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NLS5 Presentation - Slides Available!

Author:

A little research project undertaken in the first half of this year, looking into a new information professional’s (my) experiences in developing a personal learning network, turned into a well-received presentation, from which I’m very appreciative of the positive feedback and encouragement.
Some background on the research project and details of the purpose and focus for the presentation can be read from a previous post - Preparing the Mindset.

So before I delve into my NLS5 reflections, I just thought I’d share my presentation slides.

Connecting to the LIS Online Community: Developing a PLN

NLS5 - Preparing the Mindset

Author:

What started out as a fragmented idea, fueled by curiosity and encouraged by a certain lecturer, has now evolved into a research project and paper, the presentation to be made at the New Librarians’ Symposium, held in Perth next weekend.

Here, with this post, I’m reflecting on the inception of this project, trying to articulate my thoughts and clarify the purpose of my presentation. So don’t mind me.

When the call for papers for NLS5 was announced last year, as quickly as ideas emerged, I had initially dismissed the opportunity. I didn’t think my ideas would be good enough for a serious discussion with somebody, let alone presenting them.

This little research project inspired the start of ‘Flight Path’, and the beginning of an increased presence in the online LIS community. My research looked at the adoption and development of a new information professional’s, my own, personal learning network. I have attempted to capture what it’s like to establish connections and build relationships with others in the community by sharing my thoughts and experiences here, conversing in the Twitter-sphere, and measuring elements of PLN participation and building with quantitative data. The focus was not so much on the tools I used, but how I used them - the strategies and lessons - demonstrating the immersion into the online community “in action”. It’s all very well to set up tools - Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, a blog, etc - but to support PLN growth and the approach to continual professional development, the way the tools are used ultimately determines PLN effectiveness.

Outcomes of my research is by no means complete, nor was it a perfect methodology. What I believe I’ve achieved (and wish to contribute and share) is the establishment of a benchmark for measuring effective and engaging personal learning networks, identification of strategies for PLN adoption and possibly an enhanced understanding of the concept by learning about and applying network theory and connectivism.

The purpose of my presentation is to reflect and share my experiences of PLN development. The aim is to inspire, guide and encourage other new information professionals who may be uncertain about starting out in the online LIS community. I admitted long ago that the mere thought of using technologies and tools was very daunting and difficult to comprehend. There is no doubt in my mind others feel the same way. What I’ll be trying to achieve with my presentation is to put these thoughts at ease, assure there’s plenty of people to assist (and are very happy to!), and show that successful immersion into the online LIS community and the establishment of a personal learning network can happen with small steps.

So the end is near, a chapter comes to a close for this piece of research. Following NLS5, I think I’ll sit down to consider what the next steps will be. What aspect of the PLN concept can I clarify or expand on next?

If interested in some background reading, here’s some key posts I’ve written on PLNs.

10 Must Reads for PLNs
Principles of Connectivism and the PLN
Personal Learning Networks and Environments - Same thing?
PLN Adoption: Which stage are you at?
Focusing on Network Theory

Your Personal Brand & PLN

Author:

CPD23 Thing 3 considered personal branding. Prior to my LIS studies I was ignorant of this idea of creating and building my professional self as a brand. And it does make sense, especially in a working climate where people are not likely to stay with one organisation their entire career. We’re entities in ourselves. A thoughtful and strategic approach to building a personal brand is required to market ourselves appropriately to the opportunities we wish to seize and the goals we wish to achieve.

I have a degree in business (marketing), so I tend to think about and apply the term ‘brand’ in this sense. Let’s dust off the old marketing textbooks….here’s some definitions.

Brand - “a perception resulting from experiences with, and information about, a company or a line of products” (Duncan, 2005, p. 6).

An alternative….

Brand - “a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (Kotler et al, 2004, p. 407)

A related concept…..

Brand identity - “the design of the public face or distinctive visual appearance of an organisation or brand” (Duncan, 2005, p. 329).

Okay, so these definitions are heavy on marketing from an organisational and/or consumer-driven perspective but we can see some key elements.

