Lord of Curation Series: Susan Bainbridge

Our Lord of Curation series presents to you some of the great curators on Scoop.it. They are here to share their insights and advice with you.

Susan Bainbridge has been a leader and educator for the past 40 years. She has transformed students, teachers, schools, communities, institutions and businesses. She has met the challenge of change in her own culture and in different cultures in which she has lived and worked. Her ideas and philosophy of transformational leadership go far beyond the rhetoric of simply a ‘vision’ and she can articulate the process in such a way, that other potential leaders can understand the specifics and map out their personal journey to create and sustain positive change.

Susan understands the importance of maintaining an ‘online presence’. She can be found on all major social media sites as well as on her popular curated sites. She works regularly on her Scoop.it pages and sees curation as a very important aspect of her digital presence and personal development.

-What is curation to you?

Curation began for me as a simple repository for information I wanted to catalogue. Scoop.it was in Beta then and it was not until I began to curate that I saw the enormous potential for myself and others. As soon as I began to curate, I would recieve comments from visitors either thanking me for finding the post, or asking me particular questions about a topic and some even asked for help in their own research endeavours. What is curation to me? It’s plays several roles. I’m a librarian, researcher, designer and…I’m just beginning to see this….an influencer. Curation is a very powerful tool. If used properly, it can literally change attitudes and create visions.

-What is your best curating secret?

There are many! But perhaps for the beginner, the most important secret is layout and design. You need to find the balance between text and image. It should read like an interesting magazine Table of Contents. Don’t paste 1000 words from the site on to your topic. People are browsing. They want to see an interesting image and a few words describing the post; this will determine whether they decide to continue on to the site. Don’t just used common images, spend a day or two collecting a library of interesting images to use on your pages.

-How has curation enriched your social media experience?

Curation keeps me ‘on top’ of my topics of personal interest. Not only do I constantly search the Web, but now Scoop.it does a great deal of the searching for me. I am definitely much more aware of all current information which makes me more valuable to others.

The ability to quickly post my findings to other social media sites has enhanced my social media experience 10-fold. Feedback from others on Twitter, FB, LinkedIn is almost instantaneous. I have met and fostered many new friendships and professional relationships as a direct result of curating on Scoop.it.

– You curate a topic called transformational leadership. Do you think of curators as natural leaders?

As I mentioned before, initially I saw it as a repository and so I would have said ‘No’. But now….without hesitation, I say ‘YES!’

Curation has the same power as a newspaper or its editorials. It’s more subtle but no less important.

For example, I post only positive stories. I don’t want to discuss the evils of edtech, the dilemma of no educational financing or very ‘local, provincial’ stories. I want to create a positive site (edtech is here, let’s get on with the job), a global perspective (a balance of information from countries around the world), and a place to get new ideas to implement quickly (not all research and academic talk, but a place where practisioners can find something to use in their class today!).

I want the site to take people forward, constructively and positively….and that’s leadership and a form of transformation, isn’t it?

Curation is definitely a form of leadership because it is the nature of a leader to share and guide. A great deal of time is spent curating. If you are not motivated to share and guide, then why would you spend so many hours creating and developing the site?

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