Tag Archives: conversations

Don’t take it personally

Posted on by acrystelle
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I’m sure the participants, Matthias and I could have chatted well into the afternoon at our workshop at the New Librarians Symposium last month about building and managing a professional identity. I would have happily done so. Of course, we couldn’t cover everything in three hours, but there is something I’d like share now, my own challenge and small tip for those who are yet to discover the wonders of Twitter, the professional online community and personal learning networks. There have been times since I started venturing in the online space when I’ve had to tell myself, ‘Alisa, don’t take it personally’.

As a newbie entering the Twitter-verse and the engaging conversation to be found there, it can be difficult to grasp the fact that just because you follow someone, doesn’t mean they will follow you back.  There will be times when you follow someone who you genuinely think is awesome – as a person, professional, for their skills or knowledge, whatever that took your fancy, but they don’t follow you back. This can be disheartening at first. It was for me. Thoughts like I wasn’t good enough circled through my mind. You can feel stumped and struggle to try to figure out how you can “meet” this awesome person. It can be difficult to not to take this as a reflection of your worth in the conversation and online space.

There are people who I’d really like to converse with, get to know better but haven’t followed me back. In the few months when I first started using Twitter to communicate with the profession, I followed a particularly popular librarian from the UK. I followed this person because I was interested in what they had to say, what they’ve done and generally wanted to learn more about them. They didn’t follow me back. Well, not until recently, over two years later. There is a person who I met not long ago who I really wanted to continue our conversation and establish a relationship. I look up to this person, have a lot of respect for them. They didn’t follow me back on Twitter. I could possibly email this person, but I’m quite shy in these situations and need to muster a lot of courage to take this step. Even at work I sometimes don’t speak unless spoken to for fear of interrupting them (something I need to work on).

So try not to take it personally. It is not a reflection on you. Things will be as they’re meant to be. Let it go.

In the first few months, or even up to a year, it’s easy to get caught up in the buzz when you gain a new follower. I’ll say right now that the value of an online presence is not in the numbers – the number of people you’re following and the number of followers you gain. The value of the learning experience, learning from one another lies in the connections and strength of the relationships you build, not the number of followers. Don’t use the numbers as a validation for your professional worth. Numbers are no measure, believe me. Know thyself. My thoughts are to not take much notice of the numbers. I suggest worrying about the people and your relationships. Focus on the great people you connect with, converse with and exchange ideas with. Authentic connections count much more than simply the number of followers you gain.

My activity on Twitter is that I don’t tweet willy-nilly, most of the time. I tweet when I have something to say. I guess you could say I’m introverted in both my offline and online lives. I tweet when I find a useful resource I’d like to share. I tweet when I have my ‘Alisa’ moments, such as watching the footy or reading on the beach of a Sunday morning while my partner surfs. I enjoy sharing what I know, my thoughts and experiences and bits and pieces of my personality. If you seek authentic connections and relationships, you can only be yourself. Be genuine in your interactions. Mean what you say.

No matter what, at some point people are going to disagree with you. 

Don’t take it personally.

Disagreement is natural and healthy. Strength of a network and its resulting knowledge is in diversity. Different perceptions open new ways of thinking. Take it in your stride.

There will be times when you’re misunderstood, people may misinterpret what you say. It hasn’t happened often so far to me, but this is a really difficult thing to not take personally. I tend to take this as a reflection on me and poor communication. I get disappointed in myself for not communicating my ideas clearly enough. This is learning too. It is learning about your peers. These are opportunities to develop ideas further.

Don’t take it personally.

And finally (for now), find your own style. This takes time. I’m still trying to find my own. Be true to who you are as a person, the professional you are or becoming and your contributions.

But just remember, don’t take it personally. Take your time finding your feet. It’s all good.

Reflection on a workshop that was…

Posted on by acrystelle
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…..awesome!

I co-facilitated a workshop at NLS6 a couple of weeks ago titled ‘Building and managing your professional identity’, with nearly 40 participants. Surprising turnout, I must say. I thought, “People actually want to see me speak?…..Cool!” (…followed by, “Oh crap!”)

I couldn’t be happier with how it went.

