Blog - Jo Alcock Consulting
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Blog

31 Dec

Posted at 11:28h in Reflection, Uncategorized by
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On the last day of the year for the past few years now I've blogged a review of my achievements during the year. 2015 however has been quite a different year and I want to mark it in a different way. There have been some great times this year, but unfortunately there have been some not so great times, and through the good and bad I have learnt some key lessons that span across all areas of my life. I wanted to document these, both for myself to aid my reflection, and for others in case these may also apply...

23 Oct

Posted at 16:41h in Productivity, Professional issues, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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Do librarians struggle with work-life balance? Work-life balance is a hot topic in all fields of work at the moment it seems, including librarianship. Many people I chat to outside of the profession are bewildered about this - don't librarians just deal with enquiries and switch off when they're not at the library? Well maybe some do, but none I know. Most librarians I know do indeed spend some time doing customer facing duties such as answering enquiries, recommending resources, and teaching information literacy skills sessions. But in order to do any of these activities competently, there's a lot of behind the...

15 Jul

Posted at 15:00h in Public speaking, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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Back in 2009 a terrified version of myself, along with a group of others who were apprehensive if not terrified also, presented my first conference presentation. It was the New Professionals Conference in London and I had to stand on a stage in front of over 100 people and share a presentation I'd written. I say "had to" but actually I'd chosen to. I wanted to share my experiences using social networking (a relatively new thing back then!) and encourage other librarians to join me in blogging and tweeting. I wanted to experience public speaking at a professional conference to...

03 Jul

Posted at 23:13h in Events, Professional Organisations, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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I haven't blogged about a conference for a while, largely as I tend to tweet any highlights, and I prefer to write reflectively rather than descriptive as many of my previous conference blog posts were. However, this week I attended CILIP Conference 2015 and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to blog some of my highlights as I reflect now it's over. It's caused me to think about things differently, and really opened my mind to some things I hadn't previously fully appreciated.  The keynotes The keynote sessions I attended were varied in terms of background and topic, as well as...

05 May

Posted at 16:00h in Leadership, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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Back in February I attended one of the Clore Leadership Short Courses, a two week intensive residential course for people in the cultural sectors to reflect on, and develop, their leadership skills. For anyone who has discussed it with me since, I apologise - I feel a bit like I've been indoctrinated into a cult and have been extolling its virtues and encouraging everyone to experience it for themselves. It really was incredible though. I've been interested in leadership for a long time, and have learnt a lot through reading, attending courses and events, and reflecting on my own behaviour....

04 May

Posted at 11:00h in Chartership, Professional Organisations, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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On completion of my Chartership, having had such an excellent mentor (a CILIP Mentor of the Year no less!), I knew I wanted to mentor other candidates myself. I completed the CILIP mentor training, which I found really interesting (I particularly welcomed the focus on a coaching approach to mentoring rather than a focus on the CILIP Professional Registration process), and soon found myself with some willing mentees. Everyone works at a different pace, so some of my mentees are taking a longer term approach, but my first mentee submitted her portfolio last month so I thought I'd share my...

27 Apr

Posted at 17:20h in Leadership, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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NOTE: This blog post was drafted over a year ago but wasn't published. I'm currently reviewing my working preferences to help my colleagues and I understand each other better and thought I'd take the opportunity to share one of the tools we'll be looking at and show how mine has changed since I started my current job (I don't think my scores on Belbin's team roles will have changed much over the last year).  On the first day of my current job, I completed a Belbin team roles survey. It was a really useful tool and something which taught both myself and my...

31 Dec

Posted at 14:00h in Reflection, Uncategorized by
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I've stuck with my 2014 resolution of living for the moment, and have changed a number of things this year due to focusing on the present rather than the future. I'm still a reflector though, so the end of year blog post is one thing I have decided to continue. This is my seventh year of doing these annual reviews now - you can see previous ones for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. I haven't blogged much in 2014. I've been spending more of my free time focusing on other areas of my life and have learnt a lot...

21 Aug

Posted at 09:00h in Chartership, Professional Organisations, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="attachment_2690" align="alignright" width="125"]CILIP Revalidation Hints & Tips CILIP Revalidation Hints & Tips series[/caption] This post is part of a series of blog posts I'm writing about CILIP Revalidation. Last year I worked with CILIP as a Future Skills Project Worker on a part-time secondment basis helping develop CILIP's Professional Registration (Certification, Chartership, Fellowship and Revalidation). I went on to use the new process to successfully revalidate my CILIP Chartership earlier this year, and am sharing my experience through a series of blog posts. For other posts in the series, see the Revalidation Hints & Tips series. The final stage in the Revalidation process is to put together your CPD log and supporting statement, and submit it. This is all done via the CILIP VLE. If you've been recording your CPD throughout the year in the CPD log in CILIP Portfolio (see my post on Recording your CPD), and have your supporting statement written (see my post on Writing your supporting statement) this stage won't take long at all.