Lori Reed | A Passion for Learning | Personal Development

February 2, 2012 By Lori Reed 6 Comments

Building a Personal Learning Solution: 10 Steps to Control Information Overload and Take Back Your Life

When you look at the statistics of how much training actually gets retained by learners and how much training actually transfers back to the workplace, you have to ask yourself two questions. Why are we doing training? What can we do better? The problem with most training is that it doesn’t fill an immediate need. What’s the point in taking a class on Microsoft Access if I’m not going to use it for six months or worse don’t even have the software installed. Sounds crazy but believe me it happens. One of the other problems with training is that of ownership. We’ve grown up in this 20th century idea of training with the “sage on the stage”–of one person disseminating information and the learners hoping to learn it all through osmosis. It just doesn’t work that way.

Real learning is a participatory act or a dance between the learners and the facilitator and the learners among themselves. But what to do with information pouring in daily by the gigabyte? Too much to do and too much to keep up with. Enter the personal learning solution = personal learning environment + personal learning network. The 23 Things Program was the first widely distributed example of a personal learning solution. Participants used a blog to keep track of their learning, participants connected with other bloggers, and participants learned a lot about Web 2.0 and technology that was new to them.

In many ways PLSs are ideal for library staff who must manage lots of information with a limited amount of time. The following slides were used this week for a presentation for LibraryLinkNJ. Take a look at them to learn more about PLSs.

Building a Personal Learning Solution

View more presentations from Lori Reed

My PLS has and will continue to change over time. Initially it consisted of thousands of RSS feeds in Google Reader. But then I got tired of seeing the count of 1000+ unread items. My true unread count–Google can’t even count as high. Next I navigated to Facebook and Twitter where I made more personal connections with other trainers and library staff. I like that the information is instant, timely, and doesn’t give me a read versus unread count. If I miss something, I can be sure that someone else out there will share the information. This past summer I migrated towards having all my information come into my Gmail account where I set up filters to organize and file the information. Your PLS will be unique to you and it will and should change over time.

If you are creating or thinking about updating your PLS, I’d encourage you to start with the end in mind and think about your goal. No one can keep up with everything. Is your goal to be a better trainer? To stay informed on local, community events? To learn more about one topic? To keep up with the latest tech news? Or to keep up with library news in general? Start with a specific goal and add more content only when you feel comfortable with the amount you already have.

In the following weeks as I embark on a new job and new phase in my career, my learning and information needs will definitely change. As I transition from a focus on “training” to a broader scope of customer relationships and end-user experiences, my information needs will look very different. With my thousands of feeds, I’ve decided to delete them all and start over fresh with a limit of 100 feeds. By effectively filtering information as it comes in using Google Alerts and Twitter Searches I should be able to keep my list of feeds to a manageable size. I’m reminding myself daily that quality should be chosen over quantity.

As we enter to into an early Spring, at least here in North Carolina, I invite you to do some early Spring cleaning and take stock of your information consumption by doing the following:

Mark all your RSS feeds as read. I hear stories of people who get stressed just thinking about the number of unread RSS feeds they have. Remember that technology is here to serve us not the other way around. If you miss something important your sure to see it again from another source.
Prune your RSS subscriptions to an amount that is manageable for you, or delete your feeds and start over.
Know when to subscribe to RSS versus when to bookmark a site. Do you really want to read every post? Or do you want to make sure you can find the site again? Delicious and Pinboard are great bookmarking tools.
Use lists in TweetDeck to manage the people and information you follow. Set up groups based on how much you want to see from the people in the group. The smaller the group, the more you will see. Add keyword columns to search on topics that are relevant to you. Twitter can easily get unmanageable without tools to manage lists.
Unsubscribe from people who complain or are just generally negative all the time. Why surround yourself with negativity.
Unsubscribe from people who post little of value to you. The information may be great, but as your needs change so should the people you follow. Get over the Twitequette that says you need to follow back anyone who follows you.
Learn to use Facebook’s lists feature. You can create lists of coworkers, personal friends, family, librarians, or just about any list imaginable. The benefit is two-fold. First, you can click a button and see only the updates from those most important to you–close friends and family. Second, you can post updates that only specific lists of friends can see. If I’m posting about my cat or children, I may not want all 500 of my friends to see the post. Likewise if you are at a conference, you don’t want to overload your non-library friends and family with ALA totebag posts.
Schedule time each day for online information consumption. 30 minutes should be adequate for most people. If you are in a PR, marketing, or role that requires you to keep track of more information, then adjust the time accordingly. If you are a manager who expects your staff to stay current on library news and information, make that expectation clear and schedule time for staff to do it. If it’s not scheduled it won’t happen.
Schedule time each day to play and set a timer! Facebook is a time suck! Acknowledge that and do something about it. If you are ok with spending hours each night playing Words With Friends or preparing a new crop for Farmville, and it doesn’t affect your personal life, great! But if it interferes with your family relationships or causes you to neglect other parts of your life, do something about it and set a timer. Did you know that inpatient centers are popping up to treat Internet addiction? Internet addiction is real and is more prevalent than you might realize. If you are using the Internet to escape some part of your life, get help. Life is too short to live in a virtual world like the folks in the movie Wall-E.
Don’t forget to take time to participate in your networks. Comment on blogs. Post links to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Add to the discussions taking place. If you don’t have anything to add, offer encouragement to someone having a bad day. This is your social network karma.

