Thing 23: What next?

The final thing has come around again!

Thank you all for following the programme and well done for getting to Thing 23.  A short evaluation of the programme is coming soon, but if you're up for a challenge maybe you could come up with a "6 word story" to sum up how you feel about the programme.

Many organisations include some kind of Personal Development Plans (PDP) as part of their staff review/appraisal processes.  The idea with these is that you identify some sort of development need, think about how you could fill that gap, and set yourself a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Limited) objective to help you do it. I've put together a quick template that can be used for this, but feel free to tweak it to suit yourself or use one of the many other templates available online.

The Task:

1. For this last thing, we would like you to reflect on the programme in general and on what you want to do next.
2. Identify some gaps in your experience, either by looking at requirements for that next job you're aiming for or by conducting a SWOT analysis or personal skills audit.  If you are a CILIP member, their new Professional Knowledge and Skills Base is worth looking at and I'm sure equivalents exist for other library associations.  The Library Routes and Library Day in the Life projects might be helpful here too.
3. Think about how you can fill those gaps and put together a Personal Development Plan to do that.  You don't have to put the PDP or SWOT analysis on the blog unless you feel comfortable doing that.
4. Write about the process of putting the plan together and whether you think this is a useful way to think about your CPD in general.
5. Keep blogging and let us know how you get on!

Open Road by therefromhere

Thing 19: Catch up week on integrating 'things'

Fitting pieces together

  by  lilahpops 

It's time for a little bit of a breather and some reflection on what you've gained from the programme so far and how you might continue to use what you've learnt. We've covered a number of social media tools (e.g. blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter, LinkedIn) and productivity tools (e.g. Google calendar, Evernote, Google Docs, wikis), as well as considering a number of different elements of our professional development (e.g. personal branding, reflective practice, advocacy, events). You can see a full list of the things we've covered so far here.

The purpose of this week is to look back at your previous posts and consider which elements you have found most useful and how you might integrate them into your working routine. You might already have done this, so feel free to blog about how you have done that if so. Maybe you've started using RSS feeds or Twitter during breaks to catch up on news. Maybe you're using LinkedIn for group discussions on professional topics or to share updates about your professional developments. Perhaps it's a technical solution you have discovered which updates multiple services at once or enables you to manage a number of different things. Or perhaps you haven't had chance to think about integrating anything yet. Now is your chance to review the previous tools and think about how you might continue to use them. Choose one or two (or more if you're feeling ambitious!) and share your thoughts in this week's blog post.

CPD in your later career

This is a "catch up" week, with no new Things. Therefore you are getting a between-things reflection: what does CPD mean when you are no longer a New Thing, but an Older Thing? What does CPD mean, later on in your career?
This will vary depending on how you think about your career. I do still want my career to develop (so that's the perspective I'm writing from), but at 59 (argh), some things are different from when I was a new professional. By the way, I'm really interested to know if there are any more "experienced" CPD23ers out there, so please do add your comments if there are!
Some things are the same. Virtual networks, face-to-face networks, getting involved, learning from people you work with, reading, doing ... these are things which are useful, lifelong. I've been trying to think what is most different for my CPD as a "later career" person and here are some points.

• Doing CPD outside the Library and information field. If your career has a definite upwards or sideways path, you will end up needing to do your CPD in some other field, such as management, marketing, or e-learning. This means getting to know about a whole new set of qualifications, associations, networks, journals etc. If you are from a library/information background, then I think you are at an advantage in terms of finding out what these are (we have skills). Actually getting into the networks etc. may be more difficult, because (in my experience) not every profession is so into sharing and networking as librarians are. At that point you may have to make hard choices about whether you have the time to stay involved in library networks, or just devote your energies to ones which are more relevant to your current job.
  

• Making sure you don't slide into unconcious incompetence. Ages ago I learnt about the "4 stages of comptence"; unconscious incompetence (you don't even realise you are rubbish at X), conscious incompetence (you realise you are rubbish, but it still doesn't stop you being rubbish); conscious competence (if you really concentrate, you stop being rubbish at X); unconscious competence (you are brilliant at X without even having to think about it). The danger is that, because you aren't thinking about it, you unwittingly slide round into unconscious incompetence again. If X is a practical skill (e.g. searching Google; using the finance system) then it is easier for you to spot problems, and to set up mechanisms to keep yourself updated.
  However for important but more intangible things like "managing", "negotiating" or "teaching" it is easy to slip into comfortable habits. Those around you may find your mildly incompetent habits comfortable too, or at least not so uncomfortable that they are going to tackle you about them, even in a staff review. So it's important to force yourself to review these broader and more challenging areas of confidence: for doing things like this CPD23, by signing up for courses that help you self-evaluate, by starting a peer-review scheme, or simply having some good friends who are also willing to be critical friends.
  
• Being able to tap into your own history. By this I mean your own experiences, previous networks, and so on. Sometimes you can get a head start on doing new things, by remembering when you tackled a similar thing in the past and obviously the older you get, the more experience you have to draw on.
• Continuing to make your job part of your CPD. In other words: going for new and different opportunities that will force you to reassess what you are doing and learn new things. 

• Being aware that your idea of CPD may change over time. Eva Hornung researched the ways in which one person librarians (OPLs) in Ireland experience CPD, for her PhD (OPLs are people who are the only professional librarian in an organisation and she's an OPL librarian herself). She found there were 5 ways in which people conceived of CPD: Upskilling for the sake of the organisation/library service (a service orientation); Developing as a professional librarian (an LIS profession orientation); Helping you to do all the jobs an OPL does (OPL orientation); To do things in a better way when you come back to the workplace (personal orientation) and To develop as a human being (lifelong learning orientation). Eva explains this in a powerpoint here and she also wrote an article which you can find here (reference is: Hornung, E. (2012) "One- Person librarians and Continuing Professional Development: how the LAI [Library Association of Ireland] can make a difference." An Leabharlann: The Irish Library, 21 (1), 15-19.)
  I am a bit biased as I supervised her PhD, but I think these categories apply more widely, and I've found them useful when examining what I want to do and why I want to do it. I can identify with all those categories, but at some points of my career I was more focused on "upskilling" and "Developing as a professional", and I think over time the lifelong learning orientation has taken over more.
  I'd be interested to know if other people find this an interesting approach.
  

Autumnal pictures by me. My CP23 blog is here and my main (Information Literacy) blog is here