David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

I Want to … what? A Question for our new website

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Our “I Want To” Exercise

My library is working on a new, redesigned website. We’re really excited about it! We’ll probably go live sometime this summer/early fall (fingers crossed).

This time around, we have been working with a local web design agency, Imagemakers, to redesign and re-imagine our website. They really stretched us during the early stages of this project, and I thought I’d share one of the ways they did that.

Early on in the process, they asked us “What does your community want to do?”

Did you see that? They didn’t ask “What do your customers want to do?” or “What do book lovers want to do?” They helped us focus on our greater community, and what the community wants to do.

This was a really fun exercise (and yes, we used Jamboards for this brainstorming session)! And it helped us define and group together the things that: 1. Our community wants to do; and 2. What the library can do to help the community … do that stuff.

See the image in this blog post for a snapshot of that exercise. Here are some of the things we determined that people living in Topeka and Shawnee County, KS want to do:

  • I want to be entertained
  • I want to raise my family
  • I want to learn
  • I want to create
  • I want a place to eat
  • I want a space to meet
  • I want to be involved and contribute
  • I want help getting a job
  • I want to be in the library
  • I want the library to come to me
  • Etc.

After we did this for awhile, we started brainstorming how the library can help meet those wants and needs (notice we’re still not actually talking about the website, but about the library).

With each of those “I want to“ statements, the library, for the most part, is already doing something that helps meet those needs and wants … with a service, a resource, or a part of the library.

For example:

  • I want to eat. We have a cafe in the library, and we do an afternoon meal for kids who need it. And we have cookbooks and cake pans.
  • I want to be entertained. That one’s easy – that’s a big part of what we do as a public library! But it’s also a different way to think about our traditional collections and events.
  • I want to create. We have a digital media lab (still closed because of the pandemic), and are planning to expand those services. We also have many books focused on making all sorts of stuff, and we occasionally teach classes on how to create a variety of things, as well.
  • I want a space to meet. We have a variety of meeting rooms that customers can use. Plus the cafe, if you want to grab coffee for the meeting.
  • I want the library to come to me. We just started our TSCPL@Home service, which is a home delivery service for anyone in the community. We also have a bunch of ebooks, databases, streaming video, and online classes that meet that need.
  • Etc.

So how does the website play into this? Well … the library’s website simply reflects what the actual library does. Not just the physical building, but the overall library. The stuff we have, the experience you have when interacting with our stuff and staff, our outreach services, and yes – our digital branch resources as well.

Starting a website redesign by brainstorming how to meet our community’s needs, and then superimposing those ideas back to the library (and eventually back to the website) is a great way to redefine what you want in a website … and in the library, for that matter.

Those types of backwards questions and prompts can be a big help in kickstarting more creative thinking about your library, your website … and pretty much any project you start.

Give it a try!

Sweetwater Sound, Customer Experience, & Hashtags

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Thank you materials that came with my purchase
Thanking me for buying stuff!

I recently bought a new bass guitar from Sweetwater Sound, and loved the customer experience they provide.

I’ll walk you through some of the stuff they did to make my buying experience a good one, then share something fun that could work well for libraries.

Here are some of the things they do to make sure my experience buying stuff from them is a good one:

  • When I sign up for an account, I’m assigned a specific “sales engineer.” That person calls after I buy something to make sure everything’s ok.
  • My bass guitar was backordered, so Randy (the sales dude) called to let me know what was going on, and to share when my bass guitar would ship.
  • Sweetwater does a 55-point inspection on all their guitars, from the pricey ones to some of the cheaper ones too (mine was a cheap one). Most online music stores don’t do that.
  • They warned me to not open the box for 24 hours (via a sticker on the box), so the instrument could slowly acclimate to a warmer temperature (musical instruments can be picky that way).
  • See the image with this post? When I opened the box, I was thanked for buying something, given a bag of candy, and provided with a hashtag to share what I bought on social media.

I’ve bought a TON of stuff online – probably you have too. This level of service is not normal, at least for a “big box” online music store. So … very nice customer experience!

How does this relate to libraries?

How often do we thank people for using our services? For checking stuff out …. For asking a question … for using one of our databases … for attending a class or event at the library?

Yes, mine was an online experience, so it’s easy enough to stuff something in a box before you ship it. But we have the opportunity to thank people in person, which can have a much greater impact than stuff tossed into a box (though the candy was … sweet!).

And I LOVE the idea of the #newgearday hashtag. That’s certainly something we can do. Does your library have a hashtag? If so … print out a bookmark or postcard that encourages people to share their #nextread or something like that.

And then share those photos on your website (here’s how Sweetwater shares some of the #newgearday images). Use them in promotions (and yes, get permission). It’s a really simple way to connect with your customers, and to let them share their joy of reading with your community (and a sneaky way to share them with you, too).

Going Remote in Bahrain

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I was recently in Bahrain at the SLA Arabian Gulf Chapter conference. What an amazing fun time!

While I was there, I gave two talks:

  • A panel discussion on emerging technology trends with Marshall Breeding and Jason Griffey. It was lead by Houeida Kammourié.
  • I was also a keynote speaker, and talked about improving the customer experience. You can find my slides here.

