Thing 12 - reflections on social media

Having been congratulating myself on being up-to-date with all things CPD23, I now find myself falling behind once more. I'm off on holiday next week so busy this week getting everything ready. That means no time to look at things 13, 14 or 15 - and by the time I come back from holiday I really should be on 16!

I did make a few notes on thing 12 - reflection on social media, and felt really smug about it, seeing as it was supposed to be a free week. Ah well, pride comes before a fall and all that ...

Well, having got this far, what’s changed for me?

If I’m really, really honest, then this blog is the only big change. I’m hoping to be able to keep it going after 23 Things, but having a topic set every week is giving me an impetus that will not be there once 23 Things has finished. A big dose of self-discipline will be required to continue regularly.

Social media can lead to better communication.

Yes, but only if people participate. The huge majority (including myself) seem to prefer lurking in the shadows – happy enough to read other people’s ideas and comments but unwilling to share themselves. Twitter seems to be dominated by a small number of librarians, and also librarians who already know each other and have created their own groups within Twitter. It’s difficult sometimes to know when is appropriate to comment, and when not, especially when the professional and the personal meet.

It creates a more collaborative working space where people are encouraged to share their ideas

Not yet for me, but I can see that for projects, groups, etc, it would be useful. I'm hoping to join a project with other institutions and it will be interesting to see how much use we make of collaborative working space.

It aids in building online communities

I’ve blogged about this before, but for me, the main online community is still lis-link (or other mailing lists). The response rate is far better than Twitter or comments on my blog. I’ve also found that one of the big pluses of following CPD23 is renewing contacts with people who I’ve either already met or know of, and I’ve really enjoyed following the blogs of Alyson Tyler and Sam Oakley. I haven’t really made contact with people I’ve never met before. This probably means that I’m not being proactive enough in commenting on other people’s blogs and responding to Tweets.

Social networking can also provide easy access to other areas of the profession.

Yes it can, but I think that to get a clearer idea of other areas of the profession, then visits to other sites is invaluable.

Since beginning 23 Things, I use Twitter a lot more, but am not sure of the benefits. I'm a lot more aware of how I need to improve my networking, and face-to-face works a lot better initially to build relationships - maybe I can then use Twitter etc to keep in touch with people.