Let me backup and say that renovation is in the air at Virginia Tech and I’ve been studying/observing a variety of retail experiences—from service transactions to the display of merchandise to wayfinding to in-store traffic patterns. I’ll share more in a future post, but I think that there is a lot that libraries can learn from commercial enterprise in terms of moving people through space and grabbing their interest along the way.

So Target— they recently launched The Shops. In a nutshell, they selected a handful of regional retail stores and packaged their goods (or you could say they curated their collections) and brought them into the Target platform. So now when you walk through the space you have mini-shops within the big box that is Target.

The thing that struck me was how this created some personality and intrigue. I’m not a big shopping person, but I was interested in visiting all the little “shops” as I walked through the store. They added character and built a sense of atmosphere.

Instead of just the Women’s Section, there is The Webster—sexy hip fashions from Miami. Instead of just Home Goods there is Privet House—charming and stylish décor from Connecticut. And there are several other shops from places like Boston and Colorado.

Target could have just incorporated products from these brands and placed them on the shelves and racks inside their stores—but instead, they are drawing attention to them by shaping a discovery experience. They made it fun to browse by highlighting these particular brands and creating a mystique around them. They are also attempting to bring some attention and “coolness” to the Target name. Kind of like when a big rock band brings a young up-and-coming group along on tour to open for them.

So Libraries—we have a lot of boring names for our spaces—like The Commons, The Media Lab, The Group Study Rooms, The Quiet Reading Room. I’m intrigued with the possibility of a more branded landscape within the building—within the learning environment. I think we all see the value of zoning our spaces, but how we name them, how we define them, how we create intention, how we present them — this all factors into the overall experience.

I’m referring to our zones at Virginia Tech with behavioral descriptors, such as neighborhoods, villages and zen gardens—which is more for the architectural expression then for patrons – but perhaps there is a playful way to present library spaces that can add character and personality? How do you brand a group collaboration zone or a knowledge production area? Perhaps this branding approach could be used to present services or collections in new ways as well? Lots of ideas simmering– but go visit Target.

To be continued… eventually…

I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their interest in my startup paper. It cracked 10,000 views in less than two weeks. I honestly thought I might hit 1,000 in a month, but it seems that this paper really resonated with many people. I received lots of email from librarians at different levels sharing their frustration with moving their organizations forward. This next decade is going to be a tough one, but we need leaders committed to progress.

My paper was intended to be a framework for conversation about organizational transformation. I’m not literarily saying you should operate like a startup. Most people got that, which is cool.

Anyway, thanks again for the interest and for sharing the document widely with your colleagues. A special thanks to the city of Seattle who downloaded this thing in droves. And France– what happened between us? You use to be some of my most loyal readers.

FYI. The blog is taking a short hiatus as we push through the end of the semester here. I have a lot to share about my trip to Palo Alto. If anyone wants to sponsor a free webinar in May, I’d love to talk along the lines of: What Higher Ed Can Learn From Silicon Valley: an exploration into next gen learning environments.  If anyone can volunteer the software let’s make it happen.

I’ve been fascinated with startup culture for a long time and as I considered all the changes happening in academic libraries (and higher ed) the parallels were quite stunning. No, we’re not developing new products to bring to market, and no, we’re not striving for an IPO payday, but we are being required to rethink/rebuild/repurpose what a library is and what it does. The next twenty years are going to be an interestingly chaotic time for the history of our institutions.

Here’s a snippet that frames the paper:

The media and pop culture provide us with romanticized visions of dorm room ideas becoming billion dollar IPOs. And indeed, that does happen sometimes, but startups are more than rags to riches stories. In concise terms: startups are organizations dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This sounds exactly like an academic library to me. Not only are we trying to survive, but we’re also trying to transform our organizations into a viable service for 21st century scholars and learners.

This paper is a collection of talking points intended to stir the entrepreneurial spirit in library leaders at every level. I think it is also useful for library science students as they prepare to enter and impact the profession. My intention is for this to be a conversation starter, not a step-by-step plan. The future is ours to figure out and I hope that this captures the spirit of the changes ahead.

