.

Hopefully, having the chance to reflect on what works best for me means that when I attend future events, I can bear it in mind and get the most out of the experience. I'd love to hear other peoples feelings about how they get value from attending them too!

Cocktails in Cardiff (CPD23 meet up)

Last week the CLIC (Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation) staff development group organised a meet up for library staff in Cardiff who were thinking about doing, or had started, CPD23. I'd done the course last year, and one of the best things I got out of it was meeting other participants in my area, first through Twitter, and then at the face-to-face meet ups for Thing 7. Meeting up can really help if you find yourself struggling with any aspects of the course, and you'd be surprised how often other people tend to have exactly the same concerns as you.

Photo courtesy of Squirrel Library

Karen talks a little on her blog (dark-side-of-the-catalogue) about the time management concerns that a lot of people had. I really liked the suggestion of banding together with colleagues, maybe for an hour after work each week, to work through the 'things' and spur each other on!

We had a lot of people attending who had started the course last year, but not come to the end yet. Some of them were feeling a bit guilty that they hadn't finished, but I think as more people admitted that they hadn't finished either it was quite reassuring. The best thing about online courses is that you can work at your own pace, but if you don't know many other people taking part you can end up with the misconception that everyone else is way ahead of you. Meet ups can be very helpful to show that often the other participants are actually in the same position as you.

Photo courtesy of @SiobhanWGLib

A few people expressed their nervousness at blogging, and the feeling that they never know what to say. I could definitely sympathise with that, I had never blogged before taking part last year, and I'm not much of a writer, I think my early posts reflected that. The best advice I could think of for overcoming that issue is to take a look at what other people are writing, they're often not blogging all that much either. I think once you make a start and get over that mental hurdle of 'what to write' it does become easier. Like anything, the more you practice the more comfortable you will feel about it.

Another concern that was raised focused on Twitter, and as we look at Twitter for Thing 4 I thought I might talk about it in a little more depth then.

It was a great night, the 2-4-1 cocktails were an unexpected bonus (I hadn't known about them when I booked it!) and I'm hopefully it will be the first of many such events.

Thing 3 - consider your personal brand

Thing 3 is all about building your personal brand, a hot topic in library circles at the moment.

Like a number of people who took part in CPD23 last year, I was initially quite reluctant to engage with the idea of creating a personal brand. I had the perception that it was a bit cynical, and wasn’t too keen on the idea of ‘selling’ myself. I wonder if it is the terminology that is off putting, it’s difficult to get past the impression the word ‘brand’ tends to conjure up. Perhaps referring to it more as building or directing your reputation would be easier to engage with?

I think the most important thing I’ve learnt since then is that there are many different ways to develop a brand, many approaches will seem not appropriate or relevant, but it’s actually quite easy to find one that sits more comfortably with you. At the recent CILIP New Professionals Day Ned Potter discussed the 5 ways you could influence your brand. The thing that stood out for me most from his talk was that creating a brand should not be your end goal; it should be more a happy result of pursuing the interests that are important to you.

I think this method allows you to create a brand in a more organic, natural way, rather than as something you’ve ‘constructed’. It also allows for flexibility, as you pursue your interests and ambitions it’s likely that they will change and develop. Hopefully that means that your ‘brand’ will also develop, rather than feeling like a rigid thing you have to stick to.

So with this in mind I had a look at some of the ways in which I manage my ‘brand’, and to be honest I don't do much and it hardly takes up any time.

• I use the same profile picture for all my online accounts, it's a photo of me, which helps when meeting people face-to-face.
• I try and keep the design of my blog and Twitter account relatively consistent, I use the same background image for example. Although I regret not using matching names for them when I first set them up.
• My full name does appear somewhere on my online accounts, and a small bio. While I don't want all my personal details 'out there', I'm also not comfortable with the idea of being totally anonymous either, I think people will connect with you better if they know something about you.
• I'm not keen on the idea of merging my professional and private lives, so Twitter, LinkedIn and my blog are for work-related stuff, Facebook is for social.

