Tell Me Something I Don't Know - Meaningful Community Engagement

I'm developing myself professionally about all kinds of stuff and today it's community engagement in order to plan for services and programming. I didn't attend the Tell Me Something I Don't Know - Meaningful Community Engagement Webinar by InfoPeople, but those great folks made a speech to text transcript. So below I'm going to insert some quotes and then muse in pixels about those insights.

"It is absolutely mandatory to start off a conversation with a member of your service are who represents the constituency in your service area with something they can answer easily. Something down-to-earth and practical. Not theoretical or imaginative. Something not about the library. Their first interaction with you should be something they know about. They need to feel smart and you don't need or want to set up a situation where they look to you to give them a hint about the right answer. If they start saying stuff like "I know this is probably stupid" that is a good sign that you are not asking the right question. Ask about what they know. Don't ask them about the library."

Okay, this makes sense. People don't sit around thinking about the library like library professionals sit around thinking about the library. So why ask them about the library? Below is an example provided about asking people about the library and examples of the right question to ask:

We had an experience where we were listening to a young librarian report on the successful project that she did for our summertime mad science program. This was a great public library program. They had scientist come in talking to people. They blew things up in the parking lot. It was fun and had good media coverage and attendance. She gave her report and it was upbeat. At the very end she said, this just proves the public doesn't know what they want because I asked what kind of programs people wanted. On my survey I did not get a response. I did not hear anything about mad science programs.

The speakers say asking the public what kinds of programs they want is not the right question. For example, questions for parents should be "what do you want for your kids? what kinds of outcomes/ results?" Parent's responses may include things like:

• to retain their intelligence over summer break.
• have stuff to do that gets them out of the house.
• to do stuff that doesn't cost me $100 but is fun for the whole family

Parents are not going to come up with library tasks and programming for the librarians. It is for the librarian to take the outcomes and figure out a program that meets the outcomes. So in terms of programming for seniors, instead of asking, "who would you like to see here?" ask, "what does SSH do for you, or what would you like it to do for you?" For instance, a co-worker mentioned that SSH provided some entertainment for the seniors. The speakers of the webinar caution against asking about behavior, such as, "where do you hang out on the weekend?" but to instead restate the question as "what makes a weekend activity or destination attractive to you?"

When asking about the future, instead of asking what things they want, such as features, ask them to imagine how they want to be able to use the website or the library space. What would make them want to come back. Ask, "what do you imagine your community will be like in five years?" (I imagine bike lanes everywhere and healthy, happy people riding their bikes.)

Don't ask patrons to commit to future programs. No, "if we did x, will you do y?" Market research says consumers are poor predictors of their own behaviors. "The single biggest reason [a person will] ...go somewhere or... try something is because my friends do."

Techniques:

• community meetings should present problems for people to solve with certain boundaries that govern how they go about solving it.
• run a microphone to people instead of having them line up
• note every comment, and thank participants for their contribution, but only address those comments that are on task.
• use social media to talk to people, and not just on library channels- delve into conversations.
• When interviewing ask these:
• "What keeps you (or your constituents) awake at night?
• What do you wish you knew more about?
• Who else should we talk to?
• If they mention a fear, something that they don't want to fail at (job search was an example), ask, 'what would indicate a turn around, that we (you) are heading in the right direction?'"
• if got the $$, do a focus group. Invite only important constituents. 8-12 participants. Ask no more than 6 questions and start them broad and then get narrower. Neutral moderator. Library rep to record answers (on audio is preferable) but not to give answers.
• Look for common threads, things that link people, rather than what is different b/t people.
• Finally, ask non-library people to talk about results. Let library staff then design the library response that brings those results. win-win.

I liked this. There was lots of information on how to craft a question. I liked having people design by what they want to achieve instead of the tools they think they might want to use.