This is not a book review. I read one book followed by part of another, and was suddenly inspired. Consider this strange equation. It doesn't have an equals sign because this post is the answer.
I hoped to share Godin's enthusiasm when I read his book, but instead I found him disappointingly repetitive. Godin is a motivational speaker. Hammering on the same points can work very well in a speech. I found a TED talk by Godin from 2009. If you view this, you will not have to read Godin's book and you will probably find it far more enjoyable. I embedded the video of this TED talk. If it doesn't appear in the version of the post that you see, it's here .
I absolutely agreed with Seth Godin about the potential of internet communities and the importance of the true fan spreading great ideas, but it wasn't until I read Jaron Lanier's dismissal of the creativity of mash ups devised by true fans that I felt galvanized to respond.
Mash ups are based on synthesis. They make connections. Someone who has never seen such a connection before could be inspired. It was after I wrote that response in my notes toward Context Book, that the idea of Makerspace fandom came to me. Libraries should think creatively about nurturing a fan community, and think fannishly (the way fans would) about creativity.
How do you promote a Makerspace? Some libraries have posted material about their Makerspace. I was impressed with the variety of services that the Detroit Public Library Makerspace offers. Here's a link to their page about it at http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/hype/hype-makerspace . Yet it seems to me that fans could spread the word about the Makerspace more widely than the library could on its own.
How do you establish a fandom? What if the patrons who use the Makerspace had a forum on the library website to post about their projects? There could be some great discussions that support the Makerspace. Patrons could post about the discussions on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter. This would increase interest in the Makerspace and its forum. In addition to discussion, there could also be creative responses. So suppose Sarah posted a picture of the dress she made on the sewing machine, and Joe posted a picture of the t-shirt with a silk-screened image that he'd just produced at the Makerspace. Then Judy mashes up the two images, and Bob becomes creatively inspired by the mashup and writes a poem about it. Kerry sees the poem, and writes a drabble based on the poem. A drabble is a story that is exactly one hundred words. Sam could have found the drabble amazing and made a video of himself singing a song that he wrote based on the drabble. These are the sorts of things that fans do when they get creative. Soon people would start coming to the forum to see the creativity and perhaps participate in it themselves.
Jaron Lanier criticized mash ups because they're derivative. He thinks that creativity will become exhausted because it depends on earlier work. Shakespeare was derivative. He borrowed plots from other writers who no one remembers. We remember Shakespeare because his derivative versions were so compelling. Shakespeare was not the only major artist who was derivative. No one creates in a vacuum. Artists form communities because they become inspired by one another's work. The people in a fandom do the same. Occasionally, there will be incidents involving blatant copying from someone else. Fans will then spread the word that the offender has plagiarized.
A Makerspace community forum will need guidelines and policies to prevent abusive practices such as cyber-bullying. (Yes, it happens, but I think Jaron Lanier exaggerates the extent of it. We are not all trolls as he claims. I also don't think Lanier should feed inner trolls by insisting that everyone engages in trollishness.) The forum will also need encouragement. Librarians should include creative responses in a description of what posts on the forum are appropriate. Perhaps they could add a supportive comment now and then. They could also survey the members of the forum about potential new Makerspace services which would cause these users to become enthusiastic about the possibilities, and write social media posts asking others to support these potential services. A Makerspace fandom is not expensive. When it grows to a certain size, it will become self-sustaining, and it will pay the library back with boatloads of community support.
This post is about synergy. My response to these two contrasting books is synergistic. So is the process of building a fan community on a library website. If your library doesn't have a Makerspace, consider how you could build a similar fandom around one of your programs.
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