Out of interest I also decided to Google myself, I did this last year, and was not particularly surprised to discover I didn’t rank very highly in the search results. Well, what a difference a year makes!

My Twitter account (@KrisWJ) is second in the listings, and I suspect I am one of those 15 professionals listed in LinkedIn. I haven’t done much with my LinkedIn account, perhaps if I did I could get it working a little harder for me!

Thing 2 - investigate other blogs

I'm always on the look out for blogs by other people working in special libraries, and particularly museum libraries, so the first thing I did was have a scan through to see if I could find any. As usual there weren't that many, but perhaps as the course goes on more will feel inclined to take part.

As I'm organising a CPD23 meet up in Cardiff I also went through looking for any participants in my area. I've already started to put together a list using Delicious to find any tagged with Wales, which will hopefully grow as people start setting up their blogs.

However the best ways I've found to keep up to date with who is taking part in CPD23 is to subscribe to the CPD23 single feed on their website, and to save the #cpd23 hashtag as a column in TweetDeck on my phone.

CPD23 2012

The 23 Things for Professional Development course is running again, and even though I took part in it last year I decided to sign up for it a second time. A lot of the 'things' introduced to us during the course were very new to me and that, combined with the fast pace we worked through them, meant I often had to resort to just skimming the surface rather than looking at them in any depth. My mantra started to become "I'll go back and look at it in more detail when I have time".

Since then I have not had a chance to do any of that further investigation that I promised myself, and I wondered if it was because the motivation had lessened. So, my plan is to do the CPD course again, but this time cover more of the aspects that I didn't have a chance to do first time. For example, last year when we did 'Thing 4' I was new to Twitter, so I primarily focused on setting up an account, finding people to follow, and sending my first Tweets. This time around, now that I use Twitter on a regular basis, I'll look more at organising Twitter feeds and creating lists, so that the volume of information I get in my timeline feels a little less overwhelming (something I have been meaning to get around to doing for a while now anyway!).

Hopefully by the end of the course I will have explored the tools introduced last time to the extent that I have a greater understanding of them.

CLIC Social Media Event: CPD23: Learning about tools for professional development

The final presentation was by Karen Pierce (@Darklecat) on CPD23, also known as 23 Things for Professional Development, and she also used a Prezi.

She started by introducing the course and the benefits that taking part in it could provide.  She stressed that as it was an online course, which you work through independently, everyone goes at their own pace.

23 Things for Professional Development, also known as cpd23, is a self-directed, self-paced, inclusive, practical and free online programme open to librarians and information professionals at all stages of their career, in any type of role, any sector, and from any part of the world.  It encourages information professionals to explore and discover social media 'Things', including Twitter, RSS feeds and file-sharing, as well as other 'traditional' CPD routes, such as gaining qualifications, presenting skills and getting published.  Participants will be asked to assess how each Thing can assist them in their professional development, and then to blog about each Thing and share their thoughts, views and expertise.  The programme is completely informal and no prior knowledge or experience is expected or assumed.

Helen Murphy

It was advertised to start in June 2011 and run throughout the summer, ending in October/November, but as it was an independent course new people could enroll at any point during the course.  At one point there were over 787 people taking part.

In order to take part students had to set up their own blogs (or use an existing one) to record their progress.  Karen said she decided to go with Wordpress rather than the recommended Blogger to set up her's as it seemed a little more user-friendly.  One of the most enjoyable aspects of taking part in CPD23 was checking other people’s blogs.  Because there were so many participants Karen's method of deciding which to look at was to narrow it down to other cataloguers, people based in Wales or any with intriguing blog titles.

Some of Karen's highlights from the course included;

Thing 3 (which Emma also mentioned in her talk) which looked at branding (sounded off putting, but once you looked in to it actually made sense) and particularly the interconnectivity of all your online profiles.  It lead her to decide to choose an avatar picture of a woman reading that she'd seen on a Greek vase as it linked her library life to her previous role as an ancient historian.

