This weeks tutorial is on your personal brand. having called my blog CPD23Beekeper, I was contemplating adding a picture of myself in full beekeeping regalia - veiled hood attached to White jacket, wellies and yellow rubber gloves, I realise that covering myself entirely will not make myself recognisable when I attend conferences. so I need to have a think about that photo!

On a more serious note, we have been looking at 'business cards' for the information librarians so that they can be handed out to students with contact details and links to help information. Or to be handed out by other staff at the enquiry desk if the librarian is not available. It was suggested that people should have photos on the card but some are not keen and some have signed the university's data protection policy that allows them to specify what data they want used/ not used and that includes photos of themselves. Obviously one should not /can not enforce staff to have photographs if they do not want one but it seems to me a shame in such a media rich environment , both in work and social media contexts, that people are not more relaxed about having their photograph used in a work environment. I appreciate that on the web, you can't control what may happen to a photograph and people are right to be concerned but for a "business card" you would retain a lot more control. I never like photos of myself but I see it as serving a function and do put mine up om my professional pages.

As one of the "things" I need to look for myself on the web. With a reasonably rare surname and the fact that I am the Library Portal Manager, it is quite easy to find myself. We are doing a new portal and I must take the time to update my profile page before it goes live as it not very current and the articles in the listed reading do stress the importance of getting your profile correct. So some additional homework for me.