  • Perception - your personal brand is how others see you. How others experience your contributions to discussions, projects, etc form your reputation.
  • Public face - your presence (online and offline) and the professional you display publicly. A blog name, blog design, domain, twitter username, avatar, logo, all make up your online ‘public face’.
  • Differentiation - your character traits, skills, knowledge, experience and interests identify you as a professional and make you different from others.

To me, a personal brand is determined by three things: -

  1. Identity
  2. Reputation
  3. Professional relationships.

Thanks to social media knowing no boundaries, personal learning networks are often formed with members having not met each other in real life. When building a personal learning network - establishing and strengthening relationships - you’d obviously like other people to feel comfortable to form a connection with you. First encounters are often with personal brands. People who you follow, who follow you, people you converse, share and collaborate with form a connection with your brand. You’d like people to be confident with you and respective of your contributions to the personal learning network.

Developing a personal brand is an ongoing process of aligning how others see you with what you’d like to convey. So far, for my online presence, I’ve paid thorough attention to: -

  • Choosing my domain and blog names
  • Twitter username
  • Twitter and Linkedin avatars
  • Look of my blog and choice of photo in the header
  • Look of personal business cards
  • Biographies - for blog and speaking events
  • Content discussed and posted on Twitter and blog.

With the decisions I’ve made about my online presence, I’ve aimed to achieve, to some degree: -

  • an accurate reflection of who I am
  • consistency across ‘profiles’ - LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog
  • flexibility (for my different career stages)
  • purpose and meaning

Given I’m still a LIS student and not sure exactly where I’d like to go in my career (though I have an idea and know what skills I’d like to develop), my ‘offline’ professional presence is about aiming to do my best in everything I undertake, take up opportunities to receive advice as well as to provide it, expand my skillset and knowledge base, and applying what I learn to my work. While the decisions I make impacts the kind of ‘presence’ I convey at this stage of my career, I do not make them lightly. It shouldn’t matter whether you know where you want to head or not, how you conduct yourself among your peers contribute to the development of your personal brand.

My ‘two cents worth’ of advice to others is to start small and pay attention to the smallest of details. This is how I’ve approached establishing a personal brand and I think it’s worked well. It all adds up to being your ‘public face’. Make yourself easy to find and connect with by helping others ‘join the dots’ of your online presence and maintain a consistent identity. Keeping an accurate, and by ‘accurate’ I mean ‘honest’ personal brand will enable you and others to identify people with similar (or varied) interests, values and expertise to connect, share and collaborate with. A personal brand is an important consideration in building a personal learning network.

References

Duncan, T (2005) Principles of Advertising and IMC, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill; USA.

Kotler et al (2004) Marketing, 6th ed. Pearson Education; China.

Audit Your Personal Learning Environment

Author:

No doubt there are others like me who have signed up for, downloaded or acquired tools, applications and devices which make up our Personal Learning Environment. There is every intention to integrate these into our daily or weekly routines. Perhaps we just wanted to try them out, used them for a specific task or project or have used them only on an ad-hoc basis at most. It’s time to clean up!

In an earlier post, where I distinguished a PLN from a PLE, I hinted at my own definition of a Personal Learning Environment. There appears to be variations of a definition, yet two components stick out - tools and learning. Here’s my definition: -

A PLE consists of an individual, learner-oriented collection of tools, resources, services, and connections organised and used to gather and engage with information, reflect, and communicate and collaborate with others, in pursuit of continual learning and achievement of goals and objectives.

The goal of a PLE audit (or mine) is to re-organise and co ordinate components to increase efficiency by minimising effort required to access and use each component. The outcome of this process is a more effective PLE, better suited to the achievement of learning goals and objectives.

I’ve taken three steps to audit and tidy up my Personal Learning Environment - stocktake, assess and organise.