Thing 4 which introduced Twitter, Karen mentioned finding Twitter very scary to begin with, but as she joined with loads of other CPD23 newbies that helped, and she found herself learning a lot about cake, knitting and kittens!

“Twitter is what you make of it”

Primarily she follows library people and library conferences, and has found it very useful for networking, as was demonstrated when part way through the course a CPD23 real life meet up took place at Milgis in Cardiff and led to its own hashtag #yurtup and some yurt up envy happening on Twitter.

Karen giving her presentation

Karen also pointed out that CPD23 is not just about new media but also about working on your continuing professional development in a number of areas.

As part of her presentation Karen discussed some of the pros and cons of taking part in the course;
Cons

Time - the biggest issue is finding time to fit it in around work/life, particularly during busy periods, so it's easy to slip behind

Lack of interest in some aspects – either because not all the 'things' were really applicable to her role as a cataloguer or because she was already happier using alternatives versions

Too much info - there were so many blogs and tweets to read, so much information to absorb about the 'things' that it was a bit of an overload

Pros

Setting up a blog and Twitter account

Making new contacts and networks

Gaining practice in reflective writing

Updating knowledge in a number of different areas

The encouragement you receive from others doing the course

Karen rounded up by listing her CPD23 goals for the future as;

-Maintaining her blog

-Going back over some of the 'things'

-Continuing her professional development

She ended by telling everyone that the CPD23 course was likely to run again in the New Year, and encouraged anyone who hadn't tried it before to 'have a go'.

CLIC Social Media Event: Cardiff Public Library blog and use of Twitter

"Fear and loathing on the trail to Web 2.0"

Rob Boddy's look at Cardiff Public Libraries use of social media, with an interactive component!

Rob started by giving us a little background into how Cardiff Public Libraries started getting involved in social media.  Which basically seemed to be that Swansea Public Libraries were using it and Cardiff decided to join (and beat) them!

"A public library always wants more users"
Social media was seen as a good way to connect with the users.

What did you tell them Rob? - “This social media lark is a Good Thing”

After going on a social media course, and discovering that all the tools to create a blog were freely available on the web and very straightforward to use, they decided to push ahead.

What happened next Rob?
They set up a dummy blog and Twitter account.  Institutional blogs can be quite middle of the road and lack personality, so they wanted to try and inject more humanity into theirs.  It was decided to be non-traditional, keep things informal, lively and amusing so as to create more of an identity.

Cardiff Council were very supportive of the idea, as they had been championing using social media for some time.  But they were also nervous about them going “rogue”, so they had to agree to abide by the social media policy and branding policy.

The Page 35 blog is used to discuss "books, libraries and related silliness".  It also includes a Twitter feed and a Shelfari virtual bookshelf.  Posts cover topics ranging from; linking films to books, book related furniture, and the very popular Dewey charades.

“Twitter is easy but full of strangeness”

They use their Twitter account (@cdflibraries) for advertising events and emergency information, such as library closures, and informing users of new stock and new services.  Not always easy in just 140 characters!  They also use it for answering queries, and “almost anything else not illegal”, they currently have approximately 700 followers.

Rob's Twitter nestkeeping strategies include;

-It is always on in background

-Check hourly for mentions and once a day do an advanced search

-Direct message all new followers a welcome, only people though, not organisations

"Web 2.0 blues – why so sad Rob?"

Some of the limits that Rob pointed out were;
The numbers – only 11% of  the UK population are on Twitter

Capacity – it can be very time consuming

“The guilt, the guilt, the terrible, terrible guilt”

Should I really be doing this?

Is it really part of my job?

Rob ended by pointing out that Cardiff Public Libraries social media involvement has been successful and can be seen as a worthwhile endeavour.

