Librarian by Day » Reputation

In the End I Want to be Able to Say I Contributed More Than I Criticized

Bobbi Newman — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:08:12 +0000

I don’t know if it’s the economy or the time of year but lately it seems like there is a lot of negativity going around, so last week when I saw this tweet from Jan Holmquist linking to this post, contributions, criticism and courage, it really struck a chord with me.

I am by no means a perfect person, but I try. I think a lot about what my goals are here, online and around libraryland. Sure there are some things happening in libraryland I don’t care for, that I think are a waste of time, that are poorly thought out, but I bite my tongue. I made a decision not to speak ill of other professionals, not to disparage the work of others just because I don’t agree with them, or because I don’t think its important or because I don’t get it. Let me tell you, sometimes I almost bite my tongue clean off not saying anything. But, in the words of mothers everywhere, if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.

At the end of the meeting, of the work day, of the day, of the year I what do I want? I want to share the amazing work others are doing, to help and be supportive, to help others feel good about themselves and their work and be successful. I want to share and I want to learn and I want to work with (not against) others to make libraryland and libraries better places.Similar Posts:

How to Monitor Your Personal Brand (For Free)

Bobbi Newman — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:17:59 +0000

Yes you need to. Everyone does. Even if you’re just on Twitter, even if you’re not. You need to pay attention to what others are saying to and about you online. I know many of you do this for your library but it is important to do it for yourself too.

Why? Carie Lewis lists 5 different categories or reasons

Brand – mentions of your name, including acronyms, misspellings, etc

Current – issues that people are talking about that involve you right now

Detractors – people you know don’t like you but talk about you

Competition – people in the same space as you

Staff – prominent people in your org, like your CEO

There are some paid services out there but with some time and effort you can monitor your personal brand for free.

Step 1. Pick your RSS reader of choice, netvibes, igoogle, google reader, bloglines whatever.

Step 2. Create feeds and add to your reader or page

Use Search Twitter to create a search for your name – “bobbi newman”
Use Search Twitter to create a search for your “handle” without the @ - librarianbyday
Use Search Twitter to create a search for your blog title – “librarian by day”
Use Google Alerts to recreate the same 3 searchs
Create a Google Alerts for links to your blog

I found that the Google alerts and Twitter searches pretty well cover everything. But if you want to cover all your bases you can also create searches in:

Technorati
Blogpulse
Boardtracker – will send you emails
FriendFeed – you’ll actually have to search this manually, there doesn’t seem to be a way to set up alerts or feeds
Ice Rocket – searches the blogs, web or Twitter and provides RSS
Social Mention

Once your alerts are set up use a tool like Evernote to track your online reputation – when people say something good about you clip it with Evernote, and you have a nice collection of clips for tenure, annual review, bio padding, quotes about your awesomeness, or just to cheer you up on bad days

Additional readings

Don’t have a personal brand? Or haven’t thought about it? Start here:

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Using Evernote to Track Online Reputation

Bobbi Newman — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:34:26 +0000

I shared this tip with a friend yesterday and he suggested more people might like to be aware of it.

Use Evernote* to clip online feedback about you. If you are mentioned in a meaningful way in a tweet, blog post, article or whatever, clip it. Create a new folder in Evernote just for this these clips, call it “reputation” or “feedback” or whatever. When someone sends you an email, create a new note for it and store it with the pertinent information. You have an easily searchable resource.

If the warm fuzzy feeling that storing good things people say about you doesn’t convince you think of the other ways you can use these clips.

tenure
annual review
bio padding
quotes about your awesomeness
to cheer you up on bad days

* Evernote it is a tool that allows you to save ideas, things you see, and things you like. You can use it as a cloud tool, desktop app and there are apps for a number of smartphones. It really is awesome.Similar Posts:

For Those Who Are an Overnight Success and For Those Who Aren’t a Video Series From Chris Brogan

Bobbi Newman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:07:01 +0000

These videos are from Chris Brogan’s Over Night Success Series. There are 9 videos total covering topics such as Grinding vs Clocking – Time and the Overnight Success, Pity Party, Small Talk is Big, Belief Systems, The Competition, What it Takes, No Excuses & A Call to Arms. These videos are great even if you aren’t an over night success, even if you aren’t a success.

These 3 are my favorite (although it was hard to pick)

Take time off – I’ve said it before you need your down time but I’m always happy to point out when others say the same thing. :-)

Don’t believe the hype – I included this one because Chris says – by over night success I mean 10 years of hard work.

Here’s another bag of money – on excuses. We all make excuses that become between us and our goals. Decide what your priorities are. Stop making excuses.
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Monitor your brand

Bobbi Newman — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:23:37 +0000

Carie Lewis has a great guide to monitoring your brand using iGoogle, it’s easy, free and most of us already have a Google account, plus it pulls all the information into one place.

She includes 5 different categories:

Brand – mentions of your name, including acronyms, misspellings, etc

Current – issues that people are talking about that involve you right now

Detractors – people you know don’t like you but talk about you

Competition – people in the same space as you

Staff – prominent people in your org, like your CEO

And includes a great list of places you should monitoring:

Google Alerts – I hope you know what they are and are already using them!

Filtrbox – a paid monitoring service to make sure we catch everything

Tweetmeme – tells you the most popular tweets about a subject

Twitter Search – shows tweets containing a certain keyword (we don’t use this anymore because we use Tweetdeck separately)

Technorati – shows blogs that mention certain keywords

Blogpulse – another blog monitoring tool

Digg – shows most popular articles on the web

Boardreader – shows forum posts by keyword

Some additional readings

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My Problem with LinkedIn

Bobbi Newman — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:55:53 +0000

and online reputations in general.

I have a profile on LinkedIn (as I do on many social websites) because many people and blogs I think highly of have recommended it. Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m probably not using it right and therefore not taking advantage of it properly. Here is something I noticed recently while updating my profile.

This is a section of my profile showing my position at MRRL. Three people wrote me recommendations (which I appreciate but I’m not sure what good they do)

After these kind people wrote wonderful things about me I can change my position anyway I like. In this case I made myself Princess of Georgia.

I know what you’re thinking, there is no Princess of Georgia and if there were it certainly wouldn’t be me. ;-) That isn’t the point. I can change my job description, title or any part of the position at any point on LinkedIn and those recommendations stay right there.

This is my problem with online reputations. As more of us establish an online identity, we interact more with others we meet online and we base our opinion of them on who they are telling us they are. Why does this matter? Because people have always been dishonest from the small tweaking of facts to outright lies. There is no one following me around the web ensuring I’m not fabricating facts. Even if someone suspected I was not the Princess of Georgia, what could they do? Maybe blog, maybe contact me, maybe tell their friends but those are pretty aggressive and don’t necessarily put the person doing it in the best light and most people just aren’t going to do it.

Because more professional opportunities are based on online reputations, this is important. We come to think of the people we interact with as colleagues and friends and we make recommendations or offer opportunities based on this relationship. Unfortunately there are some things you just can not know about someone unless you’ve worked with them.

I’ve received recommendations on my reputation and I’ve given them too. I’m not saying don’t do it and everyone you meet online is lying to you. I’m just reminding you of the old saying – “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog“.Similar Posts: