Meeting, Tweeting and Fb’ing – An SLA Europe event

On the 24th of April, I went along to the National Library of Scotland to attend the SLA Europe event “Meeting, Tweeting and Fb’ing”, which promised to cover topics such as “how useful is social media for libraries? Can Facebook really help me to promote what I do? What benefits can using LinkedIn bring me as an information professional? “
We began with Bryan Christie of the National Library of Scotland (NLS) giving us an overview of the aims and activities of the NLS on social media. The purpose of this approach is to increase the NLS’ digital presence, and raise awareness of the interesting, non-digital materials within its collections, especially to a younger audience. Bryan views a relevant social media presence as being like journalism – you have to find the interesting information. He’s found that posts on Twitter publicising material from the NLS collections is driving traffic to the NLS website, for more information on these materials. Examples of traffic-creating posts on Twitter included an online discussion of the new, e-legal deposit responsibility of the NLS, with the accompanying hashtag of #digitaluniverse allowing easy collation of the discussion. The NLS’ Facebook presence is also focused on promoting the collections through highlighting interesting holdings – a post showcasing Mary Queen of Scots last letter was particularly popular. By analysing the statistics on http://www.Twittercounter.com, it can be seen that the followers of the NLS Twitter account have trebled in the last 18 months, and comparing the NLS Twitter account to that of the National Library of Wales and the National Library of Ireland, all libraries are experiencing an increase in followers. Bryan did say that at this point, it’s hard to know whether this growth is due to the NLS being an active tweeter, or due to the general integration and uptake of Twitter in the general population. Using Twittercounter, it was also possible to pick out some of the basics of the Twitter approach of the other National Libraries, including whether they had a set target amount of tweets per day to create. Another example given of a successful NLS social media campaign was the “Scotland At The Movies” Facebook competition, which attracted around 1800 entries over the three month period of the event, hugely increased referrals from Facebook page to the website, and reached a younger demographic  (a majority of 18-34 year olds)than other methods of attracting interaction. There was also an effort made to monitor the entries for inappropriate language, as the competition was open to all, and therefore potentially able to be abused.  In general, Bryan said that the best way to build a social media presence is to be active, be interesting, be funny,  monitor,  listen and respond.
Nick Goldstein, Senior Account Executive was there as a representative of LinkedIn, which currently has a membership of between 80-90% of UK professionals. Nick began by describing one of the benefits of social networks – they allow tracking of the dissemination of information within them. They also allow power to be in the hands of the people producing the material hosted on them, and people are producing material at an astonishing rate – the activity statistics of users of social media are mindboggling, and the number of users continues to rise. The major players in social media are sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, with the different sites fulfilling different purposes for users, whether it be for personal or professional use. Personal use of social media is centred on activities that link to the desire to have fun, keep in touch, and the enjoyment of nostalgia, while business use mainly relates to learning, developing, and finding information. LinkedIn itself is a massive company, with 11 million members (if not 12 million by the time of writing of this article) in the UK, and over 200 million worldwide, as at December 2012. Its growth has been purely viral, as it doesn’t advertise, and it’s now so massive that it’s the only real professional platform, internationally, and is the 21st most visited site on the internet. Although it is already a massive network, it aims eventually to have all of the world’s estimated 640 million professionals as members. It makes acquisitions of key business that it thinks will enhance its offering, such as their purchase of Slideshare in 2012, designed to allow better representation of members work. LinkedIn also uses member activity to tailor their homepage to what it believes to be their interests, basing the news it presents to them in their LinkedIn Today section on each individual users previous activity history. This ability to see what individual users are doing also allows them to see how the way LinkedIn is being used changes throughout the day – in the morning, it’s mainly accessed via mobile devices, as members travel to work, in the daytime, it’s mainly desktop based access while users are in offices, and in the evening, access is mainly through tablet devices.  It also has an open API (Application Programming Interface), which makes the development of new elements to the site, and its integration into organisations far easier.
After each speaker had given their presentation, there was an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. The first question related to using Twitter in business, and how to improve your reach. The response boiled down to:
• Have guidelines in place for appropriate account use/content (with the example used of the April Fools Top Gear joke tweet issued by the Danish police, as a time when more care should have been taken)
• Be interesting
• Be active
The next question was how best to use LinkedIn for career opportunities. This led to a long list of tips to enhance your account:
• Get an 100% completeness score – adding a photo is a large part of this.
• Get recommendations, by giving recommendations – 3 recommendations are required for a full profile.
• Use the headline area – describe what you do and who you are. It’s better than the job description area.
• Flesh out and give detail to your previous job information.
• Join groups – you can be a member of up to 50.
If you make sure your profile is as complete as possible, it allows their algorithms a better chance to match members and their skills to opportunities. 
The issue of false staff having claimed on their profiles to have worked at organisations that they didn’t actually work at was raised next. It was explained that as LinkedIn is an open platform, sometimes things do get abused, but checking algorithms are running, and human moderators are also performing checks, so there’s a constant mixture of human and machine monitoring. Also, individuals can alert LinkedIn to any false users or claims.
Then… it was onwards, to the networking!
I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by the amount of user activity tracking that’s going on behind the scenes with LinkedIn. I don’t ever actually look at the LinkedInToday section, as it’s not a site I go to for news, nor are the suggestions every particularly relevant to me. I don’t know what they base their news suggestions on – perhaps it’s related to whose profile I clicked on? But I’m pretty sure I’m not deeply interested in learning about management from bees or golfers, which is today’s main story! Personally, I think I may be the wrong market for any site that wishes to tailor its content to my viewing preferences by using data on my browsing history: I have PrivacyFix installed on my browser, and try to minimise any information I give to sites that I know are using me as the product, like Facebook.  If I *want* a tailored service, I’ll give the information requested, I actually find the thought that this is being done in the background, based on how I use a site, kind of uncomfortable. But I think I must be in a minority – personalisation seems to be the way forward….