So here you go:

Think Like A Startup:
a white paper to inspire library entrepreneurialism

I’ll be exploring the startup theme for the rest of the year—via this blog, talks, and other venues. But I’m going to leave it at this for right now. It’s a long document, but give it a read. Let me know if something resonates with you or your workplace. I’d love to hear from libraries practicing a similar R&D methodology.

Just a heads-up: my blog will likely go quiet for a bit as I’m heading off to Silicon Valley to meet with some startups as well as with some established companies. This is my quest for an innovation experience—my alternative to ALA Annual. And of course I’ll blog the insights. BTW: I’ve found that entrepreneurs tend to love talking about the future of higher education, largely because it didn’t work well for them and they want to see something different.

Publishing Note: I opted to publish this as a white paper instead of in a journal largely because I wanted to control the design and content. It’s hard to explain, but I didn’t want my initial publication on this topic to be owned, bundled, and associated with a publisher. This self-directed process was much more labor intensive, but also very liberating.

Thanks: Ashley Marlowe for the design. Steven Bell, Tara Patterson, Laura Purcell, and Leslie Mathews for the tons of edits. And to all the students who shared their startup dreams with me over the years.

@brianmathews

I could go along with that, for the most part, until yesterday. Here’s what happened.

There has been a lot of talk around the office lately about The Fourth Paradigm. Even our school newspaper is in on this thread, reporting about the emerging “third pillar of science.”

Yesterday I downloaded The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, which is a free PDF. Thanks Microsoft. I’m reading it on my iPad via my Kindle app and everything is fine, right? No! It’s not a Kindle book. It doesn’t allow me take notes, share passages, or sync across devices. Those might not sound like big deals, but they are—or they have become to me. My reading experience is linked to functionality, not just to the content.

So here is this free book, free content, that is essentially useless to me—to the way I want to use it—to the way I work with information. The content is free, but it’s the container I’m willing to pay for. It’s the container that makes the content valuable.

Fortunately the Kindle price is just 99 cents, but if it had been $9.99 I probably would have still purchased the book.

And that’s the reader’s dilemma, particularly the research reader. Access is no longer enough. I don’t just want to have the content in a digital format. I need it to live and breed and interact with my other content and with the content of my colleagues. It’s the infrastructure and tools around the content that I am willing to pay for. It’s the platform that will continue to grow and make the content more valuable to me over time. This isn’t about preference, but about performance. It’s about creating context.

I see this as one of the great challenges (or opportunities) for academic libraries over the next decade. The emerging shift is away from access and towards tools. I want to do stuff with my information, not just read it. I have to assume that the barriers to content will drop and instead we’ll be purchasing the Elsevier Platform instead of Elsevier Content.

Take Facebook—it’s not really about storing your photos, but about commenting, liking, and tagging. It’s the functionality, packaged together with other lifestyle curation tools and processes. It’s about using the container to connect with a community via a very personal context.

Researchers want to do things with their data, text, and media besides just store and read it. Our professional conservation has to be about Containers, not just Content. How can we help students and scholars create a personal context across the universe of information? That’s the key to the future.

See also: My Evolving Feelings With E-Books or Content Begets More Content (or: I Want My Content to Be a Social Butterfly)

There are good insights into companies monitoring buying habits with the goal of building better relationships. This is the main takeaway:

Once consumers’ shopping habits are ingrained, it’s incredibly difficult to change them. There are, however, some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux.

Having a baby is one of those critical moments when everything becomes chaotic and new habits are formed. Target is on the lookout for women who start purchasing prenatal vitamins with the assumption that they are pregnant and hence, they can start advising or conversing with them along those lines. Target tries to position itself as the one-stop-shop for the busy mom. Amazon is also in on this as they offer a free year of Amazon Prime to new mothers.

I’ve observed how this flux can alter consumer behavior first hand with my wife. Not only does she love Amazon Prime now, but she also gave up Starbucks (formerly a daily ritual) in place of Panera because it had a drive-thru. When you struggle to get your kid in a car seat a drive-thru becomes your preferred destination.

How does this apply to libraries? Once study and work routines are ingrained I imagine it is difficult to change them. If you never use the library building it is likely you’re not going to start. Those first experiences seem to make or break it for a lot of students I’ve spoken to over the years. It becomes a place they love, a place they hate, or a place that’s “ok, but nothing special.” My mission right now is to transform our library into a preferred destination for academic work. A place that students feel enables or empowers them to succeed better than other locations on campus.