Stocktake

  1. Gather all log in details for each tool, resource or service. I found this was the easiest way to identify what I’ve signed up to, tried, or use.
  2. Create a list of email subscriptions, web applications, wikis, software of your computer and devices. My list consisted of over 20 tools (!) including Gmail, Mindnode Pro (on my Mac), Dropbox, Twitter, Slideshare, Evernote and Skype.
  3. Divide a page into three columns - Tools/Devices/Resources, Use it?, What for?.
  4. Fill in the table as much as possible.

Assess

Go through each component and assess its role and contribution to your PLE. I created the diagram below to provide consistency and assist with the process.

(I understand the diagram can be hard to read. Click on the image to view a larger version)

Organise

Once you have identified the next steps required to re-organise your PLE components, ensure that you action them! If it will help, create a diagram or edit your list (created during ‘stocktake’) to show your newly designed PLE. A visual reminds and assists me to see the ‘big picture’. I’m that sort of person, I guess.

Other Tips

  • Take stock of your PLE on a regular basis.
  • Include your online presence in this process. Which ‘presence’ (eg. LinkedIn, blog) is lagging, not being properly maintained that it’s potentially damaging your brand and identity?
  • Identify the role of each component by their function. For example, my Google Reader performs a collecting function and my blog is a thinking and contributing space.
  • Create (and stick with) consistent use of tags, vocabulary and folder structures across similar applications. For example, a project folder on my mac will resemble an arrangement of notebooks in Evernote.
  • If you use Instapaper, create an RSS feed for your “Unread” folder and add it to Google Reader. You’ll only need to look in one place for reading material and resources, not two.

The aim here was to prompt thinking about the effectiveness of a PLE and its components’ efficiency of use. The suggested audit process is intended to be a guide and is by no means exhaustive or absolute. I’m sure there are other ways to evaluate tools and ‘tweaking’ a PLE. This was just my approach. I hope it can be of use to others.

Resources for PLE definition: -

Attwell, G 2010, ‘Supporting Personal Learning in the Workplace’, The PLE Conference, ISSN 2077-9119.

McElvaney, J & Berge, Z 2009, ‘Weaving a Personal Web: Using online technologies to create customised, connected and dynamic learning environments‘, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 35(2).

Educause 2009, ‘7 Things you should know about Personal Learning Environments‘.

(Recent) Noteworthy Reads

Author:

In anticipation of the upcoming ‘blog every day of June’ challenge, I thought I’d keep aside some post ideas for now. Goodness knows I’ll need them! So for this PLN project update, I’ll share some recent reads which have prompted thought and (quite) a bit of pondering.

1. iLibrarian - 18 Usability Resources for Librarians

This could not have arrived at a better time. I’ve just started a project at work, re-designing the library’s intranet site - properly cataloguing items in the CMS (for improved control and transparency of content and to increase flexibility for discovery and retrieval), implementing (much needed) functionality to assist efficiency at both library and user ends, and creating a virtual ‘space’ for library users who I may not come into contact face-to-face. I’ve bookmarked a few of these resources already and no doubt I’ll need to refer to them often.

Usability is in a librarian’s or information professional’s ‘DNA’, however I think we tend to rely too much on our judgement or instinct and sometimes forget about involving and asking the users what they think their needs are and what tasks the library needs to support.

2. David Lee King - Skyping from my Car (and other Wow moments)

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to share some of my ‘wow’ moments during ‘blog every day of June’. There’s been a few, especially throughout my ‘PLN’ development and learning about a new world - library and information science. ‘Wow’ moments also exist in the smaller and simpler things in life…..have you had a ‘wow’ moment recently?

3. Alexandra Samuel - Who would you be without the internet?

Now this one really got the brain ticking over. Alexandra shares his reflection with this thoughtful post and an exercise I also hope to do next month. On a serious note though, who would you be without the internet? What profession would you have chosen? What would your work day be like without it?

4. elearnspace - The Problem with Literature Reviews

A somewhat strong view by George Siemens on the value (and problem) with a standard research practice. I have to say, I tend to agree with a response by Jenny Connected. Siemens brings up valid points, and probably some everyone has thought of but hasn’t raised, afraid of the backlash they may bring. A risky post by Siemens, yet no doubt has me thinking about how I may approach literature reviews in my future research.