I hope this information and tips are helpful. I’d love to hear from you in the comments? What does your personal learning solution look like? And how are you controlling the overload of information?

UPDATE: If you are looking for a tool to manage multiple social media accounts. Check out this great review of three products from the Social Media Examiner.

Filed under: Learning, Personal Development, Presentations, Professional Development

January 16, 2012 By Lori Reed 3 Comments

Equality: A Child’s View

Today I asked my seven-year-old son if he knew why there was no school today. He said it was to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. I asked him what Dr. King did that was so special. He answered, “He fought for our freedom.” I questioned a little further, “Whose freedom did he fight for?” My son answered, “Everyone’s.” I pressed a little more and reminded him that Dr. King fought for the rights of a group of Americans who were not treated fairly. Without missing a beat my son said, “Mom why would he fight for the freedom of one group of Americans but not for the freedom of all Americans. That’s just crazy.”

In that moment I realized that I have been blessed with a child who is wise beyond his years and will always challenge me to think deeper. I also realized that given what I know of Dr. King, my son is right. While we can listen to and read the famous words “I have a dream” it’s not hard to imagine any group of people for whom those words do not ring true. Whether you are white, black, or any shade in between. Whether you are gay, straight, or somewhere in between. We all want and deserve equal rights.

I feel blessed to be a parent at this time when I can watch my children grow up and describe friends not as black or white but as “the boy with light or dark brown skin.” In their classes of preschool and second grade there is every color of skin imaginable. The children in these classes don’t notice the differences of color or hair texture. They notice the similarities of mind and heart. Seeing this gives me hope for our future. One day these children who have grown up with no concept of race or discrimination will be our leaders. This isn’t to say that kids today aren’t educated about the history of the civil rights movement. They are, they just understand it in a different way.

Several weeks ago after hearing my son describe something as “gay,” we had a long talk about what it means to be gay and why it’s not acceptable to use that word in a derogatory way. I ended the discussion with telling him that no matter who he likes, girls or boys, we will always love him. He looked at me puzzled and said, “Mom I just like everyone. Is there a name for that?” I smiled to myself and thought, there is a name for that and it is hope.

Filed under: Personal Development

January 10, 2012 By Lori Reed 4 Comments

The Power of Changing Your Thoughts

I’ve given a lot of thought about what I want to write as the first post of 2012. Hence the date on this post. I want to share something will you that has changed my life in many ways–personally, professionally, spiritually. Ironically this gift came to me on New Years Eve 2008, and I felt it apropos to share this with you at the new year.

This isn’t another post about resolutions. Been there. Done that. I can’t think of a resolution that I’ve stuck with for a whole year or that has been life changing. So please keep reading.

There is a reason why we celebrate the new year. It’s a time of reflecting on the past year, a time to think about the upcoming year, and a time to take stock of our lives in general. It’s also an arbitrary day. We could pick any day of the year to do these things.

On New Years Eve 2008 I thought about my life. I was not happy. I did not feel successful, and I knew something needed to change. I looked at the people around me who were most successful and asked myself what it is that they did differently. I determined it came down to one thing–attitude. OK it’s more than one thing. It’s attitude. It’s perspective. It’s finding the silver lining no matter how bad things get.

I had picked up a book on positive thinking earlier that year and began reading it on that New Years Eve. I applied the principles and my life changed almost immediately. Once I got the grasp of positive thinking I began using the technique of visualization. Many people balk at visualization but athletes, actors, musicians all visualize their performances before any event. I’ve used visualization for years before public speaking or training sessions. Envision yourself as you want to be. The book I read said to start small. I tried envisioning myself with a diet coke. No one came and gave me a diet coke.Dismissing the whole idea as ridiculous, I took out a dollar, went to the vending machine at work, and bought a diet coke. As I stared at the diet coke I questioned whether there was anything to this. But then it hit me. I did in fact have the diet coke, but I was envisioning the wrong thing. We have to envision the outcome not the solution as the solution can come in many and often unexpected ways.

