Thing 3

Ok, it has been two months since my last post and at this rate I'll have 23 Things finished by Christmas 2012. Anyway back to the personal brand thing. I spent ages thinking of a blog title and although I'm aware that being distracted could give a negative impression I like to think of the positive side of being easily distracted by new things. Generally I would rather use a made up name as a username rather than my real name because my surname is fairly rare making me easy to trace. I also run any username through the Urban Dictionary to ensure it doesn't have an undesired second meaning. Also usernames can depend on what has already been taken, so although I try to use the same ones if I'm late into something I have to think of a new one.

I was relieved that the Google search for my name found the real me straight away, hurrah for silly surnames! When I was Morris the same search brought up stories about serial killers and sporting achievements.

I'll keep with The Distracted Librarian until I can think of something better. Now on to Thing 4, should be appearing sometime in November!

Thing 2

Nearly fell at the first hurdle! Have been very distracted with hospital hi jinks, end of term madness, De Blob 2 and sunshine but am now back to get on with the next thing.

I had a click through a number of blogs on the CPD23 list and found it to be a rewarding experience. It was great to see many photos of lovely libraries reflecting the pride that we take in our work. What I found reassuring is that we all seemed to be describing the same experience of writing our first blog posts, especially as the youngsters were just as nervous as the rest of us.

When it came to leaving comments on other blogs I played it safe by commenting on blogs of people I knew and then when I felt more confident, branched out to leave comments on others. I can now see how this would help to build networks and is helpful for me as childcare commitments can make it difficult to attend face to face events at times.

I'm now going to resist the temptation to dive straight into Thing 3 and will look at it this evening - small plastic toys do not pick themselves off the floor and hurt when you stand on them.

Thing 1

I've created this blog as part of CPD23 and it is the first of the 23 things that make up a learning exercise designed to teach about the wonders of Web 2.0. I am a Service Manager for Reading and Learning  with Newcastle Libraries and although I feel pretty confident about my ICT skills, I think that completing the 23 things will help me put ideas into practice. This course is ideal for me because it involves doing things rather that sitting in a seminar room daydreaming while someone talks over a PowerPoint presentation.

Thing 1 complete - I'm really pleased that I got on with writing the blog post instead of spending hours making the template look good. In creating the blog I took the easy option of using Blogger as I already have a Google account set up. I feel nervous about posting this where the entire universe can see it and snigger at my appalling grammar and punctuation. Also spell checking thoroughly before posting!