5. Gigaom (Dawn Foster) via iLibrarian - 5 Tips for Better Performance Reviews

Again, this post is timely. My annual review is coming up next month. I don’t know whether I’d like to ‘brag to my manager’, but perhaps some circumstances requires it (to a reasonable extent). I have the view of ‘actions speak louder than words’. One tip I’ll definitely take on is making sure I keep a record of my achievements. I’ve also implemented reflective practice into my project work as a way of justifying and demonstrating my thought processes for decisions I make and to show continual development of my expertise.

PLN Participation Update

# of Tweets for fortnight 124

# of Followers gained 4

# of Mentions 105

# of People I started following 2

# of Blogs/Feeds added 1

10 Must Reads for PLNs

Author:

A recently new follower on Twitter who is keen to learn more about PLNs contacted me last week, after being referred by another in my PLN who knew about my current research in PLNs and Connectivism. The final paper for the New Librarians’ Symposium has been submitted, so there’s no better time to compile and share resources and key authors resulting from my literature review.

While my research focused on the use of PLNs by library and information science professionals, a key finding from the literature was a concentration on the use of PLNs in an educational context. Discussion tended to centre on the evolving use and purpose of learning management systems. Other themes included attempts to distinguish between personal learning networks (PLNs) and personal learning environments (PLEs); prescribing tools to start a PLN, and tips on how to “join the conversation” and grow a PLN.

Must-Reads

Supporting concepts of PLNs are: -

  • Connectivism
  • Network Theory
  • Personal Learning Environments (PLE)

Check out other articles, posts and presentations by these authors: -

  • Alec Couros
  • David Warlick
  • Howard Rheingold
  • George Siemens
  • Stephen Downes

And these Slideshows…

Other tips and resources for learning more about PLNs (and connecting to others) include: -

  • Follow the #pln hashtag on Twitter
  • Set up a Diigo account and look for bookmarks for PLN resources

Principles of Connectivism and the PLN

Author:

Amidst attempting to work up some “headspace” momentum for writing my NLS5 paper, I thought I’d write my fortnightly post for the project….

During my literature review for the paper, I drew yet another link between the theory of Connectivism and the PLN concept. The “Principles of Connectivism” by George Siemens can be applied to the PLN context, in order to understand the purpose, characteristics and success factors of building and participating in a PLN. The eight principles (as stated in “Connectivism: a Learning theory for the Digital Age”) are: -

  • Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
  • Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources.
  • Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
  • Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
  • Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
  • Ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill.
  • Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
  • Decision making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, does not mean it will be right tomorrow, due to the constant shifting in the information climate.

For a PLN to be successful - to thrive and for its collective knowledge to evolve - there needs to be a diverse set of people connected to the network. In the LIS community, this would involve cracking the echo chamber and include people who may not work in a traditional library per se, but who work in different sectors, information environments, and also those who work in varying degrees of information professional roles such as information/enterprise architects, educators, information technology and business management. What I would recommend to those contemplating establishing a PLN, new information professionals like me, is that it’s ok to select people outside of ‘library world’ to follow, to support learning goals and interests. Diversity strengthens a network’s ability to create meaningful connections between information resources and ideas by bringing together varying opinions and understanding. The key is have an open mind.

In the current “digital age”, it is becoming increasingly important to develop the ability to know where to find information, rather than know the information itself. This is due to the ever-changing and evolving information climate, in that connections are being formed every day, every minute. I believe this is where librarians and information professionals are ahead, we are already “connectivist” minded. Librarians and information professionals’ skills, are indeed, more valuable than ever in the current information landscape. It is then inherently clear that the need to continually fine tune information skills, strengthening our “connectivist” ability, is a key driver to establish and participate in a PLN.