For those not so familiar with the New Librarians Symposium, here’s the description for the workshop from the program -

New to the online networking scene? Not sure if building an online presence is for you? Don’t know when to share something personal or professional? This workshop is for you. Let’s talk about the drivers for being in the online space. Differing perspectives and experiences about being online will be offered for discussion, as well as fine tuning of your use of some professional networking tools.

The objectives, directly from our lesson plan, that guided the workshop were: -

  • provide participants with an understanding of an online professional identity, what is means to them and to the profession
  • overcome any fears or barriers keeping participants from active involvement in the online professional community space
  • enable participants to make informed decisions about interacting with others online and how to present themselves
  • provide participants with an overview of key social networking tools – how to use them, what to watch out for

The approach we took in preparing for the workshop was to split the workshop into three, well-defined parts, but kept the agenda flexible enough to adjust to participants needs. We wanted to allow conversation to flow where it needed to go. We prepared a lesson plan that kept us to the objectives of the workshop; thought about who might be in the workshop, so what we were assuming and expecting from participants’ prior knowledge and experience; did up some slides to guide the structure of the workshop (nothing fancy), and came up with simple activities and discussion topics to get conversation going. Both my co-facilitator and I were on the symposium committee, so this approach worked for us and thankfully, the participants.

At the beginning of the workshop, when people were arriving, I felt uncomfortable sitting up the front. I didn’t want to feel or be seen as this ‘hot shot’ who was about to impart my lessons and wisdom. I wanted to be part of the conversation, THEIR conversation. I introduced myself and encouraged participants to introduce themselves and get talking among themselves, because hey, they were going to talk to each other whether they liked it or not! This made me feel more comfortable and hopefully, this had the same effect on them.

Okay, so I mentioned there were three parts.

1. Why actively develop a professional identity online?

In this section, we explored what was meant by ‘professional identity’; compared ‘professional identity’ with ‘personal brand’, and discussed drivers for being in the online space and actively developing a professional identity. We used butchers paper for brainstorming what ‘professional identity’ means to the participants, then for the discussion about drivers, we had participants brainstorm in groups and had one person from each group share what their group came up with. We stuck up their ideas on the walls.

2. How to play nicely with others

Here my co-facilitator, Matthias Liffers, led the participants through some of the common social networking tools – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, as well as some hobby related ones like Flickr and Runkeeper, just briefly. We also looked at when to share or not share, personal and professional accounts.

3. But….what about?

We delved into some interesting discussions around some scenarios Matthias put forward to the participants. These scenarios centred on one thing – “What if your employer discovers your content?”  We also spoke about and shared experiences with what to put on our resumes. I finished this part of the workshop with a mini-lecture/ presentation on my views about professional identity and how it fits into the wider context of learning as a profession. I could have done this first thing, but then the participants would walk away with my views and not their own. I wanted the participants to formulate their own ideas, the way it makes sense for them, then put the ‘spanner in the works’, so to spark.

A few things made this workshop awesome, or made it the one people wanted to be in.

  • Interaction and discussion – this was by far the biggest strength in this workshop, and was partly due to the great bunch of people Matthias and I had the pleasure to work with. Participants had the opportunity to have their ideas and experiences heard and boy(!) did they bounce around the room! It was fabulous to see. Matthias and I valued what the participants had to say. This was their workshop. Interaction is what a workshop is meant to be about!
  • We were real – Matthias and I openly shared our experiences. We didn’t say ‘this is the way to do it’, instead we said something like ‘this was our experience and we’re sharing our lessons and tips’. We kept it real. This approach certainly worked with both our personal styles, in my opinion. It was great to bounce off another person. We worked well – I kept him to time, he kept me from freaking out from nerves.
  • Flexibility – We aimed for the participants to get as much out of a discussion as possible, and if it needed an extra 10 minutes to do that, so be it. We adjusted time, activities and discussions accordingly.

To wrap it all up, we did some informal feedback in the form of post its. Our questions were:-

1. What did you like about this workshop?

2. What did you learn and will take away from the workshop?

3. What didn’t we cover that you think we should have?

4. What could we (as presenters) improve on?

Feedback was overall very positive. I’m really stoked participants got so much out of it. We got a a few on Twitter! We got a few thinking about their professional identities. We got people thinking about a landing page to bring all their online presence together. Here are some of my favourite pieces of feedback.

