Fri 20 February 2015 | brendan howley | inkfish(at)rogers(dot)com | @brendahowley | 226.880.1449

'grow that culture!'proximity storytelling and the next library

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the challenge

✤ grow the Hamilton public library system as trusted hub of participatory culture...

✤ ...both for staff and customers alike

sustainable culture

✤ Hamilton libraries as

✤ valued hubs of participatory culture

✤ trusted repositories of community data

✤ engines of small business entrepreneurship

✤ open media ecosystem (community news engine)

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the conceptidentify community 'value networks'

open those networks to library-mediated community storytelling...across all media

co-create storyworlds with the community which advance library objectives

establish clear ROI vs objectives

how it works

✤ shared story is the currency of all human networks

✤ networks connect communities and co-create value

✤ designing library experiences for high 'shareability' incites community interaction

✤ community interactions grow more stories

It's a virtuous circle.

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the program

✤ a comprehensive communications strategy which opens community networks and shares library stories and community stories without distinction...

✤ ...but all in service of clear objectives, first and foremost of which is...

Enhancing discovery

Discovery = seedbed of creativity

✤ every story we'll share, every shared experience we'll network, draws on each and every Hamiltonian's inherent drive to discover new meaning in his or her life...

✤ ...on their own terms, mediated by library experiences

Story builds value networks.

Grow that culture

✤ Hamilton's rich and distinctive community culture is the secret weapon in creating not just cultural value but commercial value as well

✤ ...because money follows art—simple as that

✤ like the GLBTQ community, creative artists are the unsung entrepreneurs of every urban renaissance: chefs, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, photographers, digital artists...and librarians!

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And here's the beautiful thing.The exact same thinking renews the library itself—its stories, its contributions, its culture of community service, inspiration and trust

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Libraries build insanely great UX.

And that UX is going to get even better.

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Proximity storytelling: the ‘what if?’

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smartphones and intimacy

✤ Gramin Bank experience

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access + democratizing rich media/information

✤ even most marginalized library users have mobile phones

✤ smartphone adoption in Canada now approaching 75% of all mobile customers

✤ how to capitalize on this?

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two syllables

01smart spaces

adaptive app UX

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beacons are publishing platforms

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what’s behind the curtain?

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headsup: the use-case | ‘The Hammer’Everything we’re talking about today, is underway at Hamilton Public Library, in 'Toronto's Brooklyn,' Canada's Pittsburgh

Early days: we’re turning a 23-branch library system into an ‘open media ecosystem’ to fuel cultural growth as part of a great city's renaissance

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renaissance | supercrawl150,000 people on one street

Hamilton’s music strategy is at once an economic development piece and an opportunity for HPL to curate music of all stripes—from 'witchhouse' to opera to jazz/blues to experimental to rock'n'roll

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‘open media desk’OMD: the beating heart of this ecosystem is a community-centric 'open media desk'—a multimedia 'citizen journalist' newsroom is the linchpin of HPL's storytelling strategy

…and feeds the iBeacons storytelling content adaptively

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mobile technology + meaningknow who you are (meaning): iBeacons/mobile/pop-up culture

>> culture as teachable moment about Hamilton—its people, its history, its stories

Great libraries have no walls.

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the vision thingthe OMD/beacons layer will make local culture part of everyday lives and HPL’s branches will become repositories of the community data that’ll bubble up

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storytelling isn’t king

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it’s a republic.

thank you