PLN Participation Update

# of Tweets for fortnight 94

# of Followers gained 5

# of Mentions 71

# of People I started following 10

Total # of Blogs/Feeds 54 (down 2 from last fortnight)

Top 5 Blogs/Feeds I’ve found to be good reads recently

  1. Librarian by Day
  2. iLibrarian
  3. Alexandra Samuel
  4. Annoyed Librarian
  5. David Lee King

Personal Learning Networks & Environments - Same thing?

Author:

A few weeks ago I sent out a tweet to my personal learning network -

“PLN & PLE - Same thing? Or different? What do you believe to be definitions for these terms? Any opinions or thoughts?”

The reason for this is because during my literature review for my NLS5 paper I found that these two terms - Personal Learning Environment and Personal Learning Network - were used interchangeably by some and as separate concepts by others. I happen to agree with the latter, however I was curious of how other members of my PLN defined these terms with respect to their learning experiences and participation in their own PLNs. One member of my PLN responded to my question with a blog post, for which I’m very appreciative.

The discrepancies I’ve found in the literature tend to stem from the context in which the terms are used. That being said, I think its still important to note the differences between the two concepts, especially for a new information professional (or anyone), wishing to establish, develop and maintain a personal learning network and environment, to sustain a self-directed and collaborative, lifelong learning approach to professional development. Understanding each concept individually can be the key to formulating the strategies and plans required to gain maximum value from personal learning activities.

Personal learning networks (PLN) are a subset within one’s personal learning environment (PLE). How? In my opinion, a PLN is the “people” component to a learning environment. PLNs are the social aspect; the “human connections”; “the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information” (Klingensmith, 2009). A PLE is just that, an environment which encompasses your choice of tools, resources and artefacts, used to assist your continual learning.

Community vs Individual Learning - a PLE is constructed usually with the individual in mind to which the environment is designed for (there are goals, objectives and learning outcomes an individual seeks to achieve); with a PLN, participation is about give and take; contributing to the community of learners and adding value to the network by sharing reflections, perspectives, new ideas and new representations of and/or connections with existing knowledge. Active participation in a PLN is a step beyond passively receiving and reading new content and resources, but I believe you can only benefit your own professional development if you do so. (Part of me can’t believe I’m actually stating this considering my humble and nervous beginnings not even 12 months ago) Go on, take a small leap and post a thoughtful comment on a blog post - you’ll benefit from the reflective practice and your PLN will benefit from your value-adding contribution.

Interactions - in a PLE, interactions are personal, even internal to the individual, and are with the content that is collected, stored, processed or thought-through. A PLN involves interacting with people, connections with others and the collective knowledge base within the network.

New Ideas/Connections - a PLN is like a hub of engagement with and where the exchange and production of new connections and ideas take place. I guess this will depend what “engagement” means to you as an individual. To me, to gain the most out of engaging with content and resources (probably most of which will come from your PLN or PLE), you need to reflect and challenge pre-existing ideas and/or opinions, at the very least. Externalising thoughts on content would take the form of commenting on a blog post, responding to a tweet on Twitter and/or re-tweeting a resource URL with an opinion or comment.

Tools (blogs, Twitter, aggregators, etc) - okay, so there’s plenty of resources out there advising the most common and best tools to establish a PLE. But this is the area where I’ve uncovered most of the confusion amongst what I’ve read on PLEs and PLNs. Tools, just setting them up, does not equal a PLN. Tools are facilitators of PLNs. Tools used to communicate and collaborate with your PLN, such as Twitter, make up part of the wider collection of resources, that is a PLE.

Now here’s a thought to ponder - What develops first? The PLE or the PLN? Alec Couros (2010) views the PLN as being “the sum of all social capital and connections that result in the development and facilitation of a personal learning environment”. I tend to view this in two ways and both don’t exactly answer the question. On one hand, I think the PLE, the tools set up and being used, results in establishing connections with others in an online environment. But what about the people, your “in real life” PLN who help you set up a PLE?

