Tag Archives: Twitter

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.

NLS5 Continued….Lessons & Realisations

Posted on by acrystelle
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Energetic.
Inspiring.
Exposure.
Empowering.

These are the words I would describe the (not so) recent New Librarians’ Symposium held in Perth (16-18 September 2011). I felt so privileged to be a part of the event. I came away inspired by other new information professionals who, like me, are stepping up to the plate and taking charge of their own careers and professional development; exposed to various areas of “library world” I haven’t yet had experience working in; empowered to take responsibility for making a difference in the profession, whatever that may be, and energised by the ‘buzz’ (the ideas, enthusiasm and passion) generated by all who attended.

It’s taken me a while to actually start writing about my experiences because there were many, all jumbled up and mashed into one weekend. In some ways I’m kicking myself for not writing sooner following the event. Yet I’m sort of glad I’ve taken the time to place words against thoughts which made up the take aways and lessons I’ve learnt.

Lesson #1 – Be yourself!
I echo much what Kate Davis has written about how important and okay it is to be yourself when presenting. I believe being myself was a key success factor to my presentation. Following my introduction, I greeted the audience with “G’day! G’day!”. Although I received a few confused looks, those who have met me will know that I actually do greet people with a “G’day!”, even in emails. Some people find this odd. I’ll say that’s just me. So what if I clicked the wrong thing and started my presentation with the wrong slide. Slip ups happen. I talk with my hands, move around slightly and deliver a presentation in a professional, yet conversational style, but this gives the audience something genuine because I’m being true to my own personality.

Lesson #2 – Be present.
The first keynote of the program, from Samantha Hughes, really drove home for me. Life has been somewhat a rollercoaster the last few months, so her presentation certainly clarified for me what it is I need to do at this point in time. Be present. Feel the fear (the uncertainty of risk-taking). Be alert and aware of yourself. Find and feel the joy in the little wins. When I encounter dark times, I need to feel, think through and stay present through them to come out the other side. Every experience is a lesson.
Whenever I feel too ‘inside my own head’ or am worrying about something, I now think about doing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ (Yes, Samantha had us all doing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’). The whole concept of dropping everything and only concentrate on the task at hand is powerful and pulls me back to the present.

Lesson #3 – Having a PLN rocks!
I was very happy to meet some of my PLN at the event. I believe this has helped to strengthen the relationships built over the months on Twitter. Finally placing voices to names and Twitter handles was exciting (!) and made mingling and networking at my first national conference much easier. I hope to build upon existing relationships and make new connections between now and the next event, so I can continue to expand my network.

Lesson #4 – I need to take more notes!
When I sat down to go through and process the notes I had taken, I was mildly shocked at the lack of detail and volume. Eeek! While I did de-brief with a study colleague at the end of each day, I did little by the way of recording my initial reflections and ideas. My immediate thought was ‘I’m very bad at reflection!’. But really, it wasn’t that I was bad at it, I just didn’t document it enough. I will try to take more notes at the next conference I attend. I need to be more disciplined with myself and set aside some time each day, perhaps only 15 – 20 minutes, to record my raw thoughts and reactions.

Lesson #6 – I’m an aspiring “practitioner-researcher”.
Yes-sir-ee. I want the best of both worlds. I have no desire to enter academia, to be a full-time researcher, but I do enjoy exploring, discovering and researching areas of interest to me, as well as teaching and sharing with others. Partly inspired by Kate Davis’ keynote, partly driven by my own aspirations, I can see myself becoming a “practitioner-researcher”. What does this mean? Well, simply put, I’d like to be a practitioner, as well as research and publish. Someone commented on Twitter during my presentation, suggesting perhaps I was an example of a “practitioner-researcher”. I received the comment as a compliment, as this is what I set out to achieve. I believe for the profession’s evidence base (literature) to be relevant and useful, it only makes sense that the practitioners have a say on the research agenda. It is the profession’s, especially the practitioners’ responsibility to be the main driver of the evidence base.

Lesson #7 – I need a hobby (okay, this is not as bad as it sounds).
Over the last 12 months, I think I’ve forgotten that it’s okay to have hobbies. Not that I haven’t enjoyed what I’ve done in ‘library world’, nor regretted my commitment, time and effort I’ve invested in my projects and study, I was just reminded I used to be (a more of) an active person and I enjoyed playing sport. I also like to travel, go for drives……aaahh, hmmm. Right, what are my hobbies again? Surely there’s more! I watched some doing their crafts and participating in ‘Stitch ‘n Bitch’ sessions at NLS5 and Library Camp, and so I realised I need something else. Something totally un-‘library world’ related hobby/interest to keep my life in balance.
I will be taking a brief break from ‘library world’ soon to volunteer at a motor racing event, the V8 Supercars at the Gold Coast 600. I was invited by a former work colleague, who is co ordinating the media for the event, to help out in the Media Centre. I’m looking forward to spending some time away and with an interest of mine from times past.

On a final note, I cannot stress enough to students and new information professionals that investing in your career, your professional development, to be proactive about it and driving it yourself, is very rewarding and motivating. If new information professionals are not prepared to put in the effort, do not take responsibility for their own careers, then I’ll burst the bubble right now and say ‘don’t expect opportunities to come knocking’. A piece of paper (a degree) doesn’t give right of passage to any professional appointment. It’s only the beginning.