After time small things began to happen. I wanted a fish-tank for my desk to help with relaxing. I envisioned the fish-tank on my desk. The next day I stopped by a coworker’s office and mentioned off-hand that I wanted a small fish-tank for my desk. Her office-mate overheard this and happened to have a small fish-tank, brand new, under her desk that she didn’t want. She gave it to me. You could say this is completely random and it is. But seriously, a fish tank? What are the chances?

When small things like this started to happen I tried envisioning bigger things. I know that visualization and positive thinking are not the solution to all of life’s challenges. But it doesn’t hurt.

When my library faced budget cuts two years ago my family was already struggling with a mound of medical bills and debt accrued from a pregnancy that had me out of work and on bed rest for more than nine months. When the library budget became so bad that my husband and I took a total of a temporary 15% pay cut we knew that we were in serious financial trouble. We tried to get by. We consolidated debt. Moved debt to zero interest credit cards. But it was too much. Eventually we lost our house and ultimately filed bankruptcy. In mid-life we basically started over with nothing. In no way am putting blame on the library. The recession affected millions of Americans. We happened to be part of that group.

If you’ve ever read about the top life stressors, you know that foreclosure and bankruptcy are right up there with the death of a spouse. What we discovered was that though the process is hard, it is also freeing. We’ve moved three times in the past two years, each time downsizing and simplifying our life. While it would have been easy to be in our situation and become depressed or overwhelmed, we chose to find the silver lining, even when it was only a small glimmer.

The icing on my cake of another stressful life event came when I was laid off in June of this year. I’m not saying it was easy but again there was a silver lining. Being laid off meant that I was eligible for unemployment and allowed me the buffer and time I needed to get my own business up and running–something I had wanted to do for years. I fully believe that had I not had a positive outlook and looked for that silver lining, I may have sunk into a pit of despair. Business has been good and I enjoy the work I do immensely.

The outlook and attitude we have in life and in facing life’s challenges are so important and affect everything we do from our interactions at work and home to our health and happiness. If I could suggest one goal for you in this new year it is to look for the silver lining and to always look for the positive in even the bleakest of situations.

Filed under: Personal Development

May 18, 2011 By Lori Reed 9 Comments

10 Tips for Surviving Budget Cuts and Layoffs

It’s that time of the year when many local and state governments as well as nonprofits and libraries go through the budget period for the upcoming fiscal year. As we continue through the Great Recession many workers find themselves on the chopping block. While layoffs are never easy, they seem worse for employees who work for local governments, schools, libraries, and nonprofits. Many of those employees see their job as more of a calling than a career which makes the possibility of a loss of job feel like a loss of self.

Save New Jersey Libraries by Nancy Dowd

I speak from experience on all sides of the layoff experience. It’s never pleasant, but you can get through it! Here are ten tips to help anyone survive impending layoffs.

