#CPD23 Thing 5: I Think, Therefore I Am

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This week's assignment is all about reflection. Programs such as 23 Things for Professional Development truly are beneficial for all of us, in part because of the reflection aspect. So often we jump into web 2.0 tools without really knowing the usefulness of the tool up front (maybe not all of us, but I know I've been guilty myself). It's kind of like the public library motto that I adopted as IT manager that stated something along the lines of, the purpose of adopting new technologies is to directly benefit the community at large. In other words, if you're adopting just for the sake of doing or having the cool thing on the market, you're doing a disservice to your community. 

With that in mind, the 23 things program has been a good ride so far, enabling me to really step back and see my online presence in a new light. Because I am in an industry that is heavily focused on technology, and because I have grown up in the digital age (although my first computer in my home came about during my Junior year of High School), I have a pretty hefty digital presence. That's all fine, well, and good... but what am I doing with it? I would like to think that it has helped me to build a professional network, and to some degree it has...but I'm needing to step it up a bit (although I'm still not sure what direction to take).

Thing 3 has been the week that has hit home the most. I wrote about my personal branding that week, in terms of what I was already doing. Since that week, I have made a slew of changes to this blog and have begun thinking about the possibility of a personal domain. So far, I have:

* Very loosely designed a logo that reflects my title/username/online presence. I've thought long and hard about whether to change my brand to something more accurate, but this is what I've made a name with, so it's staying for now.
* Completely moved my non-library posts over to a 2nd blog. Read if you want, but my thinking is that this personal area will be what family and friends will want to keep up with. They don't care much about library stuff, and those of you reading here won't care much about recipes, travels, and the rotten Dit dog.
* Added additional pages to the blog, displaying them in link form just above my posts
* Gone on an embedding joy ride on the curriculum vitae and instructional presentations/projects pages. And for that matter, I have...
* Added the curriculum vitae and instructional presentations/projects pages.
The above are an effort to display a professional portfolio of sorts, in hopes that future employers will be able see my work and thoughts on librarianship as a whole. I'm pretty pleased with the direction this has taken, and I do hope you will comment and let me know what you like or don't like about the current format.

From here, I'm looking forward to the remainder of the 23 Things program, and the design of my own program design for faculty development.

CPD 23 Thing 3: Personal Branding

Beccalovesbooks - I remember the day I created an e-mail account with that phrase. I had no idea at the time though that it would morph into being my "brand" for every social platform I joined, and prophetic into my librarian career.

I was working on my undergrad degree in piano performance at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and remember sitting in the basement computer lab of my dorm the night I created my online entity. I needed to get away from my former e-mail alias, sweet_beccalee (although I'm not sure beccalovesbooks is much better), and beccalovesbooks is what I came up with. So, in creating this new account around the year 2001, it was as if I had a predisposition to my library career...but of course at the time, librarianship wasn't even on my radar, and I was most certainly one of the idiots that thought we of the profession became a librarian because we love books. **shakes head at my own stupidity**

Fast forward to years later where I now have identities on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger, FriendFeed, Ravelry, Flickr and probably more that I can't remember...all with this new handle and with a new found sense of what librarianship really is about (it's not all books people!). In fact, doing a simple google search of my name with the word librarian behind it (beccalovesbooks librarian) brings up pages of search results where people have retweeted information of mine, as well as providing access to some of my online identities. For now I'm ok with this, but privacy concerns are also a key topic. All of this is to say that I have begun to make a name for myself in the library community, mostly with thanks to the Library Society of the World (LSW for short).

*********LSW Plug*********
I don't remember the exact time frame that the LSW came about (I think I joined around 2008), but since the original gathering, there have been many branches and avenues of the LSW that have morphed. From this original site, the LSW is said to be:

"A world-spanning group of library professionals and library advocates, dedicated to furthering the role of librarians, archivists, information professionals, and information educators through communication and collaboration. The LSW is about people, not buildings (although some of us think architecture is sexy). It's about friendship, not organization. It's about creating and fostering opportunities, not building barriers and divisions."
It truly is a fantastic free organization that I have learned so much from, and I've met a lot of amazing people along the way. If you're interested in joining this group of people, take a look at the following links:

• The Official LSW Site
• Meebo Chat Room - last log-in March 2011 as of this post
• FriendFeed Group - run as fast as you can to join this...it's where all the action is!
• Good Reads Group - this one has great potential, but hasn't really taken off

There are other areas of the LSW too, but these are the one's that I am most familiar with and have used. So I do hope that you take a look at a few of these areas (especially the FriendFeed group) and join up with a great group of library peeps.

*********End of LSW Plug*********

So I guess for me, branding just sort of happened. I hope to continue finding my "voice" and I'm really enjoying the reflection aspect of this CPD23 Program.