I wrote on this theme of forming good habits earlier and it’s still simmering in my mind. If we think about these life-defining chaotic moments then the first semester of college has to be one of those key times. Leaving home, moving away, losing friends, independence, academic stress, pressure to succeed, opportunities for fun and romance. It’s a swirl of commotion.

And it’s a perfect time for establishing a relationship with the library.  I want to explore this a bit, but my feeling is that instead of “knowledge authority” the objective should be for something more primal. Let’s link the library to feelings of accomplishment rather than to collections. Let’s play the empathetic card, rather than the info lit one. Let’s build upon mystery and serendipity to counter intimidation and anxiety. Let’s employ engagement practices rather than a purely task-oriented appeal.

I don’t have anything concrete right now, just pondering. But my thoughts keep coming back to this article and the opportunity we have to reach freshmen, transfer students, and international students as they enter. How does the library become a positive habit? A positive idea? (My wife will probably say I’ve been watching Inception too much, but that’s the basic goal.)

I’ve been talking informally with a handful of freshmen about their first year and I’m looking to expand my reach into residence halls this fall so I can soak up those initial weeks firsthand. But I feel this inception has to happen soon than that. Once they are here it’s almost too late. The relationship has to begin months before they move in. Just like Target and Amazon want to reach excepting mothers, rather than just new mothers. The relationship has to be forged before they arrive and then reinforced once they get to campus.

The question isn’t what do we want them to know about the library, but rather, how do we want them to feel about the library?

Book Recommendation: The Power of Habit

In the dream I didn’t have a dummy/puppet/avatar and hence everyone I tried to interact with just ignored me. This is likely a confluence of several things. I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of libraries, the future of information, the future of communications—while also reading about the historical development of computers, the rise and history of print publishing, and the evolution of teaching and learning.

The past and future are colliding and the result: hand puppet technology!

Google Docs  (The Library Inside)

Virginia Tech is going to be switching over (upgrading) to gmail. Faculty, alumni, students—everyone has the option to convert. This got me thinking about support services. I can envision instructional content around using Google Docs and other services from the “knowledge management” or “knowledge creation” stance. Helping students and faculty become more effective with the information tools that are part of their standard email suite. Helping groups collaborate more efficiently on their projects. Helping researchers interact more creatively. It’s a great platform for the library to get involved with.

But that’s largely just training. (Click here. Do this. Do that, etc.)

What would be really exciting is to build upon the chat tool already embedded in the Google Docs platform. Imagine an overlay to Google Docs with citation management and project management functionality. Imagine being able to talk with others in your class about the assignment that you’re working on right now. Imagine being able to invite in library support and others, such as the writing center, directly into the digital workspace.  I’m not saying that we’d linger there big brother style, but it gives us a more natural window into the effort. It enables us to see what they are working on or struggling with, and address real-time needs.

The point is—this sharing technology can open the door and bring us closer to the research process. It would enable us to see what the student is working on, rather than just having them tell us what they think they are doing. We would be able to see the problems ourselves, instead of trying to parse though interpretation. Again, they would invite us into this process for a glimpse– it’s not a monitoring effort.

Instead of a student saying “I need to find three peer reviewed articles on the ethics of cloning” the conversation becomes more about growing their ideas, applying critical thinking, and teaching them find and evaluate resources that support their narrative. Instead of info literacy being an abstract concept focused around using library databases, it shifts the focus toward addressing the needs of the student via a context that motivates them. Info Lit happens everywhere, not just in the library’s classroom.

In short—Google Docs potentially opens the doorway into the learning / writing process. Just as Jon Udell dissected the creation of Wikipedia articles we could follow the development of term papers over time to observe patterns of success and failure. What are the tricky concepts, the threshold concepts, holding students back? How can we alleviate research anxiety? How might this insight improve what we teach and the way we teach it? And lastly, might Google Docs reduce the barrier of initiation by embedding a library presence directly into the writing environment rather than through a third-party channel like text, IM, or email?

Getting into the writing environment (the act of scholarship)

Over the last decade there has been a lot of talk in the profession about getting the library into the course management system or learning management system (Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, etc)  — and there is value to that goal. You want library services to mingle with the syllabus and assignments and other instructional components. There are a lot of eyeballs in the CMS and so it makes sense for us to want to be here. But tools like Google Docs let us take it further. Google helps us with engagement rather than just publicity.

