Getting out of the reflective practice rut

Over the last 18 months, I’ve been stuck in a bit of a ‘reflective practice’ rut. Although I’ve been lucky enough to have an employer that values continuing professional development, I just wasn’t doing much with the stuff I learned at events or courses.  I’d attend a useful CILIP event or cpd25 course and often use some of the skills I picked up in my day-to-day work. But in terms of reflecting upon new ideas and putting them down in writing, it just didn’t happen.

Then I went to a humongous international library conference. KABOOM.

In January, I applied for the Early Career Conference Award as a way to escape my reflective practice drought. I already followed some past ECCA winners on Twitter and was impressed with the work they were doing at a relatively early stage in their LIS careers. It was exactly what I needed. At SLA 2011, I had the opportunity to meet lots of engaging info pros and listen to knowledgeable speakers. More on that here.

So, I came back from the conference and realised that if I want to follow cpd23 and reflect on my professional activities, I should probably set up a proper blog. Before I left, I had a Tumblelog and a Twitter account. I find Twitter ridiculously useful. Not only did I see the advert for my new job on Twitter, but I’ve made connections with information professionals I didn’t expect to make when I joined in 2007. My Tumblr account is a mixture of images and short posts. It looks pretty but useful it was not. See Meimaimaggio‘s Dot’s & Loops for a good account of Tumblr and the difficulties with blogging.

Sometimes I feel like a library intruder. I didn’t plan to be here and have been drifting for a while. But you did the same thing, right guys?

GUYS?!

Image: Typiewriter! by etharooni on Flickr.