Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Well half way there and time for reflection. Has Cam23 been worth it? Definitely - I've tried new applications that I'd just viewed from afar before. Some such as Delicious, personally I could take or leave. Others such as Doodle, I will use from now on. It has also encouraged me to look in more depth at applications I already use. My Google Calendar has been modified to be more useful to me (now why had I never considered making the "month view" the default before?!)

I've also taken the time to look at other ways of viewing Twitter (thanks to the person at the UC&R conference who showed me her Seesmic account). I can now look at several different feed at the same time!... well you know what I mean. I have organised the people I follow into several lists. I made the 'mistake' of subscribing to the British Librarians on Twitter TweepML list wholesale rather than being selective on whom to follow. This was far too many people to follow sensibly, and the people I had originally chosen to follow were lost in a mass of tweets. Now I have a list for my 'regulars' (which I look at most days), another general library list (which I skim when I have time), and a couple of other lists I can dip into. You can also follow hashtags such as #Cam23, or other searches. I am sure I would have hesitated on trying out a reader such as Seesmic had it not been for the impetus of Cam23.

I have really enjoyed trying out the various applications suggested, and look forward to trying out the rest of the applications. My knowledge and skills level in several of them has definitely improved and I can see great potential for some of them (now just to persuade my boss to revise her luke-warm view of Google Calendar...).

I hope my increased knowledge and confidence will stand me in good stead as I progress towards the next step in my career. Hopefully I will be a little less hesitant in trying new applications, and will remember how much I enjoy learning something new. As to what I would recommend - that is hard, as there is so much that would be useful in the right situation - but I suppose Google Calendar and Doodle, closely followed by Twitter, have to be worthy of recommendation.

Reflection over ... roll on the rest of Cam23.