The CMS/LMS is where students go to take tests, find readings, and review projects—but the word processing software is where they go to create. It’s where they struggle. It’s where they need help. The CMS/LMS is where they learn about what they need to do, but Google Docs will become the interface where they will actually learn.

A core theme that I see shaping up for this decade is moving the library closer to the learning process. Engaging students while they are in the act of scholarship. By providing help via Google Docs we could expand not just the way we provide help, but our entire relationship to the writing and research process.

Just some Monday morning brainstorming.

I’m a big fan of print. As much as I love the web I’m still very print oriented in my personal reading life. But that might be changing…

I’ve been enjoying Where Good Ideas Come From — it’s page after page of epiphanies. As I was reading it I kept taking notes or bending pages… and I then realized it would be so much easier to highlight and annotate content in a digital format. So I purchased a digital version of the book. (The book is that good! I mean come on– his chapter on Adjacent Possible is all about the kernel of library science and discovery.)

Anyway, in my case functionality trumped familiarity. Another telling sign was navigation. As I was reading the print version I found myself making a swiping gesture to turn the pages instead of actually turning the pages. I pretty much use my iPad or iPhone for most of my web experience and so gesturing has just become natural. I want to touch every screen I encounter.

Ok, so big picture: I’ve been very skeptical about the full on migration to digital content—but perhaps I’m joining the late majority now. I’ve read ebooks before but it was much more about being a novel experience while the difference now is that it’s becoming a preferred experience. As the ebook ecosystem improves as well as the hardware, I think we’ll see more and more people ready to make the shift… not because they are forced to but because they want to. Value moves us toward adoption.

Why write a book by hand when you can use a printing press to reach a mass audience? Why read one book at a time when you can connect the content to several other media streams simultaneously?

What I would love to do next is to search across all of my books. As my personal ebook library grows I want to look for terms, phrases, or notes across this material.

Compare this to the print version. Here is a shelf in my office with some books I’ve read or I’m currently reading

If I’m looking for content on managing customer relationships I have to go through each of these individuality. However, it would be great to search across them collectively as well as the articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts and other media created by these authors or by the works they cite. I want the books I “own” to talk with each other.

And not only that but I want to have an alert system based on my library of books and articles. So for example, if Guy Kawasaki has a new TED Talk – I am notified – it is simply linked to my knowledge-bank. Or if the Heath Brothers are giving a talk in my region I can find out before tickets go on sale. Or if one of them recommends a new book via twitter, I alerted and invited to obtain it based on probability of interest.

I don’t just want a sizeable collection of digital materials, but rather, a smart collection that extends beyond content and feeds the steam based on context. Maybe I could set up various threads such as entrepreneurialism, learning environments, and the psychology of marketing. Based on my core collection of books, along with what I borrow or have access to digitally from my library, and based on the articles or other media I have absorbed– I have a growing span of highly specialized content. Based on what I gather and find useful, I can find more useful content. It’s like a personal recommendation service on steroids. And it just happens. It reacts to my behaviors and preferences.

An example: I’m re-reading The Great Good Place for probably the fifth time and so maybe frequency triggers something in the system. Are there certain sections, passages, or pages that I spend a lot of time on? How does that particular content interact with other content out there? Beyond the formal “who else has cited it” maybe it also links to my social network. I see that Gardner Campbell is reading a lot about MIT’s Building 20, which is also related content that I’m reading or maybe I have downloaded and queued but have not read yet. It let’s me know what I “should” be reading. Or rather suggests some items of priority based upon my calendar (who I’m meeting with) or upcoming projects or some other criteria. Right now I have over 50 articles in a Drop Box folder titled “Good Articles To Read”– it would be great if the system could connect to Char Booth’s library and suggest a few articles that she has read, is reading, or wants to read so that when we hangout next month I’m on the same page as her, so to speak. A system that could help me make sense/set priorities of all the possible things I have to read.

