Professional Development

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How the terrible fonts on my website led me to New Zealand...

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Every so often I will search twitter for the URL of this website. I recommend doing this - you can see what people are saying when they link to your site, what people respond most to, sometimes what they don't like. Occasionally I'll reply with more information if appropriate.

Maybe twice a year I'll run a similar search for www.librarymarketingtoolkit.com, and it was doing this that led me to discover the following tweet:

LIANZA is the Association for Library and Information Professionals in New Zealand. I replied to say 'you don't like the font..?' and someone else joined to say how much they ALSO didn't like the font! I got some useful feedback on the font you're looking at now on this site, too - so thanks to Seonaid, they've since been tweaked! And the Toolkit website was completely overhauled in terms of visual style, as a result of that chat.

Anyhow, Ines on the LIANZA account and I got talking, which resulted in this:

(I've mentioned before that although I work part time and make part of my living through workshops, I don't ask money for conference talks apart from expenses.) This led to an email exchange and to cut a long story short (is that the most misused phrase ever? I've basically let the long story run its course here, apologies...) I'm delivering a keynote at the annual LIANZA conference in November. I'm more excited about it than possibly anything I've ever done professionally! I will be setting out a library communication manifesto in my talk.

The other keynotes include Justin Hoenke, who I can't wait to meet in person after we worked together on Buy India a Library. I also can't wait to hear Kim Tairi speak. The whole programme looks ace. I also get to be a 'human book' which I've not done before...

For anyone interested I gush a bit more about NZ in an interview for LIANZA's Library Life magazine (PDF).

Digital Marketing Workshop, Wellington, November 12th

While I'm out there I'm also running a workshop for PiCS, for whom I also run workshops in Australia every two years. If you're interested there's more info including booking here.

It's a really fun course - we dip into absolutely loads of tools which help libraries (and library services) communicate. Every single thing we cover is useful - they solve existing problems - relatively straightforward to use, free, and immediately available. This is not about the future of libraries or tech just on the horizon. It's about things you can do the minute you get back to your desk.

We'll cover online publishing (including Prezi and Sway), Geolocation and Augmented Reality, Marketing with Video, Measuring Impact on Social Media, and various other smaller topics.

Some feedback from recent UK versions of this course:

“ “Very up to date - thanks - very useful, practical and relevant course - I’m brimming with ideas”

”So much of it was useful... really easy tools to use and could results in some quick wins for us. Tips on blogging were useful too and hopefully will inspire us to actually start one. Augmented reality bit was fascinating - lots of potential there”

”I thought this course was excellent, one of the best courses I have attended at the BL... ALL the content was useful - Ned was excellent in really understanding the BL collections and needs and shaping the course appropriately. I have already recommended this course to colleagues!”

“This has been a fantastic course - I have learnt so much and gained more confidence around a number of digital marketing tools and how to use them effectively. Ned’s knowledge and brilliant presentation style is great and kept me hooked for the whole day. Everything has been amazing” ”
— UKeIG, NHS, British Library

So if you're in New Zealand it would be great to see you there! LIANZA attendees get a reduced rate, too...

 

 

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A UX in Libraries Reading List

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There's a new page in my navigation bar! UX is here.

Earlier in the month I called upon the ever-awesome network of twitter info pros to help me create a reading list to introduce someone to UX in Libraries - the part of User Experience focusing on ethnography and physical spaces rather than primarily on the online experience.

UX is a growing area but lots of people are still unfamiliar with it, so the aim of the list is to take a structured approach to introducing the topic, taking someone from a fairly straightforward definition right through to books, blogposts, presentations and journal articles that go into a lot of detail.

Lots of people came back with great suggestions and I said I'd make the list publicly available upon completion, so here it is. When you're looking for UX literature there's obviously a huge amount on website UX, so it's nice to have a concentrated list that's just about the library context.

UX in Libraries Resource List: A Structured Introduction to UX and Ethnography.

If you're wondering about tweeting a link to this blogpost you can use the sharing button at the bottom of the post, or you can use this one to tweet a link directly to the reading list itself instead if you'd prefer!