Don’t take it personally. This is the most important tip. While it may feel personal if you’ve been notified your job may or will be eliminated, it’s really not. It’s a business decision and comes down to a matter of cash available versus cash needed to run the organization. If your personal income were suddenly cut, you’d have to adjust and find things to cut from your bottom line like cable, cell phones, or dining out. While many organization have already scaled back in previous years, the only thing left to cut back is staff. It’s so hard to remember this in the midst of the moment, but the more you can remember that this is a business decision and not a personal one, the better off you will be.
If something is stressful to you, stop. For me watching the local government meetings is like sport. I love to yell at the TV and throw things when one of the County Commissioners says something I don’t agree with. However, last year (and again this year) when it was my job on the line, I had to stop watching the meetings. It caused unnecessary stress and I knew if something important happened, I’d hear about it the next day. I also had to stop reading comments on local news sites. The comments incite me and only reflect the opinions of the few people with nothing better to do than comment anonymously all day.
Channel your energy and anger into something constructive and positive. Last year I created SaveLibraries.org as a way to help all libraries going through budget cuts. Advocacy helped me get through a horrible time because I was focusing on parts of my life that I do have control over. This year, I’m focusing more on my family and spending time being active and engaged with my children.
Take care of yourself. Sleep, eat, and exercise. It’s easy to fall into the vicious cycle of depression: sleep too much or too little + eat junk food + limit activity = feel like crap. Just like the flight attendant tells you on the plane, you have to take care of yourself first. Exercise is a great way to relieve stress.
Talk to someone. Many organizations provide EAP service. EAP, employee assistance program, is a confidential service that employers pay for. You have access, at no cost to you, to counselors who can help with stress, anxiety, family problems, financial problems, or just about any problem you can think of. I’ve seen EAP counselors a number of times and they have always been very helpful. It is much more healthy for you (and your organization) for you to vent to an EAP counselor rather than your coworkers.
Have a plan B. If you don’t have one, start making one. Is your resume up to date? Are you on LinkedIn? Have you asked colleagues for LinkedIn recommendations? Post your resume to job boards. Be proactive. Think about how your skills and abilities might transfer to a corporate or other non-profit environment.
Before posting to Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, see if your organization has a social media policy and be sure to follow it. No matter where you work, it is a small world and you do not want to burn bridges. Additionally future employers are watching your Tweets and no one wants to hire someone who complains about a current employer. One of the reasons that I do not post about my situation is that we have a fantastic Marketing & Communications Department. We have a social media person on staff. We have a communications plan with key messages. Through my work, my name has become associated with my employer, and no matter how many disclaimers I post on Twitter, Facebook, or my website, my posts and comments become a reflection on my employer. It’s not that I would have anything bad to say. It’s that I don’t want to muddy the waters for our communications team. They have a strategy and it’s in the Library’s best interest (as well as my own) to let them handle communications about our organization.
Focus on the task at hand and your core mission to the organization. Many libraries and nonprofits will notify staff months or weeks in advance of a layoff or potential layoff. I’ve heard people describe this as cruel but I can assure you it’s not meant to be. Notifications like this give you time to plan and make arrangements and adjustments to your lifestyle. The downside is it gives you a lot of time to think. One of my most difficult challenges last year at this time, was focusing on my job in the midst of the emotional turmoil within and surrounding me. Every day I had to remind myself that I am here to help our staff grow and develop professionally. When I focused on my core mission, it made it much easier to get work done each day.
Think practical. Start making plans in advance. If you are on prescription medications, order 90 day supplies if your insurance allows it. Find out what your unemployment benefits will be. Most states have an online calculator that will tell you how much you will receive and for how long. Shop around for health insurance. COBRA rates are outrageous. You may do better with an individual policy that covers only catastrophic events like hospitalization. Adjust your withholding for state and federal taxes to the maximum level. If you are paid out for vacation time, this allows you to keep more of the money. As a last resort consider taking out a loan on your 401K before your last day. If you don’t pay the loan back within 60 days of termination, it will be taxed as an early withdrawal which means taxes plus a 10% penalty. If you are the sole provider for a family, this may be a necessary option.
Don’t panic! Your job is only one facet of your life. Many people have found being laid off a liberating experience. This is your chance to try something new if you want or to move somewhere different. This is actually how I came to work in libraries. Laid off from a corporate job, I wanted to work for an organization where I could give back to the community. Had that layoff not happened, I would definitely be in a different place today! As Tom Hanks character says in the movie Castaway, “You never know what the tide may bring in.” I also highly recommend reading the book Start Where You Are by Chris Gardner for inspiration.

Filed under: Personal Development

May 11, 2011 By Lori Reed 1 Comment

Life and Learning…Journey or Destination?

Last week I graduated from East Carolina University with a Bachelor of Science in Communication. After 21 years of higher education (on and off), I felt a tremendous relief at being finally done (at least with this part of my education).

My family and I made the 5 hour drive to Greenville, North Carolina to the ECU campus. As a distance ed student, I had not only never set foot on campus but had to look on a map to see where the campus was. The drive there gave me lots of time to reflect on my college (and life) experience–in between the kids asking “are we there yet?”

The next day at the graduation ceremony I lined up with the sea of 20-something year olds and walked across the stage to get my degree. I chuckled to myself when those who walked before me discovered that instead of their college degree they were actually holding an invitation to join the ECU Alumni Association. Welcome to the real world!

As I went back to my seat, I thought I would feel something…more…satisfied…accomplished. I didn’t. Instead, I suddenly realized that the important part had already happened–the journey. I felt satisfied when I received my final grades. I felt accomplished when I created a marketing plan for the ALA Learning Round Table for my PR strategies course. I felt excited when I interviewed Katherine Ramsland about the literary works of Anne Rice. I realize now that all of the joy and excitement came from the actual learning not the ceremony.

Still, I’m glad that my children got to watch me walk across the stage. Well actually just one of my children. My youngest thought it would be more fun to run barefoot, up and down the halls singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

This got me to think about parenting. Being a parent to two young children is not easy. But everyone tells me that it’s over before you know it. I remind myself daily that parenting is about the journey–good and bad.

There are so many analogies where this is true and so many cliches that I won’t repeat any of them expect to say this: The next time you find yourself completely stressed out or overwhelmed, stop and take a deep breath, and remind yourself that life, like learning, is about the journey not the destination.

Filed under: Mommying, Personal Development, Professional Development