Back to Gardner. We’re working on some projects together but it’s pretty loose. My  library could inform me about shared interests or content with him or with my staff or my regular collaborators. I don’t just want to know that Gardner is reading the same book as I am or the one I just finished… I want to tap into his content streams. What are the books, papers, articles, and images related to learning environments that overlap with my interest. Instead of him saying “you should read Steven Johnson” the book just appears in my steam. And likewise, I don’t have to tell him to read “The Zappo’s Experience” because it simply connects with our mutual interests.

How can our personal libraries cross-pollinate with each other in a natural way? How do my books and articles talk with his books and podcasts and hence suggests a new white paper or blog post that neither of use have discovered yet but that would likely be of mutual interest?

Ah yes privacy. I knew someone would go there. If I carry around my brand new print copy of Turing’s Cathedral I’m broadcasting my taste in a very visible way. But if I’m reading Hunger Games on my iPad I might not want people to know. I might not want that text to link to my “serious work” network. Obviously some books or content would need to be turned off or hidden—I’ll punt that problem for right now. That’s something to figure out after all the theoretical stuff. I’m just trying to express how digital content could evolve beyond being just a library of PDFs. How can it breed?

Another point:

There is often talk about the loss of serendipity due to libraries moving more to closed stacks but I’m starting to disagree. It’s not about losing what’s in the stacks– it’s about greater access to content that is linked together more effectively. We’re in the growing pains stage right now, but imagine what it could become. It could be another new information revolution. This isn’t about just migrating print to a digital platform, but building an integrated and immersive experience. Building personal collections that talk with each other and then add more to that collection.

Hypothetically, if enough mass of content is linked together then it magnifies serendipity. If I’m seeking books on a topic and go the shelf I will undoubtedly stumble upon other interesting books. Happens to me every time. But the problem is that this process is limited by scope and scale. I’m limited by the amount of books I can see and touch. I’m limited by what’s in my building right now, today.

If discovery and serendipity are really the desired outcomes then you should prefer access to such an interlinked digital knowledge universe. This would ensure that you stumble upon books and other content from other disciplines– not just the ones at eye level the next shelf over.

Right now I am studying marketplaces—this takes me on a journey to ancient  Sumer, to retail theory, to impulse purchasing, to habit formation, to Good Places, to persona and archetypes, to restaurant design, to the structure of scientific revolutions, to bartering, to currency, to technology of transactions, to information on color, texture, and mood– basically across a wide spectrum of disciplines: business, science, art, psychology, design, history, etc. I don’t want to limit myself to “traditional marketplace literature” but rather, I want to glance and dabble with adjacent themes. The larger construct is that it’s about how people interact rather than the art or act of commerce. For me serendipity is about pushing into different interlocking domains, rather than physical correlations mapped to a shelf location. As has been said before—It’s about content not containers. And I want to put that content to work for me, not just have it sitting on my shelf or even just sitting in my eReader. I want my content to be a social butterfly.

In terms of framing the discussion. It’s not about ebooks vs. print books… it about how knowledge interacts with itself providing the reader with a much more eye-opening and potentially collaborative experience. As we continue this conversation about the future of libraries we need to be clear that it’s not about books becoming digital, but about how content begets more content on a personal and global scale.

The core attributes include:

• design and construction
• response to campus context and constraints
• sustainability
• functionality
• innovation
• beauty and delight

This is for new academic library buildings or substantial renovations completed between 2007 and 2011. The deadline to submit is March 20, 2012. If you work in an amazing academic library or if you helped build one — please share it with us.

I have a lot to say about learning environments— but I’m holding off until this competition is over. Where Good Ideas Come From has totally changed the way I think about space, people, and context. I’ll leave it at that for now.

Research libraries have long been building infrastructure to support data management and the UC has even recently launched a data plan generation tool. It seems to next step is the development of an open-source, user-friendly, discipline scalable visualization tool. (sorta like this) I imagine that a common platform designed for and with academics in mind could be a breakthrough venture. It could help us to cement the claim that “we know data” by not only collecting, storing, describing, and identifying it—but by also enabling scholars to do something new with it.

Hardware. For years I’ve been intrigued by 3D printing. At Georgia Tech I got to see some rapid prototyping and was very impressed. But as 3D printing has become more affordable and desktop-based it’s becoming a very real possibility for mainstream adoption. We’re talking $300 – $500—a very small investment! I foresee this technology becoming a standard service like scanning, page printing, and photocopying. Full disclosure, I’m a 3D printing fan boy.

