{"id":62669,"date":"2014-02-26T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=62669"},"modified":"2014-02-28T09:42:20","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T14:42:20","slug":"using-technology-to-tailor-your-professional-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=62669","title":{"rendered":"Using technology to tailor your professional identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anastasia Gould, Head Editor, INALJ Nunavut<\/a>, INALJ Yukon<\/a>, INALJ Northwest Territories<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Using technology to tailor your professional identity<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Anastasia<\/a>New technologies figured prominently at this year\u2019s OLA (Ontario Library Association) conference, one of the largest in Canada. It was a welcome opportunity for LIS students and working professionals to explore the ways in which new technologies are catalysts for change in information organizations, and tools for improving access and service delivery. This post is the first in a series on the ways for \u201cUsing technology to \u2026\u201d in developing your LIS practice.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s OLA presentations and posters highlighted the range of ways in which new technologies are serving communities, be they communities of interest or practice or geography. As members of a community of practice, LIS students and professionals are turning to new technologies\u2014including social media\u2014to tailor their professional identity. The following is a summary of the OLA session presented by York University\u2019s Meghan Ecclestone and Kim Stymest about this phenomenon with recommended resources and approaches.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Your professional identity will evolve with your career\u2014each influencing the other. How you convey your values, strengths and goals as you progress along your professional path is up to you. You may think of it as crafting your professional brand or career narrative. In turn, you may convey this message as you make connections in the real world via conferences, volunteering, communications; and in the digital world through your eportfolio or social media presence.<\/p>\n

Selection committees look to social media when assessing a potential\u00a0candidate. This is why your eportfolio could become an extension of your r\u00e9sum\u00e9: you could include in your r\u00e9sum\u00e9 a link to your professional blog or website, plus your LinkedIn profile and Twitter account. The goal in creating a digital identity is to demonstrate your familiarity with new technologies while remaining consistent across platforms and demonstrating a reflective professional practice.<\/p>\n

Establishing a web presence<\/strong><\/p>\n

To that end, you could start your own blog. The LIS community of practitioners and employers welcomes active participation in discussions around developing skills, issues considered and challenges overcome. When it comes to the technology, I find\u00a0WordPress<\/a>\u00a0easy to use, whereas some of my peers prefer\u00a0Blogger<\/a>\u00a0and other blogging hosts.<\/p>\n

If you think a blog is limited to text, though, I invite you to reconsider: embedding elements like a link to your visual r\u00e9sum\u00e9 will showcase your technology skills while making your blog an interactive and engaging space where visitors want to return regularly. Like your blog, embedded elements require manual updating. Whenever you change one element of your digital identity, you need to update the rest to ensure consistency and accuracy\u2014an important step toward establishing your credibility.<\/p>\n

A visual r\u00e9sum\u00e9 is a welcome change from the traditional text-only account of your knowledge and experience, with varying ratios of text to graphics\u2014here are three examples to illustrate the concept:\u00a0visualcv.com<\/a>,\u00a0about.me<\/a>,\u00a0Re.vu<\/a>. For inspiration in designing your visual r\u00e9sum\u00e9, see the\u00a0infographic visual r\u00e9sum\u00e9s at Pinterest<\/a>. Then, when you are ready to get creative, you will find images to incorporate from\u00a0flickr<\/a>\u00a0(best to use images with a\u00a0Collective Commons license<\/a>\u00a0only) and Google images (on the page of search results, select Search Tools then \u201clabeled for reuse\u201d, or set comparable \u201cusage rights\u201d in the\u00a0Advanced Image Search<\/a>). Once it is ready to share, the link to your visual r\u00e9sum\u00e9 may\u00a0be included in your email signature and \u00a0Twitter account, as well as your blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anastasia Gould, Head Editor, INALJ Nunavut, INALJ Yukon, INALJ Northwest Territories Using technology to tailor your professional identity New technologies figured prominently at this year\u2019s OLA (Ontario Library Association) conference, one of the largest in Canada. It was a welcome opportunity for LIS students and working professionals to explore the ways in which new technologies…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":48382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[5976,69,3592,5981,5968,3667,5978,5977,5979,112,3552,5174,5980],"class_list":["post-62669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-anastasia-gould","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-blogging","tag-emerging-technology","tag-inalj-northwest-territories","tag-inalj-nunavut","tag-inalj-yukon","tag-ontario-library-association","tag-resume","tag-social-media","tag-technology","tag-visual-resume"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/INALJ-logo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-giN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}