CILIP rebrand – an addition

Since my earlier post (multitasking lunch breaks R Us!), I’ve had some more feedback on peoples feelings about the proposed names for CILIP, and it seems that a lot of people are unhappy that the words “library” or “librarian” aren’t included in the options.

Now, it may just be because of my recent job hunting experiences, but I don’t see that the skills of an information professional are tied to the words library or librarian. If I had restricted my job search to only those sectors, I would never have found a job (there have been a grand total of 3 library roles advertised in 3 months). I have looked at roles with terms like: data, knowledge, information, management, administrator, researcher, project co-ordinator, digital, policy. Those terms are all related to dealing with information professionally, and to me, the core skills of an information professional lie in their ability to effectively manage information, in whatever format it may come in. Historically, that information was laid down in written texts, and held within libraries. The word “library” comes from the Latin for book, but these days, it’s not just books that librarians deal with. And it’s not just libraries that information professionals work in either: they can be in any setting, from industrial workplaces to working with the public. In any role, an information professional may deal with books, journals, databases, spreadsheets, intranets, websites, DVDs, memory sticks, Powerpoints, or CD…librarians are constantly working with information, in all its physical and digital formats.

To the mind of the general public though, libraries = books. And that’s a hindrance for a profession that wants to be regarded as cutting-edge experts in knowledge and information management, and the first people to go to for input on topics relating to them. It feels similar to accountants having “abacus operators” in their professional titles: yes, it’s a thing that did once describe their whole profession, but now it looks outdated, and would be laughed at if suggested as a way forward now. If this exercise is about creating a name and brand that the public will recognise, and positioning the body as the leading group for information management issues, that term “information” has to be there, and visible. And the term “library” is one that today, holds the group back. That’s why I am perfectly happy not to be in a “Library” professional body.

Losing the professionalism

So, recently, CILIP apparently sent out an email regarding a consultation on a change of brand image, and name. I say apparently, as despite being a member, I never got this email. When I went to the website to log in and check why it wasn’t sent to me, it didn’t let me log in. I tried a password reset, and that email came through, so it *can* send emails to me…but the password it sent won’t let me log in. I’m losing the will to keep trying. Overall, this is kind of symptomatic of how I feel about CILIP, and how useless its IT systems are….

Anyway, the consultation is on changing CILIP’s currently, clunky and meaningless name (picked as the best of a previous bad lot, as David McMenemy showed with this link to the 2000 consultation results ) to something more meaningful and relevant is open. If you want to take part, it’s here. I was a good girl, and pootled over yesterday to take part, and after filling in all the bumph, I got to view the glorious options.

Oh.
My.
God.

This is what they’ve given us as options:

Information UK
Information Professionals UK
Info Pro UK
The Information Association
The Knowledge People
Information Matters UK

Really? REALLY?!?! Did CILIP actually pay someone for this nonsense? It looks like they had a hard day in the office, it was late on a Friday afternoon, they managed to force out one or two vaguely OK ideas, and then threw in a few others just to bulk up the list. As someone online has already pointed out, at least one of the names is already (or was) a registered company, so probably couldn’t even be used. Info Pro UK looks like someone couldn’t even be bothered to write out words in full. The Knowledge People sounds like a spin-off from The Tomorrow People TV series. Information Matters is a statement, not an organisation name. And why the obsession with using UK in the name? Are people likely to get confused with The Knowledge People USA or Info Pro USA when they make comments on UK library matters??

And all of these options completely disregard one important aspect of the name: CILIP is a body which awards and regulates the professional qualification of a Charter. A Chartership is recognised through many professions as the mark of an advanced and skilled professional in that field. Would any other Chartership awarding body ever consider dropping that aspect from its title? Could we have The Institute of Architects of Scotland, rather than ICAS? Or The Royal Institute of Surveyors rather than RICS? It’s unlikely. Yet our own professional body is considering dropping the most visible element of its name that identifies its members as professionals. It seems like a huge step backwards to me, and so, I spent a whole 3.5 minutes thinking of other names, which include the word Chartered in them:

Chartered Information Professionals Association (CIPA)
Chartered Information Management Association (CIMA)
Institute of Chartered Information Managers (ICIM)
Chartered Information and Knowledge Management Association (CIKMA)

Look, it’s not hard, is it? If you’re a professional body, and have powers that the general public know relate to professionalism, you should really try and retain that signifier somewhere visible. Like…within your name?