PLN Participation Update

# of Tweets for fortnight 70

# of Followers gained 3

# of Mentions 35

# of People I started following 3

Total # of Blogs/Feeds 56 (down 7 from last fortnight)

Top 5 Blogs/Feeds I’m reading at the moment

  1. iLibrarian
  2. ALIA - LIS jobs
  3. Alexandra Samuel
  4. eLearnspace
  5. Librarian by Day

Abstract Accepted!

Author:

What an exciting achievement….

Whooooaa! Hooooooo!!! Yippeeee!!! Woot! Woot!

I had to do that, and now its over with. Thank you for bearing with me.

I’ve never written a conference paper or presented before, so the New Librarians’ Symposium (NLS) this year will be a significant milestone for me as a new information professional, as well as a stepping stone towards presenting in the future. Presenting at the New Librarians’ Symposium will provide the opportunity to share my learning and experiences with establishing and developing my PLN, (hopefully) encourage and guide my peers in developing one of their own, to benefit from collaborative learning, current awareness of issues and professional development opportunities.

Time to report on how I’m going with the project….

I’m currently (still) doing the literature review on key, supporting concepts - personal learning networks and the e-learning theory of connectivism. From my initial findings and the #CCK11 course, I’ve found two more concepts, network theory and personal learning environments (PLE). All four concepts are highly relevant to my paper, but the question that keeps running around my head is, when do I stop looking for, reading and reviewing literature? I’ve also thought about the kind of literature I should be seeking. I’ll explain….in terms of academic literature, there really isn’t a lot out there, both for personal learning networks and connectivism. However, does the PLN concept have a place in formal, academic literature? There are large amounts of opinions and thought sharing on the concept through blog posts and presentations, so should I be looking at these resources? And if so, where do I start to find quality content? The very nature of a PLN suggests the best place to start would be my own PLN, twitter and RSS feeds, and having a look for content authored by the leaders I already follow.

I ran into the same issues with the last literature review I completed for my studies. Not so much the source of the literature, but the “where do I stop?” dilemma. I need to learn to set boundaries for myself and stop “the hunt” when I start going in circles. I guess these skills come with (loads of) practice. I’ll get there.

I’ve developed a concept map, initially on paper (which always works!), however I tried using the free version of MindNode to replicate. (On a side note, I’ve found MindNode to be quite limiting, I can’t show connections between concepts on different “branches”.) The concept map is not ideal, but its a start (at least for one in electronic format). Suffice to say I’m on the look out for more useful concept/mind map software, if anyone has any suggestions?

Other tools I’ve been using to help me out with managing the project and methodologies are: -

  • Evernote - to record random notes and capture web content and links
  • Mendeley - to store and organise PDF articles/literature
  • Twitter/ Hootsuite
  • EasyTask - task management program
  • Calendar - tried and true month by month print outs to show project-specific due dates/schedule (I need a constant visual at my desk)
  • Diigo - to store bookmarks I envision I’ll use after the project
  • Dropbox
  • WordPress blog (of course!)

While on the subject of methodologies, I had a “lightbulb” moment approximately a week ago about my approach to collecting data on my participation and contributions to my PLN - on Twitter and my blog. I’ve been recording what I’m contributing, but not the return conversation - my “mentions” on Twitter, or the comments I receive on my blog. Tah-dah! Of course! PLNs are about “give and take”, so ideally I need to capture both sides of the conversations I’m having.

So up to this point, I’m a bit behind in my schedule I’ve set for myself, but all in all, I think I’m doing well. I did miss a scheduled post two weeks ago due to illness. I don’t like falling behind or skipping tasks. As long as I keep reverting back to my abstract, I can maintain focus on my goal and purpose of the paper.

My next steps for the project are: -

  1. Finishing up the literature review
  2. Review notes made/ thoughts captured in Evernote
  3. Start to organise my notes into a structure for the paper
  4. Review my abstract (also to assist with outline and structure)
  5. Get writing!

