Thing 1 Blogs, gadgets and widgets

I have spent some time investigating what I can do with my blog and have started to link in other online elements such as my Twitter feed, and 2 of my scoop it subjects using widgets and gadgets. I also used the NetworkedBlogs Facebook app to link to my blog so that it publishes my blog posts automatically onto my Facebook stream. I’m sure my family and friends would be thrilled to see my posts (hmm!).

On a practical level I have also used the NetworkedBlogs app to link our Health Library blog to our Health Library Facebook page. This saves us a bit of time keeping our online streams in line. I have also added the library twitter feed, an RSS feed of health news and a youtube video bar of our etutorial demos. We already have a link to our Facebook page. This is giving us an opportunity to reflect our different online activities together.

I hadn't really done very much work on the Health Library blog as it has been going for quite a while and was initially set up by someone else.However I'm starting to feel very experimental.

Thing 1 Still Blogging

Have taken a look at everything you’ve ever wanted to knowabout library blogs and blogging! By thewikiman. He talks about taking control of your online presence, indicating that it may be something used by prospective employers to screen employees and suggests using the tool Personas to get an idea of what online presence your name has.

Well, according to Persona –I am a minor aggressive musical book reader who likes to share, possibly via committees; do a bit of management of illegal medical news (illegal higher than books, really!); slightly fashionably famous for religion and genealogy, mainly involved in teaching sport online (is that possible?).

It may disappoint you (or not) to know that much of this is nonsense about me… mostly… I’ll own up to the books, genealogy and medical. But maybe there is a Cheryl out there somewhere who fits this perfectly and good luck to her.

We don’t how this information has been trawled, what algorithms have been applied, whether there is any agenda – is there an online sports teacher paying for advertising space? Somehow putting your own presence out there and being in control of it (is that possible?) may mitigate any potential damage.

I’m sure that our online presence is as multi-faceted as our offline lives and I’m not sure that everything would go into a job application form. While I appreciate that demonstrating social media skills are appropriate, even essential, for some job applications, I wouldn’t like to be the personnel officer trying to justify a recruitment decision based on social networking searches.

I think I need to work on my profile.

Thing 1 Blogs and Blogging

As you can see my blog is now up and running. I'm afraid that I didn't spend too long comparing and contrasting blogging tools. I took the lazy option and set up on Blogger as I already have a Google account (so not another link / username / password to remember). I am also a little familiar with the interface as we use this for our library blog. Of course the most difficult bit was choosing the layout and theme - redecoration may occur from time to time.
I have added in some gadgets/widgets so that everyone can share my musings as much as they like. You can also post a comment - though I am moderating these. I guess the blog will develop as I learn more on the course.