Droide Druida
The blog of Elena Menéndez
Can your social network replace a search engine?
Dec 1st
Last week I attended the CILIP CDG National Conference. The programme included a presentation by Phil Bradley on social media and why it is important to Librarians. It was a full-throtle, engaging talk explaining where social media is today and how its exponential growth is affecting the world of information. As always, Phil made very good points in favour of engaging with social media. We know this can be an issue for librarians, not always through personal choices, but because their organisations have decided that social media is BAD and should be blocked. Phil made powerful arguments for information professionals taking action and communicating the value of social media to their organisations.
One of these arguments was that social media have become the new way of finding information. Users no longer look for authoritative content on a company’s website, they expect the information to come to them via a combination of news feeds and recommendations on social networks. These may come directly from friends or as a result of the user’s browsing history.
I can’t possibly disagree with any of these points. However, what Phil said next gave me a lot of food for thought. Social networks (or rather the people that inhabit them) are not only replacing websites as authoritative sources, they are also taking the place of search engines as a way of finding information. I find this idea misleading and overly simplistic and this is why:
- I have observed people asking questions on Twitter and even asked some myself. Crowdsourcing information can be very effective, but the quality of the response depends on the subject of your enquiry and the appropriateness of your network. As with many things social media, I feel virtual and physical networks mirror each other. Tweeting “how do I make spaghetti carbonara?” will have a similar effect to turning around in the office and asking my colleagues. Obviously, going online increases my chances of getting a response, but the quality of the information I receive will always depend on how ‘expert’ my contacts really are. If you haven’t got the experts right, you may end up having to do a lot of filtering or even and worse of all, following incorrect information. It takes a while to develop a good network and, if like me, your job spans across various disciplines, you’ll need to include people from all these areas. Throwing random questions at them is likely to produce a lot of noise, in their direction and mine. For me, searching online for a carbonara recipe or looking at the cookbook on my shelf would be a quicker and more accurate way of finding the information I need.
- As an information professional, I feel I should always try and find an answer by my own means. This may just be a personal gripe, but I feel it is lazy to do otherwise. I’m often bemused by people going on Twitter and asking things like “does anybody know any good books on XXX?” Errr… couldn’t you have checked on Amazon? The information is already there. Also, much of the knowledge I need to do my job exists on technical lists, forums and wikis and the best way to find it is to use a search engine. Of course, if that doesn’t work, I would always try and ask those who may know, whether they are local or virtual contacts. However, there again, I would target a particular list or group, to make sure I get an informed response.
- Similarly, when I answer a question, particularly online, very often I’ll use a search engine somewhere along the line. I know there is a useful resource out there, but I’m not a walking encyclopaedia. Before I can send you the link I’ll have to Google it or search my Delicious bookmarks or whatever.
- Why should information professionals want to replace the search engine? By all means we – as any professional in any other area – should aspire to be experts in our field. That does not mean we have to have all the answers. As I said earlier, most likely we don’t and we’ve just used a search engine to find the link to that resource we were asked about. Search engines, like social networks are tools. What makes information professionals experts is their ability to master these tools and use them to meet the information needs of their users.
This is not meant to be a dig at Phil’s presentation. It was just one of many points he made and, I think the intention was good: to expose the importance of social media and encourage librarians to engage in social networks, even if it means having to sell them to their organisations. I just feel that generalisations like this may be harmful at a time when many people are confused about their role. Social media serve a very important purpose in enabling us to have, enhance and amplify conversations, to connect with likeminded individuals and to reach out to people on the other side of the planet at the click of a button. They transcend social barriers, they give a voice to multiple causes that would otherwise remain hidden. And yes, they are a source of information too, but replacing the search engine? I don’t think we are there yet. However, I would be very interested to see if anyone else has any other thoughts on the matter.
CILIP Career Development Group National Conference: ‘The Practical Professional’
Nov 21st
Today I attended the CDG National Conference in Bristol. It was a small but very well organised event, which mostly ran like clockwork. Congratulations to the organisers!
Apparently the presentations will be available from the event website at the end of the week so, rather than doing a session-by-session review, I thought I’d focus on what for me were the main themes of the day.
Job losses, restructures, budget cuts…
There is not getting away from the fact that many librarians have been having a tough time lately. Several presenters drew on their experience to come up with their own survival guide. I’d sum up their advice like this:
- Every challenge is an opportunity – make the most of it.
- Be prepared: look ahead, take in the environment. How are social or economic changes likely to affect your role or your organisation?
- Keep reviewing what you do. In terms of service, why are you doing what you do? Does it align with the users’ needs? With organisational objectives? What is the impact? From a personal point of view, be a reflective practitioner, gather evidence of your work, continue to build your CV so you have it ready if you need it. This fits in with the philosophy of the Chartership process.
Career moves from sector to sector
Clearly, career moves are no longer just the result of a desire to try something new. Instead, they have become a necessity for some colleagues forced out of their jobs by redundancy. With opportunities shrinking in some sectors, information professionals are trying out new avenues and this is what I gleaned from their advice:
- Core skills are valuable and transferable. Review what you have and make sure you target the new sector effectively by highlighting and, if necessary, explaining relevant skills.
