Zips at a market stall: a touch of colour for a grey Monday morning ...

Flikr - Thing 17

Oo, that was fun, uploading photos to Flikr, tagged with 23 Things, as required.  I have used Flikr before, but see that I should be more adventurous with creating and using tags

Prezi - Thing 16

I really like the look of Prezi.  I feel strongly about the importance of the quality of presentations.  Why wouldn’t I try to make them as effective as possible?  And if there is a tool out there that can help turn a flat presentation into a memorable one, I want to grab it.  Looks like Prezi may be the answer.  I just haven’t had the chance to play with it yet, but I watched the demos and felt excited by a new creative toy, I mean tool.

Wikipedia - Thing 14

Wikipedia is a real boon.  The caveat, of course, is needing to stay aware of possible flaws and downright errors.  But there is some reassurance in the democracy of public editing giving an element of control. A couple of years ago I did some editing on Wikipedia. It was an entry about a museum I am involved with - and part of the factual information was wrong.  Strange to think of someone (who was it?) having written an article that was incorrect, but it was so empowering to have the opportunity to amend it, which was quite straightforward to do.    e-democracy is wonderful.

LinkedIn and Academia.edu - Thing 11 and Thing 12

So, we are asked to blog about social networking sites. I’ve had a look at Academia.edu and explored the contacts and links to research.  But I am already a user of LinkedIn and I’m on ResearchGate, so I think I will leave it at that.  ResearchGate is very similar to Academia – a sort of mixture of Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, with groups, comments and ‘follow’ buttons.   

I’ve been on LinkedIn for a few years and found it helpful as a way of presenting a professional profile.  In the last six months it has helped me to trace particular individuals for interviewing for my work and occasionally I have a search around for LinkedIn contacts with whom I’ve lost touch. And I’m not sure I would have been able to find them otherwise.  I confess I don’t know how to get the best from the ‘skills and expertise’ section of LinkedIn though.  I’m reluctant to tag my own and some of my contacts have randomly given me skills I question that I have!  That’s kind, but weird.

Twitter – Thing 7

I’m a Twitter rookie, but I think it’s great because –

1)   … it is proving to be a fantastic way to hear about what is going on in my Research World, ie conferences, book launches, book reviews, links to events.   I don’t follow personal friends and I am using it only for work - following groups, museums, institutions, associations, etc.

2)    … tweets are necessarily short and to the point; I like that.  

3)   … it provides the opportunity to ask questions and crowdsource.  Thanks for that suggestion on 23 Things.  Must experiment more.

As a fluttery, newly-fledged tweeter, I did have a question though: how to manage the number of ‘follows’?  (I mean, what is the realistic number of tweets that anyone can scroll down and actually read in a day - when one is, ahem, supposed to be absorbed and working in one’s real Research World?)  I like the idea of categorising them, so will try listing them with Tweetdeck in the way that blog ‘Technical Tattle’ has suggested. 

RSS – Thing 8

I tried Pulse for a bit, but then downloaded the RSS Notifier app.  It keeps the notification bar visible, beside the menu, and I like that.  Of course Twitter is also really providing a news feed in the way that I use it.  So, one way and another, I am now feeling incredibly well fed with information.  Like it.