I created this primarily for the UX Intern about to start work at York for six weeks, who I'll be managing. I'm very excited about this - it's such a great opportunity to hit the ground running with some ethnography, and turn the ideas from the UXLibs conference into results for our own institution. The intern starts in August - I'll blog about how that all goes at a later date.

If you can think of a way to improve this reading list, please let me know! I've created a copy for our intern which I'll leave alone for the moment, so this public version can be amdended to and added to as much as people feel would be useful. I'm particularly keen on additions that you have specifically read / watched / viewed and found helpful, rather than 'I've heard this is good' type suggestions which might end up making the list too long and unwiedly...

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(updated) Training up North! Presentation Skills workshop coming up

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UPDATED 1st OCTOBER:

I now have confirmation of the location and details on the October 16th workshop. I've deleted all the stuff about the York workshops in the post below, as those dates are now past.

Oct 16: Presentation skills workshop, Liverpool

This is the full-day Making Your Message Stick workshop, which I've just revamped, for CILIPNW. It'll take place at the Library at the University of Liverpool. All the details, including how to book, are on the CILIP website - in essence we'll be covering how to make a very effective presentation indeed (which, as it happens, will also look really nice!).

There are also two free student places available, with a deadline of October 5th for application - if you're currently enrolled on a LIS course, click here to see how to apply.

Some feedback from the two most recent Presentation Skills workshops I've run, for CILIP NE and the Bodleian:

““Tips and tricks about perfect presentations - it was fantastic! Very informative, very attractive content of the course. I’d recommend it to anyone.”

”The trainer’s knowledge and approach to the presentation were outstanding. We received numerous references for further learning and finding resources, which is greatly appreciated.”

”It was excellent. It is a particularly difficult topic to present on, as the audience is looking to see excellent presentation skills in action. The trainer succeeded in demonstrating presentation skills as well as talking about them.”

”It was just perfect.”

”Ned is very engaging and was able to get across his enthusiasm and expereince of presenting at a high standard.”

”The trainer gave lots of useful tips and could draw on own experience in libraries to illustrate points; there as a good balence between written and spoken input and time to practice new ideas.”

”The course was really fantastic, I came away with lots of practical ideas and feeling enthusiastic about sharing them with my team.”

”The best training I have ever been on.”

“I found the day very useful - a very practical session with time for hands-on practice and a lot of good advice given. I have heard a lot of about Ned’s presentation expertise. He was great!”

”Really useful and informative. Good to have practical sessions as well as demos.”

”Ned was fantastic, and there was a great balance of practical exercises, and presentation of examples and tips.””
— Bodleian Libraries 2015, and CILIP NE 2015

You can see all of the upcoming workshops on my Upcoming Events page. Hope to see you at one of them!


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REVY Article on saying 'no'

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I like REVY, a very stylishly put together magazine / journal for info pros. They asked me to rework my just say no blogpost (which had some really interesting comments) from a while back into an article, which I was very happy to do! You can see the issue embedded below - mine is the first article - or find it on issuu.com here.


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Five questions to ask yourself before you say 'yes'

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There's a big thing in librarianship about the importance of saying 'no'. On Twitter especially I see it discussed a lot (and I take part in those discussions sometimes): it's really, really hard to say no to exciting opportunities, or even, frankly, unexciting ones, for all sorts of reasons. But if you say yes to everything you can end up burnt out. So how do you strike the balance? Here are some useful questions to ask yourself when weighing up a decision. I'd be very interested if anyone wants to leave a comment offering more advice on this.

(ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM KLAXON: it's hard to write about saying no to CPD offers without it sounding like one big humblebrag. Oh man, all these people want me to do these cool things but I'm so busy doing cool things already! Nightmare!

That's not what this is intended to be so I hope it doesn't come across that way.)

Is this going to add to *MY* professional development specifically?

By which I mean, does it feed into your specific goals and interests, or does it fall into the category of 'generic CPD'? I think a lot of stuff we feel like we should do actually turns out not to be something we can USE in our professional development. Job applications in our profession are all about tailoring your experience and skills to the specific role being offered - there's little room, in most cases (not all) for general experiences which sound quite nice but won't be used in the job itself. So if you get asked to chair or take part in a conference panel on The Future of Libraries, for example, does that help you tick off an essential personal specification on a job application? If so, great; if not, even if the conference is prestigious, it might not actually turn out to mean much, in real terms, that you were on the panel.

