Doing the LinkedIn Thing

 ISLT EdD student Jason Harle is a total LinkedIn Guru. 

Here's a post he wrote recently about getting more active on LinkedIn.

Me? I've never fully warmed up to it. 

Some part of my brain is still stuck back in early LinkedIn, when it was an online resume space. I had a job, my field doesn't hire that way, it was of little use.

Then came the posts and feeds, and it started to feel like Facebook for work. 

I can see the value in posting there, but on some level it's just not me. I tend to shy away from announcing my accomplishments, even though I know I should be shouting them out like seemingly everyone else.

In part after seeing some encouraging posts from Jason and in part because of this class, I decided to post my latest big accomplishment.

I won't lie -- I totally smiled at some of the comments and was delighted to (re)connect every so briefly with a few folks. I'm thinking about what I might want to share in that space next. But I'm still not really comfortable with it.

However, I think it's time to issue myself a LinkedIn challenge. Y'all can help me build it. Some of my ideas include:

• post publications and presentations (but only once per conference for presentations, even if I do multiple)
• post about my upcoming keynotes
• post about my students who successfully defend a dissertation (I did this recently; skipped the other one because they weren't connected to me on LinkedIn for me to tag them)
• Leave at least 3 likes somewhere on there per weekday

And what else? Give me ideas in the comments. (Or tell me to not do this because I don't need to and it will just be one more task on the list. That's possible, too.)

Padlet and Miro in the Business World

I had a little side convo with a class member in which the question about how Padlet and Miro might be used in the business world was raised. And I thought others might wonder the same thing, so let me blog about that!

Miro

Oh, let's see ... it's used in product design, UX, project management. They have a lot of videos online that show how it can be used. Here are a few.

Their website has a ton of ideas and tutorials, too. Grab a cuppa and tour around for 30 minutes and you'll get some ideas.

Padlet

IMHO, this is the more non-business environment of the two tools, mostly owing to look and feel, but that could also be my impression based on having seen more use cases in K-12 and higher ed. Also, I think they market more to education settings.

BUT: I've seen it used in business settings for resource sharing, interactions during training (capturing ideas/group brainstorms), project management, etc.

The ISLT faculty use it all the time -- it's flexible enough to support a running agenda for our faculty meetings and allows us to link in necessary documents.