Recruitment: you’re doing it wrong.

Now, I’ve recently had to make a full time job out of applying for jobs (although thankfully the end is now in sight), and as I’ve stated previously, there’s all sorts of ways you can do it well, and also a whole lot of ways you can do it wrong.

Recently, I’ve been on the receiving end of a recruitment process so epically bad, that I’m actually genuinely surprised that the HR department involved are somehow still employed. It became so convoluted that I’m going to reduce it to bullet points, for easier reading.

  • I am advised by a colleague to send a prospective CV to A Certain Workplace (ACW), on the basis that a friend of theirs at ACW advised them a vacancy was available. I checked with another contact within ACW, who advised me that this was an acceptable way to proceed, as certain staff types were recruited in this way.
  • I send my CV and a covering letter.
  • I get a response, thanking me, but advising me that this was not an approach they accepted. I was informed that the ONLY place vacancies would be advertised was on the ACW website, and I should monitor this for them in future.
Fast forward a month or so….
  • An advert for roles at ACW was placed on library mailing lists. Friends forwarded me this information, which I’d missed as I was not on those lists, and I was waiting for it to be advertised on the ACW website. It was not at any point placed on their website. 
  • I email and ask for an application pack.
  • I receive an application pack, complete the requested forms, and realise that there’s no information on how/where to submit them. There’s a closing time on the covering letter, so that implies an email submission, but no email address. And a partial instruction on posting, but not a postal address. There is however, important information about the fact that if I want an acknowledgement of my application, I should enclose a self addressed stamped postcard… 
  • I call to check if they accept email submissions: yes, they do. However, they require them to be signed. OK: this means I have to print, sign, scan and collate a pdf from my original electronic application. It’s a faff, and I’m lucky that I have access to a printer and scanner, but I did it.
  • So, where was it to be submitted? The email address on the covering letter, I was told. I had to break it to them there was no email address on the covering letter. OK: send it to recruitment @acertainworkplace they said.
  • I sent off everything they needed, to the email address I was told to, a week before the deadline.
  • Silence. No automated acknowledgement email, but then again, this company has been so backward up to this point that I didn’t expect one.

Fast forward a week…
  • I receive an email from ACW responding to my original application pack request, saying they understood I had submitted an application, but they didn’t have it, so where did I send it?
  • Apparently (from what I can work out), the recruitment@acertainworkplace email address doesn’t actually exist, so when I phoned up to see where to send my application, I was cheerfully instructed to send it into complete nothingness.
  • I forwarded my original email with the application forms from the week before, saying what email address I’d sent it to, and why.
  • They replied saying thanks, but they couldn’t open the documents, so could I resend them in Word format? These are the documents that I’d had to send as pdfs, because they insisted they needed a signature on them, so I’d had to print, sign and scan them and make them into pdfs.
  • I replied attaching the original, unsigned Word versions of the forms, explaining why they were in pdf format, and that I couldn’t send them the third form as a Word document, because they had supplied it to me as a pdf document.
  • I got an acknowledgement, and a small, grudging “sorry for the inconvenience”.
  • I contacted other people that I knew had submitted applications to ACW, and told them what had happened. They hadn’t been contacted, but as they had received the same information as me on how to apply, they had to assume that their applications too had been lost.
  • The other people resubmitted their applications.
Fast forward two weeks….
  • Deafening silence, until today, I hear that interviews were held last week, and someone has been appointed to the position this week. As far as I know, the other people who applied also haven’t heard anything since submitting their applications for the second time, despite one going to the extent of physically going to the workplace and also handing in a paper copy of their application as they couldn’t get a hold of anyone to acknowledge their email submission.
So, to top off the HR Department’s epic incompetence and inability to manage a recruitment process (which is actually one of the core functions of an HR department), I’m now frustrated by the fact that, after I had to spend hours of my time fixing and resending information that they lost because they can’t perform basic tasks, they also don’t even have the simple good manners to tell me that I’m not being invited for interview.
Now, what have I got out of this process? I’ve gained a healthy disregard for the HR department of this company. I’ve developed a resolve not to apply for any further positions there, should they arise. And I’ve informed all my professional contacts about how bad this organisation is, although I’ve decided against publicly naming them here, as that’s not the point of this post. I wanted to use this to point out how every unnecessary hoop that I’ve been made to jump through, and every missed chance to inform me of what was happening has lowered my opinion of that company as a whole, even though the department I applied for a role in had nothing to do with this process. If you’re recruiting, you’re selling your company to the applicant, just as much as the applicant is selling themselves to you. And if you can’t manage the process of getting people to join your company, how do you manage them once they’re working for you?