- There is plenty of crossover between sectors, but also big differences, so do your research before jumping in. Be flexible but know your goals and decide how much you want to compromise.
- Soft skills are very important. Several people mentioned that it was their non-librarian skills that got them their new job. I thought that was very interesting and matching what I have been reading / seeing in other professions (e.g., information technology, workforce development).
Personal development is a must!
Everyone attending the CDG conference should know this already but there is no harm in saying it one more time:
- We need to keep learning and developing, regardless of environmental conditions. Phil Bradley gave the example of someone saying they couldn’t be bothered with Google+ because it was “another thing to learn”. Ahem!… That’s what we do, isn’t it?
- Various speakers mentioned the importance of knowing yourself, your goals, your interests, your beliefs and tailoring your development accordingly. This is often overlooked, but very sound advise – you are much more likely to succeed doing something that is already in your nature.
- Similarly, I liked the concept of reviewing your career looking for patterns, do you gravitate towards roles that have similar tasks? If so, why?
Networks
The importance of the network, both as a source of professional advice and peer support, was also highlighted throughout the event. In an impassioned talk about the role of social media in libraries, Phil Bradley said that networks are not only becoming virtual, but also replacing websites and traditional search engines as sources of information. People are the new authority and info pros should make sure they are perceived as credible sources. I have some qualms about this premise, but they probably belong on a different post.
The event gave plenty of opportunity for networking action, particularly with lunch being followed by a speed-dating “game”. I have to be honest, this would not normally be top of my list of fun ways to spend an afternoon (I’m being polite). So I was very surprised to find the activity a) an interesting – and dare I say fun!? – way of meeting others and learning what they do, and b) the easiest “networking game” I have done for quite some time. This was helped, I think, by the feeling that I was talking to like-minded individuals – perhaps I am more of a “librarian” than I had thought! 
I also noticed – and others agreed – that explaining roles got easier as we moved from one group to another and refined the information we passed on. This reinforced an idea I have been toying with for a while: I need to write down a “mini job description” that I can draw upon quickly and easily so I can answer properly when someone asks what I do!
All in all, a good day and a great chance to hear about the varied roles librarians play and all the weird and wonderful paths that lead to becoming an information professional. I didn’t hear anything completely new, but that is good news, as it goes to show how good my organisation is at engaging in staff and service development.
CPD23 Thing 5: Reflective Practice
Jul 18th
Reflections - Image by Jason Truscott
Thing 5 of CPD23 asks us that we consider reflective practice and what it can do for our professional development.
I find the term ‘reflective practice‘ slightly misleading. If this method was simply about developing professional practice through reflection, I would have no problem at all. I’m naturally reflective and I invariably get classed as a reflector whenever I take a Learning Styles questionnaire. The problem is that to engage in reflective practice requires much more than simply… well, reflecting. It’s really what comes after the reflection that is crucial to the process of personal development. From the analysis of any experience I should be deriving some conclusions and, from these, planning the action to be taken in the future. It’s this concluding and planning that I often struggle with, particularly if it has to be documented.
In the last couple of years I have tried to get on top of my personal development plan – which I suppose is the place where I should be summarising all of the actions. With the help of my mentor and my manager, the plan has come a long way from its very vague beginnings, but it’s still very much work in progress. I need to get better at updating it and reacting to change. I also should be incorporating more development actions in the soft skills areas, something that it’s quite difficult to evidence and keep track of.
So yes, I can definitely see the value in using reflective practice, but for me the technique is still work in progress. I feel I can reflect, I just need to get better at taking action. I guess in itself that is evidence of reflective practice 😉
CPD23 Thing 3: Public Image Ltd
Jun 30th
Thing 3 in the CPD23 programme has got me thinking seriously!
I’ll start by saying that, if I’m entirely honest, I am slightly averse to using the word “brand” when talking about people. Two reasons: 1) It reminds me of Stuart Baggs “The Brand” 😀 and 2) I dislike the implication that people are products that need packaging and marketing. In my idealistic and probably slightly simplistic head, I prefer to think that my value is demonstrated by the quality of my work – or, to take it back to business, the product should sell itself. I know, however, that in reality things don’t work like that and without a good marketing strategy, most products will fail, no matter how good they are. Besides, managing your professional reputation or public image makes perfect sense – particularly if you are self-employed or work in the corporate world – and obviously, online presence is part of that public image. In fact, I think that as with many things web, we artificially separate the physical and virtual aspects of the problem, when in reality they are the same. The main difference is the amplification you get in the digital world. If I made a faux-pas at an interview or networking event, a few people might know about it, but the equivalent mistake online can reach all the corners of the planet in the time it takes to press ‘upload’. Plus it can be perpetuated in the collective digital memory for the foreseeable future. Scary prospect.
So, let’s talk about my ‘brand’, or as I prefer to call it, my ‘public image’. Jo suggests that we ask ourselves some questions:
What name(s) do I use?
