What do you think I should write about?

I’ve found it increasingly difficult to make time to blog, and it’s not so much not having the time — I’m pretty privileged in that regard — but finding the motivation. Thinking about what used to motivate me, one of the big things was writing things that other people wanted to read.

Rather than try to guess, I thought I’d ask!

Those who know what I'm about, what would you read about, if it was written by me?

I'm trying to break through the blog-writers block and would love to know what other people would like to see my ill-considered opinions on.

— Jez Cope (@jezcope) March 7, 2019

I’m still looking for ideas, so please tweet me or leave me a comment below. Below are a few thoughts that I’m planning to do something with.

Something taking one of the more techy aspects of Open Research, breaking it down and explaining the benefits for non-techy folks?

— Dr Beth 🏳️‍🌈 🐺 (@PhdGeek) March 7, 2019

Skills (both techy and non techy) that people need to most effectively support RDM

— Kate O'Neill (@KateFONeill) March 7, 2019

Sometimes I forget that my background makes me well-qualified to take some of these technical aspects of the job and break them down for different audiences. There might be a whole series in this…

Carrying on our conversation last week I'd love to hear more about how you've found moving from an HE lib to a national library and how you see the BL's role in RDM. Appreciate this might be a bit niche/me looking for more interesting things to cite :)

— Rosie Higman (@RosieHLib) March 7, 2019

This is interesting, and something I’d like to reflect on; moving from one job to another always has lessons and it’s easy to miss them if you’re not paying attention. Another one for the pile.

Life without admin rights to your computer

— Mike Croucher (@walkingrandomly) March 7, 2019

This is so frustrating as an end user, but at the same time I get that endpoint security is difficult and there are massive risks associated with letting end users have admin rights. This is particularly important at the BL: as custodian’s of a nation’s cultural heritage, the risk for us is bigger than for many and for this reason we are now Cyber Essentials Plus certified. At some point I’d like to do some research and have a conversation with someone who knows a lot more about InfoSec to work out what the proper approach to this, maybe involving VMs and a demilitarized zone on the network.

I’m always looking for more inspiration, so please leave a comment if you’ve got anything you’d like to read my thoughts on. If you’re not familiar with my writing, please take a minute or two to explore the blog; the tags page is probably a good place to get an overview.