Reflective Practice

I really enjoyed the reflective week.  I liked having the time to sit back, look at other blogs and find out who else was taking part and what they were saying.

From the blogs I had a chance to view I've learned a few things:

• Some people have far better looking blogs than me - the fact that I want mine to look better because of this says more about me than them!  Looking into improving the look and feel of my blog is one more thing for the to do list...
• Quite a few of us have similar feelings towards social media - do I want to put myself "out there", do I really need any more accounts, is this a new craze or will it last, how can this help me in my job?  I'm enjoying the chance to find new tools I might be able to use and I'm being choosy over wheich ones I want to sign up to, we all seem to be doing our own version of vetting a service for us personally.
• Some people have shared some great links or good articles and I've really enjoyed searching them out.  I've done a bit of reading around the subject of social media myself and am currently absorbing all I can from the brilliant Art of Social Media by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick - I've borrowed mine from the library but you can buy it here http://artof.social/ - or use their great resources.  It's a really enjoyable quick guide to what works for various different platforms.

What Thing 6 didn't let me do was catch up - so I'm off to look into podcasts and video now!

My Professional Brand

I've been getting a bit behind and I think this "thing" was the reason.  I got a bit stuck here.  

I was fairly pleased with my incognito Google search.  In the main, I'm careful with my Facebook profile, I try to keep my security settings high as I keep it for personal contact.  Having a young child my Facebook is mainly filled with pictures of him and my contact with other mums - not the most professional but absolutely essential to my sanity!  My only point of concern is that my name would be connected with our work Facebook as I am one of the main contributors and Facebook does attribute page posts to personal users.

I've been on Twitter for a good few years though I'm not prolific, I tend to retweet.  I did notice that my Twitter profile picture is a baby photo so have resolved to update that ASAP.  Twitter also gave me pause for thought though.  I use Twitter at work being the main person behind our account but my personal Twitter very much reflects my politics and my passion for social justice.  In terms of professional brand, how much is this likely to affect potential employers or partnership working in future?  I'm still undecided on this, but I'd hope it wouldn't be a negative as I wouldn't want to hide who I am.

I had a LinkedIn account a few years ago but deleted it after a security issue.  I opened a new one a few months ago but didn't get round to updating it.  I've been working on it this evening but it's definitely highlighted the need to update my CV.

All in all, a difficult "thing" for me but I am starting to have an inkling of where I'd like to take my career over the next few years and professional branding is going to be crucial so it's something I'll keep working on.