CILIP's New Professionals Day

On Friday, I attended CILIP’s New Professionals Day – a fun and truly inspirational event. The speakers were fantastic and gave great advice. If you, like me, are at the start of your career and aren't quite sure where it’s heading, take a look at the presentations from the day for some inspiration http://www.cilip.org.uk/npid2012/pages/presentations.aspx  (or better still, go to the NPD next year).

There are a lot of posts and comments already out there about the day so I'm not really sure how mine will add to that. These are just my thoughts on the day and what I've taken home from the sessions.
Links to other participants' blogs can be found on Ned Potter's blog.

Annie Mauger' introduction

•  Librarians need to be more visible! 
•  You may need to look outside your place of work to gain experience (e.g. committees can help you gain leadership experience)

Ned Potter's 'You already have a brand! Here are 5 ways to influence it ...'

This was a fantastic start to the day: it enthused everyone AND gave participants food for discussion during the breaks. I find it especially difficult making conversation with people I haven't met before so Ned Potter's talk really helped me a lot in that respect too. Here are some of the things he talked about:

• Your brand is how you are perceived by others, whereas branding is marketing yourself as something different to everyone else. 
• Having an online presence is great for sharing opinions and information. 
• Having an online presence is a positive thing for libraries but it's not always necessary for individuals. It depends on what your goals are. 
• Find your goal and work backwards to where you are now. What skills do you need to develop? 
• Everyone's path is different. Don't worry about what other people are doing! 
• Be yourself!

I found this especially re-assuring. I've never been one of those über-librarians, and don't really ever intend to be one. (Although I do want to be involved in the library community to some extent). I've been intimidated by librarians who have a huge online presence and following and it had put me off using social media to some extent. It's good to know that you can still be a good librarian without being a social media expert! The pressure is off! 

• Your brand is a by-product of pursuing your goals but here are 5 things through which you can influence your brand:

1. Get online
• remember - it's a dialogue, not a monologue
2. Publish something
• what will your future employers read? Peer-reviewed journals? Trade publications? ...
3. Organise something
• an event or something else which will be useful for the library community
• create an event or collaborate with others
4. Share something
• e.g. opinions, experience or teaching materials (if institution allows)
5. Present something
• relevant to future employers? Can be amplified using e.g. Twitter (live tweet notes, scheduled tweets, etc)

I will definitely be revisiting these notes and using them for guidance once I've identified a clear goal. I'm sure they will be very useful. 

Notes from the other sessions and workshops to follow ...