Thing 12

I was amazed by the number of project management tools out there. Since my job is more autonomous and really just about managing my own case workload and solving sudden crises, I don't have a lot of first-hand experience with big company projects. Still, I checked out 3 or 4 of the sites and did whatever tour they had available. It was hard to really compare them without testdriving each one--I think that is the only real way to figure out which one works for the type of projects you might have. I would be hard pressed to pay anything for these, but I suppose if projects were a big part of a company, it would make sense to pay for those that would really fill the company's need.

I spent 30 minutes on Thing 12.

Thing 11

I don't own a smartphone, but after reading about all the medical apps you can put on your iphone, I admit I want one. I've never been a big cellphone user, preferring to keep it solely for emergencies or quick "what type of bread did you want again" calls from the grocery store. I just never wanted to be that accessible to people. I don't get wanting to chat on the phone while shopping for groceries or driving my car, etc. (Okay, I know the car one puts me in a very small minority.) But now that there are lots of apps out there, I can appreciate the utility of a smartphone. Iphone seems to be the most popular choice among friends and coworkers, with only rare blackberries surfacing.

I had problems with the instructions for this Thing, since the assignment refers to blog posts but doesn't provide a link to them. It also says you can go to KevinMD and put "med apps" in the search box. But for the life of me, I couldn't find a search box on the site. (Librarians, did I somehow just miss it or does it not exist?) I did find what looks like the first assigned blog (iphone vs android) by doing a google search for this phrase with "kevin" at the end. Here it is: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/10/doctors-choose-google-android-iphone-medical-apps.html

I got to the second one the same way (gotta love google). Here it is: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/09/iphones-blackberrys-doctors-medical-students.html

I spent about 30 minutes on Thing 11.

Thing 10

Well, this Thing has finally prompted me to do what I never thought I would--sign up for twitter. I'm not sure why I've been so against it, but I guess I suspect people's updates are too numerous and not very exciting or relevant (okay, boring). I'm happy with facebook, but will twitter add anything to the experience? On the other hand, since everyone seems to be doing it and I'm constantly hearing about it, I figured I'd better jump on the bandwagon and at least try it out. It was easy to set up an account. I picked one celebrity to follow and added the only person in my email address book who has an account (really? only one? isn't everyone doing this?). I also added Regions hospital, but couldn't find the Regions medical library. I'll try again later. I then went in and tried to add my photo, but couldn't get it to upload. I was able to add a bio and my location. I was surprised to get one follower almost instantly but was a little disappointed to see it was someone I didn't know who was "looking for that someone special". Ugh. Weird. No tweets from me yet, but I will try once I get a real follower. I'll also try to add some local businesses that I shop at to see if they tweet any coupons, etc.

I spent about 1 hour on this Thing, although it would be easy to spend much more by searching for people to add, learning all the terminology, apps, etc.

Thing 9

As a frequent facebook participant, I feel I'm pretty well versed in social media. Facebook is a way to reconnect with people I don't see often (like since high school) and feel more intuned with their lives. I think it has added to my life, especially since I live far away from where I grew up and have never been great at keeping in touch with people.

I never got a ning invitation, so I didn't do the ning project. I even emailed the librarians a month or so ago to get an invite, but it never came. (Librarians--not sure what happened. Are you still sending these invites, or was that just for last year?). But no matter, I ended up joining Sermo, which looks really interesting. I was happy to see my specialty represented (especially since it is a less common one), and looked at several of the questions posted and the responses. This looks like a great site to ask practice questions and see what others are doing. I also like you can post questions to other specialties and they can post to yours. I think I will log into it often to see what's new.

I spent 30 minutes on Thing 9.

Thing 8

I signed up for CiteULike. It was easy to do, I just did the basic signup (not the advanced option). I was disappointed that the first journal I tried to put in an abstract from was not on the accepted list. I didn't bother to do it manually. I then tried another journal which worked. Tagging was easy but I could see from the suggested tag list that I wasn't using anything quite like those, so I don't know how helpful this will be. One thing--the 8 things instructions say that when you create your account, you should click on the option to allow CiteULike to stay open even after closing your browser. I couldn't find this at first and when I tested it, it wouldn't work without signing back in. But as I logged back in, the option was there and was already clicked, so I expect it'll work from now on.
I also signed up for a RefWorks account. Looks more complicated to use, so I didn't do anything more with it at this point. It will likely take a lot more time to fully explore it. It would be helpful to take one of the classes the librarians say they will be doing in the future.
I'm not sure how much I will use reference sharing. I don't think it will have a big impact on my work life.
I spent about 45 minutes on thing 8.