Friday 16 September 2011

Thing 3, Personal Brands

I have never thought about my personal brand before, or my online presence.  I've Googled myself in the past, but never really with the intention of finding myself, it was more like a game I would play with my friends to see who had the most exciting counterpart.

However, this time I was a bit surprised that I couldn't find myself at all.  On the one hand I find this a bit of a relief as I really don't like the thought of people spying on me online, but on the other hand, now that I'm starting to think more seriously about my career I feel like it might be good to have an online presence I can feel happy with.

I need to do a bit more research on personal branding.  I'm not sure how relevant it is to me at the moment, but I suspect that it will be when I start looking for another job at the end of my contract.  It seems to be quite common place for employers to search for people online, and a close friend of mine has had a mini horror story because she didn't realise this happened so much.

This week I added a picture to my blogger account and re-read my previous posts to see how they come across in hindsight.  I think my blog is starting to take shape, and I have been finding it surprisingly helpful posting my thoughts online (Things 1 & 2 were telling the truth!), so now on to Thing 4!

Friday 9 September 2011

Thing 2, finally

I have just discovered that moving house and starting professional development activities are quite tricky to juggle.  Common sense should of told me to wait until I had found, and moved into a new home before I attempted to start the Things, but after some really glowing feedback from Library friends I was impatient to get going.

Apart from moving house I also ran into some technical glitches with Blogger, meaning that I was unable to post on other peoples walls, and accidently became a follower of another CPDer without being able to post why...I still need to remedy that.

But after a desperate anonymous post for help (another glitch), the problem has been sorted and I can now freely post on other blogs.  So far I have only commented on one blog, but it's a start, and I am still a little apprehensive about just striking up an online conversation with strangers.  But we all have to start somewhere, and I'm really pleased to finally be moving on to Thing 3.  Hopefully things will speed up a little now.