I made a couple of videos while I was in Bahrain (watch if you dare):

I also experimented with something for the first time. When I give presentations, I usually use presentation mode (in Apple’s Keynote app).

I usually have facts, figures, or phrases I want to say in a specific way, or a reminder to do a transition to the next topic, and those don’t always stick in my head. So I dump them into the presenter notes, and can glance at them during my presentation.

Guess what? Once in awhile, that doesn’t work. For example, at this particular conference the A/V guys ran all presentations in the back of the room at the sound booth. No HDMI or VGA cable running to the podium.

So my laptop had to be at the back of the room. With my notes. Bummer!

What to do? Jason reminded me that Keynote has a mobile app. One feature of that app allows you to remotely run a presentation from your iPhone or iPad. You just have to pair the mobile device to the laptop. Then the phone acts as a remote to advance slides.

And more importantly, it shows all presenter notes. Problem solved!

So the night before my presentation, I quickly set it up, practiced once, and decided to use it the next day.

It worked “mostly” well! I say “mostly.” Not because of the devices, but because of the hotel wifi. It required re-connecting every 24 hours. I didn’t think about that the morning of the presentation, and as luck would have it the wifi on my phone decided it was time to stop working. On the next to last slide of my talk.

So I had to say “next slide please” a time or two. Otherwise, everything worked great.

Anyway – problem solved for the next time that type of awkward set up is required (it’s happened to me once before). It was also really fun to try out something new (for me). And it solved a huge issue and helped me successfully deliver my presentation.

Have you ever tried out new tech for the first time in front of other people, or started using something new because you really, really needed to? Please share!

Pic of me talking by Jason Griffey

Helsinki’s New Library is Pretty Cool

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Uusi keskustakirjasto from WDC Helsinki 2012 on Vimeo.

I love the direction Helsinki City Library has gone with their new building. From this article about it, check out some of these highlights:

  • designed for the urban dwellers of Helsinki by the residents themselves
  • That’s the reason why the new library will have, among other things, a movie theatre, music studio, restaurant, open workspaces and a “citizen balcony”
  • opinion leaders and celebrities encouraged people to come up with fresh and groundbreaking ideas that the new library could adopt
  • participatory budgeting – that’s a new one for me!
  • the library was envisioned as a place for experimenting, learning, 21st century civics and peer learning, along with the enrichment of ideas and thoughts, and acting as a service provider for immigrants and tourists.

Go read the whole article – it’s really good. So – are you starting plans for a new building? A new service area of the library? A new collection? Maybe see if you can get your customers involved.

Because as Tuula Haavisto (director of Helsinki City Library) says, “We noticed that visitors feel a stronger ownership of the library and visit it more when they have been included in the planning.”

Creating Immersive Experiences in Libraries

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While at ALA Annual 2016, I attended a presentation titled Be Our Guest: Creating Immersive Experiences in Libraries. Dave Cobb at the Thinkwell Group spoke, and then Steven Bell and John Blyberg briefly spoke, providing sort of a “reaction” to the presentation.

Dave Cobb introduced the idea of experience design, and gave a lot of examples along the way, including some library examples – the Cerritos Library being the most well-known example of experience design in action. You can read more about experience design elements at the Cerritos Library here.

I didn’t take a ton of notes during this presentation, but I did capture these 3 ideas:

  • Experience design = storytelling medium. The idea here is to tell your story, or the story you want told, through the designing of the experiences that your customers have when they interact with your organization, both physically and digitally. Make sure the design matches the story!
  • Our audience has an audience. Cool thought. Our “audience” is our customers. Their audience is their social group. Friends and family, their “friends” on social media, etc. If we help our audience have a great experience, they will share the fun time they had with their audience.
  • Can’t make your own theme park, but you can make the theme park your own. You can do your own thing at a theme park/museum, and create your own experience there. Sorta like using a platform to build something else on. His examples included #disneybound – people dressing up like a Disney character, but doing it by using “normal” clothes. Here’s an example of that. Dave also talked about Museumhack – a group working to make museum tours a LOT more fun, among other things. Here’s an article about Museumhack from Nina Simon.

my book Designing the Digital ExperienceAnything here for libraries? Well, yes indeed!

  • Libraries need to do better at telling their stories. One reason my library just won Library of the Year is that we simply told the story of what we’ve been doing for the last few years (ok, what we’ve been doing is also pretty awesome, and has been a LOT of work, but still …). We need to learn to tell our stories – using words, video, architecture, website design, and yes – experience design.
  • Libraries need to think about their customers like an audience. We’re here to provide the best “show” (their library experience) for our “audience,” which means we play a role, and we have to nail it. Every. Single. Time. Easy to say, hard to do.
  • Library as Platform. I’d love it if more library customers made the library their own! How awesome would it be if our customers took what we have – the library as their platform – and ran with it, building their own things on top of it (like #disneybound or Museumhack)? Find out more about the library as platform in the Aspen Institute’s Rising to the Challenge: Re-invisioning Public Libraries.

How about the digital experience? Well… I wrote a book about that!

Image from here.