“what I liked about the session was the engagement/ bounding around of ideas between tables, the group and the presenters”

“both discussions were informal which I find enjoyable and less nerve racking”

“the candour of the presenters”

“that developing an online presence could be a really fun way to add to my professional development”

“connectivism – think more about what I share with the world in return for what I gain”

“everybody has something to contribute no matter what”

What we could improve on….

“lollies”

“maybe more table discussion in 2nd half – just to balance out”

“I think the 2 group discussions were great where small groups reported back to the larger group. We could have done more of that.”  << I didn’t anticipate participants being comfortable with this! So much so, they wanted more!

All in all, I declare this workshop a success! Many thanks to Matthias for co-facilitating, the symposium committee who agreed to have us on the program, and to the participants. You guys rock!

PLN, where art thou?

Posted on by acrystelle
6

….well, that’ll be the first thought I have if, heaven forbid, Twitter disappeared tomorrow.

Someone asked me the question recently, “If Twitter went kaput, was lost and disappeared, what would you do?”

For a moment, well actually it was a little more than a moment, panic set in. No one had asked me that question before, and it’s a very valid one.

Twitter is a tool I use to connect with my personal learning network. If that connection was lost, what would my PLN look like? How would I communicate?

Firstly, let’s look at my main purposes for Twitter, besides connecting with my PLN. My Twitter network acts like an information filter. I have hundreds of ‘pairs of eyes’ looking out for relevant, thought provoking and important key professional information which feeds into my professional development activities. Twitter is also a channel through which I contribute and share information, ideas and reflections.

Now take Twitter out of that equation.

And I realise a few things: -

  • Connecting with my personal learning network would become….. very……. slow. Circulation (and even generation) of  ideas, issues and trends would seem like forever. A lot more time would have to be spent seeking, sorting and processing information, making careful judgements on what is significant to the profession, what I need to consider and what I can discard. My sounding board would be taken away if Twitter disappeared.
  • I do have other tools for connection, such as this blog, so I would probably put out a ‘message in a bottle’ to see where I could connect with others again. I would really miss my peeps!
  • I’ve survived without Twitter before. And so I could survive again, if I had to. Plus there’s conferences and tweet ups! ….oh wait, you couldn’t call them ‘tweet ups’ without Twitter, ooops.
  • I would heavily rely on my local, face-to-face PLN members to point me in the direction of where others were ‘meeting’.

I recommend really having a think about this. I’ve shared just a few initial thoughts. Seriously, what would you do? Please share!

BAM! Twitter’s gone…..Go!

And off we go again with #blogjune

Posted on by acrystelle
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Today is the first of June. It’s also officially the first day of winter and the first time in months I’ve managed to beat my partner to ‘pinch and a punch’ this morning.

Yes I’ve signed up for another round of blogging everyday in June with a bunch of library and information professionals across Australia and beyond.

Thoughts and blog post ideas strike at anytime. While I do my darnest to record these and save for later, so perhaps this is the time to dust them off and be brave enough to put some those out there.

This weekend will see me attempting to complete my assessment for Semester 1 of university studies, so my posts over the next few days may not be exactly thought provoking, unless of course I need to nut out one conundrum or another as I write my assignments.

Yes blogging is a great way to think things through, record how one understood or thought about this or that, in a point in time. It’s also a space for reflection. I echo much of what a new blog, Fortnight Question (with @flexnib and @libsmatter), has spoken of recently. I’m looking forward to reading their posts.

So here goes, another #blogjune. I will try to post everyday, can’t guarantee it, but certainly this event brings together library and information professionals closer every year, geographic boundaries are no limits. #blogjune is a good motivator to capture thoughts as they ‘pop’ and kickstart a habit of not leaving ideas for later.

Cheers

A buzzing Library Camp

Posted on by acrystelle
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Lucky I brainstormed and wrote down initial reflections just as I arrived home from last month’s Library Camp, as only now I seemed to have got round to posting about it and my involvement in the (un)organising team.

