Thing 8 - Is this a Really Special Service?

So I’m still sticking with the 23Things in the hope that I’ll discover ways to enhance the researcher experience.  Today’s challenge is exploring RSS feeds (new to me).  I read through the options and decide to go for Google Reader – but find it’s no longer available (wonder why 23Things hadn’t deleted details from their recommendations? Google Reader ceased to exist four months ago).  

Ah well.  

After a bit of surfing for other web feeds, decide to try Pulse. 

I like the theory of an RSS feed – linking all favourite webpages to one site.  What a special service.  So the "Science" page on Pulse has become my “Researching" page and I've linked various blogs and PhD-helpful websites to it so that they are all there together. We’ll see how useful a tool it will be in practice…  Or could it turn out to be a distraction from what I should really be doing?  

It’s on a month’s trial.

Social media and me

So this blogging is supposedly about reflective practice in research.  I suppose I am doing that already by using a research diary to record developments, plans, actions and feedback, so I am not sure how this will be different.  Perhaps it will be more focused?  But maybe less honest because of the sharing?

I think I’ll treat it as an experiment…just to see how it feels to create a public blog.  The guidelines suggest that today we should write something about experiences with social media and expectations of 23Things for Research.

Well, experience with Facebook over the last few years does not seem to make it a useful research tool.  I get occasional updates from societies and museums which are relevant, but most newsfeeds are from friends and family.  Twitter though – that has surprised me.  I’ve only been experimenting for the last month but I am following a range of libraries, museums and organisations and it has already been surprisingly helpful. In fact, that is why I am here now.  Someone retweeted about this online programme and I would never have heard about it otherwise.  I like the brevity and the to-the-point-edness of Twitter, compared to the (sometimes) ramblings on Facebook.  And there are no distractions of photos and images, other than by choosing to access them.

Linkedin has a different feel to it.  Much more networky and work-focused.  I've found it useful in making contact with people, rather than an information-sharing provision.

If I’m honest, I am not sure yet how blogging is going to help me with research.  At the moment I’ll use it just to record how I’m getting on with 23Things and see how it develops from there...

In the film Exotic Marigold Hotel, the character played by Judi Dench takes off to India, newly widowed and escaping from her London life.  As she strides through the airport before catching the flight, her son is showing concern about how she will get on and how they will communicate.  'Don't worry, read my blog!' she replies over-confidently - and gets a laugh from the audience.  When we saw the film, my daughter said 'That would be you."  "Hardly" I thought, "I wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of knowing how to begin to blog....".
But golly, here I am - learning.