This has been a growing conversation in our public libraries. (here & here) The concept of the library as an idea incubator and/or idea fabrication lab is pretty exciting. Meredith summed it up well via a recent exchange:“libraries enabling people to do something that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do.”

A big theme for us these days is “knowledge creation” or “knowledge production” and this is the hardware making that a very literal possibility: a symbol of the 21st Century Library. From an academic perspective—you write a paper, give a presentation, AND design a 3D model to showcase your concept. Here’s a practical example that I can imagine:

Let’s say there is article about a new water flow apparatus. I can read the text, look at the images and graphics, manipulate and visualize the data, AND THEN download the attached CAD file and print a miniature working model to review and test in my lab. I could possibly build upon the concept contributing new knowledge and a better product  or perhaps apply it to my own research problem in a different manner. I then publish a paper about my design enhancement or my specific application of the tool, upload my data, and provide my CAD file so that others can build or contribute too. This is the beautiful potential of open science: quickly advancing ideas in a multi-sensory capacity. The future is tactile scholarship and it’s happening now.  Fast Company coverage. Wired Coverage. And this is good too.

@VT. There are a number of labs on my campus offering 3D printing but those are typically limited to specific courses and research programs. I’d love to find a way to offer this service to everyone, but that’s a low priority right now. The cost isn’t prohibitive, but for us it’s a matter of logistics, location, and other pressing needs. We’ll get there, but likely as a late adopter. I did have a chance to see a 3D printer in action last week… but that’s a post for next time. (In the business we call that a teaser.)

@BrianMathews

The thing that struck me during the conversation is the assistance service model. Students who encounter a challenging math problem or who have software issues can place a red cup on top of their computer to indicate that they need help. A graduate student or instructor will then approach and provide assistance.

I instantly thought of Fogo de Chão, a great Brazilian restaurant in Buckhead, with tableside service. It works like this: You have a token beside your plate. Flip it to green and your table is swarmed with various cuts of meat for the taking. Flip it to red and they leave you alone. (Thanks Jimmy P for expanding my dining horizons!)

This “service in your space, when you want it” is an interesting model. I’m not saying that we all need to rush out and implement it in our libraries— perhaps a few of you already have—but let’s think about it. I know that Steven Bell was brainstorming an “easy button” approach that pulls up a chat/help menu for patrons using library computers. How might that evolve?

Other Models (From Dining)
Roving reference has been around for a while, but that’s more of an interruptive service model. It’s the waiter/waitress/server approaching and occasionally asking: “Do you need more bread? Do you need help citing your sources? Can I help you find a book?”

And of course the tried and trusted information desk aka the counter service model: “Can I get a Plain Slim #1! Can I get two peer-reviewed articles on the ethics of cloning!” Or if there is teaching encounter then it’s more like the concierge model: “Let me tell you about some great restaurants in the area. Let me tell you about some great databases for your topic.”

The calling/paging/signaling model is an intriguing variation. Would it disrupt your current operations—yes, but isn’t it worth discussing at a conceptual level? Shouldn’t our conversations always be about improving the user/student/instructor/researcher experience? Their success is our success, yes?

So how would it work? High-tech vs. low-tech options. How might it change patron behavior? Librarian/staff behavior? Would it increase the amount of questions? Would students use it? Does helping them in their space improve the emotional, functional, or pedagogical experience? Is it scalable? Does it provide a path for deeper engagement?

When I imagine this in a library setting (I instinctively picture GT’s West Commons) the theme of privacy does come up. But I’m not sure that’s a real issue. You can build around that by having multiple inquiry methods for sensitive topics or personalities. The problem I could foresee, in a sociological sense, is that when you’re calling someone (an authority figure) over to your space, it could perhaps make the others around you feel odd or intruded upon. But… perhaps that’s the old way of thinking. That’s trying to apply the model in a vacuum. I might be making it a bigger issue than it really is. My students are already accustomed to this model (field trip to The Empo) and so if a similar system appeared in the library, it probably wouldn’t be too shocking to them. In fact it might actually be more intuitive and comfortable to them than approaching a desk. It gives them control, instead of us.

Need help? Ask us. We deliver!

Just thinking out loud…

@brianmathews