Tag: Linkedin

Publishing articles on LinkedIn and graduate employability

Daren Mansfield / / Study Skills

Following on from my previous post about reflective writing, I’ve written an article about using your intuition at work and published it via LinkedIn, the professional networking site. It’s my first article on LinkedIn and hope it may be one of many. It also gives me a wonderful opportunity to foray into areas beyond librarianship (my normal arena of publishing activity), and put ideas on paper, or at least onto a PC screen. It’s a kind of liberation, in a way.

LinkedIn also has other surprising benefits. Not only am I able to connect to colleagues and those outside of my area of specialism, but I am able to help graduate employability in terms of them developing a portfolio in a tough job market. Simply by endorsing a skill, for instance, you’re helping them progress in a competitive world.

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Book of the Month: The Business of Being Social

Daren Mansfield / / Book of the Month

CapturebbWelcome to the social media age! Well, it’s the first chapter in an engrossing read entitled ‘The Business of Being Social‘ by Michelle Carvill and David Taylor, and a friendly introduction to start this blog post. It’s the second edition, published last year, and covers every aspect of social media and ‘explains step-by-step how you can create a strategy for success’.  Why is it important? Social media is simply indispensable to any business, it (almost) goes without saying. The significant dates in technological innovation include telephones (1876), radio (1896), television (1925), and World Wide Web (1990) could be justifiably enhanced by social media being launched on:

5th May 2003 – LinkedIn

4th February 2004 – FaceBook

23rd April 2005 -YouTube

21 March 2006- Twitter

2007 marked The Apple iPhone’s arrival to herald the smartphone age. Other social networks include Google+, Pinterest and Instagram, alongside social messaging sites WhatsApp and Snapchat. These outflank all other media in their huge global reach. The figures are staggering: Facebook has over 1.4 billion active users, Twitter has 280 million, LinkedIn over 340 million, YouTube over 1 billion and Google+ around 300 million. Almost 2 billion people access social networks, and is estimated to rise to 2.44 billion in two years’ time. The book is interesting to read not only for those running a business, or a student studying the social media aspect of business, but for anyone interested, as I am, in this dynamic area.

The Business of Being Social (2nd ed) is available at 658.872 car on the 2nd floor of the Library.

 

 

Using LinkedIn: Facebook for work purposes?

Daren Mansfield / / digital learning

I’ve always found LinkedIn, the world’s largest business networking site, a really useful way of connecting with colleagues and those associated with the University of Lincoln. It’s also a way of connecting of ex-colleagues. You may legitimately describe it as Facebook for work purposes. I have embedded a neat video on using LinkedIn for the uninitiated, which might whet your appetite if you haven’t got an account (of course, it’s free). Or at least the version I use is free. I also like the LinkedIn Pulse feature which has a vast range of such interesting articles – you can follow them on Twitter @LinkedInPulse. You might also decide to become a self-publishing author on LinkedIn, a tentative step which I haven’t yet undertaken.

EthOs e-theses online service from the British Library

Daren Mansfield / / Databases

Not many people may be aware of the incredible service that the British Library is now offering in terms of digitising theses across the UK and uploading them onto a database called EthOs. Fortunately the University of Lincoln does subscribe to this facility where you can download or order a copy, and we are proudly able to claim that some 350 of its PhD theses are available on EthOs.  These links can be easily be shared via a plethora of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc…

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We are hoping that Nono Wibisono’s recent PhD entitled ‘Destination image: perception, experience and behavioural intent in the context of West Java, Indonesia as a tourist destination’ is soon added to EthOs as it’s certainly worth reading. This thesis is currently being added to the University of Lincoln’s hard-copy theses collection on the ground floor of the Library, behind the issue desk. Whatever your level of study I find it a useful exercise to browse through a PhD thesis to appreciate the depth of a literature review, how the references are threaded together in a logical debate and learn how to write in an academic style, of which Wibisono’s is a fine example.

Using a thesis as a model of academic writing

Daren Mansfield / / Library Information

I was so impressed by  Gary Ramsden’s fluently structured PhD thesis that I regularly recommend it to students as an example of good academic writing. Students can visit the core collection in the Library to use the thesis as a valued resource as an example of a well written, well argued, thorough critique. Each paragraph clearly argues a viewpoint, discusses it, summarizes and looks ahead to the next theme or discussion point. For me, it demonstrates that Gary knows his subject inside and out, and is able to persuasively express himself without hesitation as a result.

We are often asked how to write academically, how to respond to a question academically, using references to support and argue a particular viewpoint, so why not use it as a valued resource if you are interested in improving your academic critique?

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Gary’s thesis Managing the Humanitarian Supply Chain – a Collaborative Approach? is available through the Lincoln Respository, the Library catalogue and Ethos from the British Library’s digitised theses collection.

 

 

 

 

Gary Ramsden