Thing 12a

When we did Thing 12 it got me thinking about the ways in which social media could be used as a career development tool.  However, when I looked through the library literature there seemed to be a lot on using social media to promote your library services, and less of an emphasis on using it for your personal development.  But just as I was beginning to think there wasn't anything out there I stumbled on a number of people giving advice and tips on how to use it for career development.

I found this post on the LISNPN website by Theresa Schultz called 'Curating your Career' which is to be the first in a series of career-related posts.  What really stood out for me was the section on what it takes these days to promote your career.

“More than ever, our professional reputations need to be public and visible.  It’s no longer enough to put in your hours at your job, do well, and hope to get noticed by superiors.  That model worked when you were likely to stay with an employer, or within a small geographic area, for your entire career.  Today, it’s not enough to have a career; you have to curate your career, just as you would a valuable collection.  What could be more important to your career than your reputation?  It’s not built on hard work alone.  You need to demonstrate that you’re interested and active in your field, that you have something to say and know how to say it, that you not only see the problems out there, but are capable of developing solutions.  The solutions don’t have to be perfect, the activities don’t have to be dull, but you must do something.”

Theresa also talks about the importance of creating a brand, something we covered back in Thing 3, but that I didn’t fully understand the importance of back in those early days of CPD23.  She points out that people who have a professional presence online will have an edge over competition who do not.  Blog posts, Tweets, interaction on forums can all be used as evidence that you are engaging with the wider library profession.  It seems all the more important these days than it used to that you have this visible proof, and when you think that most people will be doing it in their own time rather than in work hours, it shows a real commitment to both your career and the profession as a whole. 

With this in mind it was interesting to read about a recent presentation Jo Alcock made at Oxford Social Media 2011 on marketing yourself online, which you can see here.  Some of the main points she made were;

• Know your key skills so that you can express them clearly when opportunities arise
• Think of a few elements to your personality/style/manner that you would like to convey as your personal brand, and express those in online and face to face communications
• Be consistent with your use of social media – use the same username where appropriate, same visual style, language style, and professional/personal mix

And finally, I stumbled across a piece by the Guardian recently about blogging for your career, last Friday they hosted a live Q&A session where a panel of experts gave advive on using blogs to help boost careers.

At times it did tend to have more of a journalism bias, but there were some very good points made about the increasing use of social media for this purpose.  Jenni Retourne, who blogs on the beauty industry, shared some of the advantages to blogging that she has found;

My blog helps me get new clients because:

a) it is read by people in the beauty industry, so if a brand owner is reading it and happens to be looking for a beauty social media specialist or a beauty copywriter, she is much more likely to get in contact with me because 1. She knows I exist and 2. She can see from my blog posts that I know what I’m talking about (hopefully!).

b) My blog demonstrates that I really understand the beauty industry and am very passionate about it. This helps when companies are deciding whether to hire me or another company, as it shows I am not just paying lip service to the fact that I love the work I do.

In addition she points out that;

My blog also reminds existing clients about the services I offer. There have been numerous times when I have needed to hire freelancers or suppliers and I cant remember the name of a company that does the work I’m looking for... so I’m sure people are the same with me. Whereas if my contacts have a blog post popping up in their inbox on a regular basis, they are much less likely to forget what it is I do.

Hristina Hristova, global social media manager for Acronis, a company specialising in backup, recovery and cloud computing, added that;

Like Facebook and Twitter, personal blogs are something recruiters undoubtedly check before making their choice, especially in the online industry. It is important to show you're an expert in your field through your professional writing style, slick-looking design and actual blog content. It is a great way to not only share your passions, but also showcase your portfolio.

A number of the other panelists commented that while they may not have been discovered by employers through their blogs, it has been of benefit to send a link to the blog in job applications, and that has been an advantage.

The main point I took away from these comments was how useful your blog, and any other social media you choose to employ, can be in showcasing your talents.  It seems that in the ever increasing jobs market using such tools to promote your skills and experience may well be able to give you the edge you need to get the job of your dreams.