Final Summary: My Development

My journey through this module has taught me a great deal about how to maximise the effectiveness of my online presence both professionally and personally, as well as my use of the internet in education and business.

Self Test: Evaluation

Below, I have prepared an analysis of the self test I completed at the beginning and end of this learning journey, showing my changes throughout.

 

An overview of the self-test I took at the start and end of this journey

 

Development: My Profiles

As mentioned above, through this module my online profiles have changed somewhat. Topic 2 showed me the advantages of having multiple online identities. Furthermore, topic 3 taught me about the development of an authentic online professional profile. Following this part of the course I decided to make improvements to my LinkedIn profile and separate my Twitter identities.

My LinkedIn Profile

My Professional Twitter Profile

Following my research on the work of Christopher Poole, I began by creating a second Twitter account which contained my full name. Here, I would express more professional views and articles. As shown above, this account was created solely to discuss my academic interests. This was kept separate from my, somewhat more anonymous original profile where I am able to discuss my personal views more freely.

I also made many additions to my LinkedIn profile, some of which can be seen below. I included a national award winning video that I produced and starred in embedded into my LinkedIn profile.

A national award winning video that I produced embedded into my LinkedIn profile

As shown, topic 3 has helped me to create a more visually attractive and effective professional profile. By including different forms of multimedia, my profile has become more interactive, as opposed to purely being an online CV. This is reflected by LinkedIn’s own evaluation of my account as an Expert profile.

My LinkedIn profile rating

Michael Weiss highlights the importance of creating a brand. Therefore, I kept my profile photo and name synonymous across my professional profiles in order to create an easily identifiable brand for myself.

Development: My Skills

I learnt to display my work in new ways through collaboration and evaluation of the work of others. An example is shown in the Slideshare presentation I created below:

The Journey Continues

This journey, however, is far from over. whilst I have separated my online professional profiles from my personal ones, there are more changes to be made. My brand has been created, but the brand image and synonymity across all platforms can be further developed from just a profile photo across platforms. For example, through a header, the themes I discuss on each platform and more. Furthermore, my LinkedIn profile can always do with more. The further inclusion of addition multimedia will make my my profile more interactive and appealing to potential employers. The power of an online profile is that it is never complete, there are always additions to be made, constantly improving the profile.