Well, that’s it, they’re my lessons, or more to the point, some realisations from attending and participating in the New Librarians’ Symposium. Now there’s a scribbled list of post ideas somewhere on my desk….

Your Personal Brand & PLN

Posted on by acrystelle
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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.

A Day in the Life of a Technical Librarian

Posted on by acrystelle
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I’m still finishing off my last assignment for the semester, so what little inspiration I have for today’s post (given that I’m so incredibly tired), I’ll draw from my work day as a Technical Librarian at an airline.

7.30am – arrive at work, check Twitter and log onto my computer.

7.40am – start processing Technical Library email inbox – new service documentation and manual revisions to be entered into system and assigned to engineers for assessment; manual/document requests; responses from vendors, and any other notification relating to technical publications or access to websites.

8.00am – log into my Google Reader and briefly check out what is there to read throughout the day. Check Twitter.

8.40am – Goose gets in, says ‘G’day’

8.45am – pop in to see the ‘Dad’ (I didn’t get to this morning, but usually we’ll have a 15-20 minute chat about work and other things)

9.00am – Check Twitter (and continue to check Twitter nearly every hour throughout the day). Goose and I head to the lunch room to grab a tea/coffee.

9.15am – say ‘good morning’ to rest of the team, a bit of banter, a few stories.

9.30am – 11.30am – continue processing email inbox and follow up on a few loose ends between working on a project task. I try to answer and resolve as many issues as possible (from internal or external to the company) by before or just after lunch.

11.45pm (ish?) – an engineer visits the library and shares his latest news of a training course, learning about new aircraft. I am surprisingly fascinated by how fuel systems on an aircraft work.

12.15pm – 1.00pm – (today) catch up chat with supervisor

1.00pm – lunch (finally!)

1.15pm – worked out a plan for tasks to be completed in the afternoon, follow up this and that; checked project status and planned next steps.

1.25pm (approx) – continued working on CMS project.

2.00pm – Goose and I head to the lunch room for afternoon tea/coffee

2.15pm – begin looking over my assignment draft (I usually don’t do uni work at work, but since it was a quiet day…..)

2.30pm – chocolate

3.00pm – headed out of the office, picked up my new glasses on the way home.

4.30pm – started working on my assignment again.

6.15pm – picked up partner from work.

And….now I continue to work on my assignment and hopefully have it reasonably finalised before a final edit at work tomorrow.

It’s been a quiet one at work today. The only major issue I had to follow up was some manuals which were discovered to be out of date. I had contacted the vendor earlier in the week. Only after I followed up my request for current revisions, sending an email to all my contacts for the vendor, did someone respond. I’m hoping the manuals will be sitting in the library inbox tomorrow morning. A maintenance provider need the manuals to carry out maintenance on parts the manuals relate to.

The collection of manuals held by the technical library are subject to regular audits, in order to maintain currency and accuracy. Notifications of new revisions to documents and manuals are usually received by the technical library from the vendors.

So not a particularly inspiring post and I apologise for the somewhat boring day I had. However I am grateful for the quiet day as lately it’s been my “rest” and a bit of social time before hitting the study at home to do assignment work.

 

Nearly there…..

Allow me to Introduce….

Posted on by acrystelle
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Some days it can be downright distracting. Stories, friday night drinks, chats over tea and coffee, constant banter, morning teas, lunches, chocolate, random conversation. But that’s just how we roll…..

I’m speaking of the awesome team of mates I work with. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – they’re friggin’ awesome. My workmates know how much my LIS studies mean to me as a person and as a professional. They put up with my tiredness, random pieces of information I tend to share, my laughs, references to Twitter (and my PLN), dancing and my iPod. There is no doubt, my workmates form part of my “cheer squad”.

(And by “cheer squad I mean the people who surround you, support, guide and encourage you, there to lend a hand or an ear, and almost literally “cheer” you on from the sidelines.)

In the lead up to ‘blog every day of June’, I started to reflect on the great times we have as a team. So I guess there’s no better time than to introduce you.

Meet the Team

There’s……

  • Mr BMW – owns a BMW and my colleague in the Technical Library.
  • Maverick – too smart for his own good sometimes, has (more than) a hint of arrogance yet without the recklessness of another ‘Maverick’ we know…..(apologies for the cliche, but I really needed to slip in a reference to the great movie somewhere).
  • Goose – Maverick’s partner in crime and I’m fairly sure an office ‘bro-mance’ is going on there.
  • de TRAX man – my supervisor is the TRAX guru. (TRAX is a software used by airlines)
  • Mrs Soup – brings in soup for lunch, but it just sits there and keeps accumulating.
  • Miss Teapot – cute little teapot sits on her desk.
  • Miss Gravy&Chips – does she order anything else for lunch?
  • “Dad” – self-explanatory – the “Dad” in the group
  • Miss Sheep – one day she brought in a book about sheep (there’s a story). Every now and then she’s down on her farm in Victoria……I’ll leave it there.
  • The Boss – He has to put up with the laughter from the ‘other side’.

Starting with the ‘Chocolate Drawer Saga’, I intend to share some of my team stories, what we get up to and talk about in the office. They’re sure to entertain. Stay tuned.