So ask yourself, where do I want to go next? And does this thing I've been asked to do potentially help me get there, or not?

Do I have the emotional energy to throw myself into this?

I really put my all into each workshop I run or talk I give. It's not just the time spent preparing, it's the emotional energy of being 'on' all day, as an introvert. I can't do this 50 times a year, it would stop it being fun. So even if something is on the surface a really exciting opportunity, you have to ask yourself if you have enough in the tank to do it justice given the number of other things you may already be doing.

Where does this fit with my wider calendar?

This is so obvious, but easy to ignore. It's not just about whether there are things the day before or after the event you're being offered; it's more about your professional life-cycle. If you're coming to the end of a massive project on a Friday, chances are doing a talk the following Monday will cause you stress about both activities because you need the emotional space to focus on each one individually.

Are there big events in your personal life going on? Sometimes they can be all consuming and the last thing you need is to plan a talk. Other times planning a talk can be the escape you need.

Does this have the potential to lead to other exciting things?

Are you going to find a new or extended network, or audience, by taking this opportunity? Or is it a no-through-road in terms of what might happen next?

Sometimes it can be worth finding a way to say yes to something if you can see more opportunities opening up as a result - as long as those opportunities are specifically relevant to your interests and goals, of course. I wrote an entire book mostly for that exact reason - it was a nightmare to do, too... But worth it for the doors it opened. 

Is this something new, or more of the same?

One of the best ways to eliminate an opportunity which seems like it will be great but you know you simply don't have time to do, is to ask what it offers that nothing else does. And if, for all its excitingness, it's not going to introduce you to new people or force you to do research into an area you don't know as much about as you'd like or make you explore new ways of presenting, or whatever, that can be enough of a reason to say no.

I don't want to give the same talk over and over again. Laura Woods and I did that with the echo chamber thing back in 2010 / 2011 and we felt really spent after a while - even though we varied the content, we felt we'd said all we had to say. So we stopped saying it.

Bonus question: would it be fun?

I added this one after asking my friend Céline on Twitter what advice she'd give. As she says, "you're allowed to say yes to things just because they'd be fun" which is very, very true. Fun is important! Sometimes it can trump all of the considerations above, because a fun experience leaves you fizzing with energy and motivation.

Extra bonus question for white males

Something I've just started doing with conferences invites is finding out a little bit about the other speakers. I'm giving a Keynote at LIANZA in New Zealand this year, and I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be the all-too-common library conference situation where all the keynotes are male and white. Thankfully that was definitely not the case for this event, they have it covered. 

I'm not trying to preach that if you're white and male like I am you should turn down your dream conference talk because the other two speakers are both white blokes too - but I do think it's important to ask the question and ensure the organisers have considered it.

Of course, it's not just you who features in this equation, it's the people or body who are asking you to do something in the first place. If you can, as well doing the obvious helpful things like replying promptly, recommend someone else. If I know enough about the event from the description I've been given, I'll always try and match it with a name who I know would be great. Often the organisers are really pleased to have a new lead to pursue. 

It feels GREAT to say no. Knowing you're not adding additional pressure to your work-life balance. In my experience, opportunities still come up. It's not like saying no once forever puts the CPD genie back in the bottle.

There's a lot of rhetoric around the idea of being the best you can be, making the best of all the opportunities you have, and how you only regret the things you don't do. I can see the merit in all of that but I treat it all with caution. I keep a list of things I've said no to (partly because I want to show my employer that when I do ask to attend a conference in work time, it's for a good, considered reason, and not just  something I do at every opportunity) and honestly there's some pretty cool stuff on there which it would have been fun to be a part of. But I don't for a minute sit around wishing I'd said 'yes'. Because if I had, who knows how much I'd've been able to enjoy the things I DID agree to - maybe I would have been too busy to prepare properly (I HATE being under-prepared for a talk, even by a tiny amount) or I would have been so exhausted by All The Things that I wouldn't have truly enjoyed any of them.

So to maintain a healthy relationship between work, life, day job, CPD, creativity, energy reserves and all of that, learning to say no is a genuinely important skill. Don't always say no! But at least ask yourself some questions before you say yes...