The last post...

...on 23 things that is. I have really enjoyed blogging and fully intend to keep going with my blog now that I'm up and running.

Looking back on my first few posts I see a nervousness about exploring the unknown and a definite reticence to get involved. As one of the organisers of the Sot 23 things programme I should have been throwing myself in enthusiastically. So early on I was handling a large helping of guilt that I wasn't finding the time, when I was expecting all the partipants to. My approach to the first few things was that I tried to explore everything about the new 'thing' and tried to become proficient. As nearly all the things were new to me I soon realised that I had to change this approach. If I enjoyed something and could see a use (attempt nothing that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful ) I would spend longer. Other things I explored on a more superficial level and made a note to come back to.

The things I most enjoyed were Twitter, a surprise one here, along with Flickr, Wordle and Tagxedo, not so much of a surprise as I like creative things. I  really want to explore the use of Twitter in a professional context at work, particularly with regard to the artists' book collection at WSA. I least enjoyed Netvibes - it's just not how I work.

I feel very proud both to have organised and completed 23 things. In pushing myself to try new things I have more often than not surprised myself, and there has been a knock on effect of me trying new things in other areas of my life. I feel so much more confident with social media and have really started to think how I can use the things I have learnt both professionally and socially.

I think if we were to run it again I would want more consistency with the instructions and to give more thought to the order that the things are delivered in and the time involved.

I have really enjoyed being part of the Sot23 things team and have learnt much from my colleagues Nick, Emma and Vicky. Thank-you for your patience and humour! More on the Oscar speech next week!

Right, I'm off to register my completion and finally get myself a smartphone. It's time to move on!

Drive time

As I already had a gmail account I was able to swiftly log in to Google Drive although I did switch my browser to Google Chrome for enhanced functionality. I uploaded a document I had already created and shared that with a Sot 23 things colleague. Other colleagues have successfully shared documents that needed editing with me so I can see this being a useful tool in the future. I had used Dropbox before for sending large files but with some difficulties. This I found much more straightforward.

A question of interpretation

I hadn't used Slideshare before but I will definitely use it in the future. I found it easy to navigate around and decided to look for a presentation on libraries and mobile technologies as this is currently something that the Library is exploring. Found this presentation.

ARLIS Experimenting with mobile technologies in libraries from Jo Alcock

The difficult part was embedding it into my blog. Each time I copied and pasted it in I just had a block of HTML. When I clicked preview, the HTML text remained rather than displaying the presentation. With the help of fineanddandy I realised that my options in Blogger were set to 'show HTML literally'. Once I'd changed the setting to 'interpret typed HTML' all was revealed!