how networks work(or: why telling shareable brand stories grows

your library)

Somedays the telling the ‘why’ of your library’s offerings

can drive you up the wall.

...then miracles happen.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU

But hopefully our time here will teach you that everything you thought

you knew about storytelling is

worth a second look.

This killed Communism.

Huh?

...and brought down the Berlin Wall.

Human networks are extraordinarily powerful.

They live to share stories.

relax.

Let the power of the

paradox* of networks work for you.

*a contradiction in terms

...just like everybody else.

c.

four strong 20 weak

connections

These weak networks tend to spread news far faster

than strong connections.

...the same way jet travellers today transfer viruses from continent to continent—the way

the European colonists brought unknown diseases to North America centuries ago.

Sociologists call this the ‘not a friend but an acquaintance’ phenomenon.

(It’s how most people make connections to find jobs.)

You won’t know a ‘bridger’ when you meet one.

(That’s the whole point.)

...it truly is a numbers game.

So what’s the lesson?

It’s dead simple.

Go to Union Station. Stand in the main concourse.

Yell “I love my library.”

Kidding.

Not.

The great network relationships happen because

you care about the ‘why’ of what you do

—*that’s* why you share great stories

...think weak.