PLN Participation Update

# of Tweets for fortnight 60

# of Followers gained 2

# of Mentions 40

# of People I started following 1

# of Blogs/Feeds added 1

Top 5 Blogs I’m reading at the moment

  1. Freestyle Mind
  2. David Lee King
  3. Hmmm….
  4. New Grads News Online (ALIA New Graduates Group blog)
  5. Opinions from an OPL

Reflecting on PLN Engagement #CCK11

Author:

PLN Participation Update

Number of Tweets for fortnight 118

Number of Followers gained 3

Number of People I started following 4

Number of Blogs/Feeds added 1

I’ve started to notice changes in my PLN participation over the last month or so. These changes are mainly attributed to:-

  • increased familiarity with the people I converse with;
  • increased comfort levels with the tools I use regularly (eg. Twitter).

Everyday Conversations

I am engaged with conversation with members of my PLN, mostly on Twitter, every day. These exchanges don’t need to be about library/information science at all. Conversations can simply be about ‘everyday’ things, helping one another get through the day; often just ‘being there’ can be a comfort in itself to others, like having a group of mates around you all day cheering you on, keeping you company. Members of my PLN certainly do not replace the work mates I have physically at work, but sometimes I need to bounce ideas or thoughts with people who are more like-minded, professionally. I believe these everyday exchanges an only strengthen my professional relationships.

Personality

I’ve seen pieces of my personality creep into my tweets and blog posts. This isn’t a recent phenomenon. There have been tweets I’ve thought twice about, perhaps typing a tweet then deleting it halfway through, some tweets I’ve even regretted. Whenever I start a tweet that may not be related to LIS, studying or professional development, I tend to remind myself of the purpose of using Twitter, being my professional channel. Now in saying that, I don’t think there’s any reason why my Twitter stream needs to be void of personality. So sometimes I do allow a tweet every now and then to slide. There’s room for a bit of ‘Alisa’ - my interests, what I do on weekends, etc - in my stream. I just need to ensure that whatever I post reflects positively on me as a professional as well as an individual. I continue to develop a self-awareness about my professional identity - directing, shaping and developing.

Tweeting about my work

On the weekend, I had finally finished writing an article about my role at work. Throughout its development I began tweeting my day-to-day tasks, perhaps getting comfortable with the idea of sharing what I do in aviation. Until now I’ve shied away from telling people what I get up to in the hangar (well, the office upstairs, but ‘hangar’ still sounds cool!), mostly because it seems no one ‘gets’ the unique information environment and industry setting I work in. I’ve since realised there’s no need to shy away, but by sharing what I do is a contribution I can make to my PLN.

Blogs

I currently subscribe to fairly popular blogs, such as Librarian by Day and David Lee King, whose blogs I just don’t feel comfortable commenting on (yet). These are people I view as leaders and influencers in the LIS online community. I almost don’t feel ‘worthy’ to comment. At this early stage of my LIS career, I find commenting on blogs of my peers, mostly from Twitter, more enjoyable and satisfying. This may be because my peers on Twitter, who I liaise with often, feel more ‘local’ or closer than popular blogs. There’s more of a ‘sandpit’ comfort commenting on blogs by my peers. I’ve said this before (and I’ll say it again), I like to help people out where I can. So if I think I can make a worthwhile contribution to someone’s blog post, either provide a different perspective, share an experience or some partial knowledge, it’s when I’ll post a comment. I don’t like to comment for the sake of it, I’d like to show I’ve engaged with the person’s content they’ve put in an effort to create, returning the courtesy by posting something noteworthy.

Levels of participation in my PLN will vary over time. There will always be continual progress to be made in developing, maintaining and managing the relationships I make in my PLN. But I’ve definitely found reflection beneficial to this process. Have a look at how you participate, I recommend it.

About Alisa

I'm an early career information professional and library and information science (LIS) Masters graduate with experience from the special library environment (aviation industry) and archives sector, specialising in records and information management.

I'm interested in cultural heritage collections and online engagement, information and knowledge management and how information is accessed and used for creativity, knowledge generation and sharing and innovation.
I'm also passionate about new and early career information professional issues and trends.

An active participant in the library and information professional community, you can usually find me on a committee or two.

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