For an unconference, Library Camp sure does require some preparation to ensure the event runs smoothly on the day. Phew! With a bunch of other information professionals committed to bringing Library Camp to Queensland, I think we pulled it off very well. It was fabulous to take a step back from the action and watch it happen – buzzing conversation and coming up with collaborative solutions. I involved myself with setting up registrations, merchandise, preparation of the program and slides for the proceedings, drafting programming procedures, organising a panel discussion, being an MC and facilitating sessions throughout the day.

The set-up

eep! There wasn’t much time between The Edge opening and the start of an action-packed afternoon. I’ll admit I was stressed in setting up the auditorium and ensuring things were put in their starting positions. I had to remind myself at times that others knew what to do, it was a team effort. I perhaps showed my stress a little more than I wanted to. I was fine, it just didn’t appear that way! As an MC, I wanted to keep proceedings as simple and relaxed as possible.

As an MC

Prior to the event, I was comfortable and confident in being an MC. On the day? I’m not so sure. It was either that I wasn’t the right person, I didn’t have the right equipment, or that it was difficult to manage all the “Oh, don’t forget to mention….” requests.

After the welcome segment, there were some feedback relating to my position on the stage. If I had it my way, I’d have a roving microphone and would’ve preferred to be walking around the floor amongst the audience. (Roving microphones finally came out in time for the panel discussion). I wanted to appear involved in discussion, not directing it. For an unconference, I believe this sent a mixed message to participants, particularly those who hadn’t been to one before. On one hand, I looked all too professional behind a lectern on a stage, then on the other hand, the event was meant to be casual, informal and relaxed. So I guess there’s a thought for next time. I certainly enjoyed being an MC, I’d do it again and the team appreciated all the feedback.

Programming

Possibly due the fact a lot of people hadn’t been to an unconference before, the programming started off rather slow. But as people saw others stand up and suggest sessions, whether they knew about the topic or not, the energy began to charge up, and as I looked at other members of the (un)organising committee, they started to look more relaxed as we shared a ‘tah-dah!’ moment. A tip for future unconferences would be to explain the whole process first, then go step-by-step. This allows people to gain a sense of the whole picture from the get-go.

We trialled 40 minute sessions, with a five minute change over time. Some feedback indicated this was too long and given the proximity of the ‘rooms’ at The Edge, the change over time perhaps wasn’t needed. So maybe next time, sessions of 30 minutes with a five minute buffer would be more ideal.

The panel discussion

Instead of a (un)keynote speaker, we had a panel discussion to kick start conversation and set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. I believe this was one of the key successes of the day. Local leaders of the profession shared their thoughts to the question, “Excuse me, are you the librarian?”. The theme for the discussion, sponsored by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), focused on the changing skillset of a librarian or information professional; what kinds of roles we’ll see less of in the future, and the kinds of roles we’ll see more of.

Finding your passion

In one of the last sessions of the day, I found myself in a discussion about students and new graduates landing their first library job. Carolyn MacDonald from Bond University shared her wisdom with the words “Find your passion”. I would agree whole-hearted that every budding new information professional needs to do this. You wouldn’t be in the profession if you didn’t. Passion shines through. Other common tips included being prepared to move, identify transferrable skills, research the organisation and role you’re applying for and don’t be arrogant. I believe this is true of any profession, really. If you want to be successful badly enough, you need to put in the effort, and yes, sacrifices are required. Having a degree does not make jobs land in your lap.

Final thoughts and skills acquired

On a whole I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in organising an event that brought people and ideas together. It was a pleasure to be a part of it, to assist participation and generally making sure everyone gained as much as possible from the first Library Camp in Queensland.

The (un)organising committee worked so well on the day, I am very appreciative of support  from the team and fellow MCs. I learnt a great deal about managing expectations throughout the (un)organising prior to the event; working and communicating with people I hadn’t done so before; building on my public speaking skills and experience, and technical skills relating to the Mac-projector set up.

Photos from the day can be viewed on Flickr. And catch up on the tweets by searching the Twitter hashtag #libcampqld.

Awesome stuff.

Cheers.