I’ve sort of taken the opposite approach to what Thing 3 suggests. Instead of labelling my profiles in a way that would make it easier for people to find me, I’ve deliberately used different names in different places, depending on how official or public the account is. This was mainly out of concerns about digital identity and its implications in terms of security. You may think you’ve shared this here and that there and it’s all disconnected, but in fact it’s not. A simple Google search and anyone can build your full profile. I may be feeling particularly sensitive to this issue, having just got back from the i-Society conference, where various aspects of cybercrime were discussed and having also read WoodsieGirl’s account of her problems with a stalker, but it’s certainly something worth considering.
When I started creating online accounts I took the view that people who needed to find me, would find me through e-mail, my employer’s website etc. For everything else I felt it was best to keep some distance.
The result is that I don’t use the same name consistently. For Twitter, and a few other services, which are a mix of personal and professional I use a nickname. I started using it for Twitter because it was short-ish and didn’t take too many characters, then it stuck! As my real name is not English it’s relatively easy to find me in a UK Google search – in an international scale it’s a different story. There is also the complication of having two surnames – long story, don’t ask! 😉 I sometimes use them both, other times only one. I tend to use both surnames (hyphenated) at work and with people who know me personally. For everything else I use just my first surname. I know it probably makes no odds whatsoever, and anyone with a couple of neurones could find out I am the same person in no time at all, but somehow, it makes me feel safer.
I’m terms of managing my digital identity, I often wish I could have known what I know now when I first started to create online profiles. I could have been much more systematic about it. Even so, I have done a certain degree of re-organisation and consolidation of accounts and usernames over the years and I’m fairly happy with what I have now. As the time went by, I also became more relaxed about using my real name in more public places. I guess it’s a trade in for being a part of the network, but I still like to stay in the shade every now and then!
What photos do I use?
Similar to the name thing, in public accounts, I try not to use photos where you can see me clearly. For some things I use cartoon avatars, for Twitter and this blog I use a photo. If you see me or know me in person, you’ll probably recognise me, but it’s not too clear and hopefully it would be a struggle to pick me up in an ID parade 😉
Do I merge professional and personal identity?
To some degree… It’s really quite difficult to keep them separate in today’s connected society. I don’t have different accounts for the same service, but I keep Facebook for personal stuff only – and in any case, I don’t use it all that much. I try not to get too personal elsewhere, but hey, rules are there to be broken so expect random tweets about football, royal weddings or Eurovision 😀
Do I need a visual identity?
Possibly. This is something that I have been contemplating for a while. Not in a large scale, I wouldn’t design matching business cards (though Jo’s cards are ultra-cute!), because I use the ones provided by my employer. The way I see it, when I’m out on a business trip I’m representing them, so it doesn’t make sense to have a personal card. It would be different if I had my own business. But yes, I certainly think it’s a good idea to present a unified look. I have seen some integrated websites, blogs and twitter profiles that look fantastic. Most of them belong to designers, and I suppose in that field, your visual identity is key. I’m not sure ‘visual’ is a strong requirement for an information professional but it certainly isn’t going to hurt.
………………………………..
To be honest I’m not too worried whether my online profiles, including this blog, reflect my ‘persona’. The blog is not me, it’s just another part of me, like my work life and my personal life are all elements of me, but none of them is the full picture. I certainly try to keep things polite, though. Nevermind employers, I just wouldn’t want my mother to find anything too controversial and if it’s online, she will! Thanks Google! 😀
CPD23 Thing 2: Exploring other blogs
Jun 26th
My approach to Thing 2 in the CPD23 programme has been somewhat disorganised. It’s been a busy week and I knew even before it started that it would be difficult to fit in the activities, but I wanted to make sure that I got on board with the blogging from the beginning – no excuses, right? So, I looked at several blogs with no particular strategy, just going form one to another, following a trail of links and comments. I started by reading posts from established bloggers that I had been following already. It was interesting to see their perspective and what they each wanted to get out of CPD23. I also found some good advice about keeping blogs and finding ‘your blogging voice’. It sounds like there is no standard practice. Some people like to blog in depth. Others prefer to write short posts commenting on current happenings. Some blogs are stricly professional, others more personal. And while some people write carefully researched and thought out articles, with clear goals in their minds, others prefer a stream of consciousness approach. There is no right or wrong as far as I can see, it all depends on what suits you and your circumstances. But despite the diversity, all experienced bloggers seem to agree in one thing: You have to keep at it to make it work.
I also looked at posts by some new bloggers and by those that, like me, have had some experience with on and off blogging. We seem to be in a the majority and a common reason for participation in CPD23 is the incentive to get on with blogging.
I would have liked to spend more time commenting on posts. While reading, I found several things certainly worth a reply, but I only managed to leave a handful of comments. Like I said, it has been a busy week but I’m also aware that unless something requires an immediate reponse, I tend to go “I’ll do that later”, which too often means “never”. This is also something I hope to work on as part of the CPD23 programme. Wish me luck! 🙂