1. To Share, or Not to Share, That is the Question: Information Sharing Among Urban Crafters Sarah Caldwell Sarah Ganderup Erica Leigh Nelson Meredith Slota Julie Tanaka

2. Who? And Why? Population

3. Population = URBAN CRAFTERS Craft micro-retailers Small business owners Crafters Community members

4. Urban Crafters “Small business owner” Compose >99% of all businesses in the U.S.A. Legal definition = <500 employees (www.sba.gov) Sole-proprietorship or LLC Most have just ONE employee: the owner! “Crafter” Hand-crafted products Design + fabrication in-house D.I.Y. ethic Urban Craft Uprising+ Local popular craft fair Number of vendors > 100

5. Urban Craft Uprising Urban Craft Uprising's Mission: “To build a fun, successful showcase for indie crafters and to nurture a supportive DIY crafting community” http://urbancraftuprising.com/ Our question is: How does membership in this community affect information behavior? To what extent do members of this “community” share information? Is there competition? Does that affect the ways in which information is shared?

6. Urban Craft Uprising

7. What ExistsProblemsAreas of AgreementAreas of Disagreement Literature Review

8. Literature Review The Literature on Crafters What Exists Sharing business information Sharing artistic information Best Literature Example Further Research

9. She’s Crafty: Are YOU? Participation

10. Game Instructions You’ve each been given a set of instructions for how to build a boat, but your set may be incomplete and/or contain duplicates. Your goal is to acquire a full set of the 5 instructions Hint: they’re numbered! You must talk to your fellow crafters and try to get the information you need (i.e. a slip of paper with the instruction(s) you need). Time’s up when the song ends!

11. Survey + Interviews Fieldwork

12. Crafting our Survey: Basics Preliminary questionnaire: Fremont Market 19 questions 12 in-person respondents Online questionnaire: UCU Vendor List 24 questions 25 (additional) respondents 81 emails, 25 responses = 30.8% response rate

13. Sharing: Business or Art?

15. Getting into craft fairs

16. Marketing

17. Costs

18. How to get/retain customers

19. Pricing

20. Bookkeeping

21. Storing

22. General design ideas

23. Whether you think it will sell

24. Anything that they might find useful

25. The kinds of materials you’ll use

27. Sharing: Reasons Why NOT

28. Theoretical Influences Small Worlds+ Life in the Round + Social Networks (Chatman) Information Horizons (Sonnenwald) Theory of Least Effort (Zipf) Constructivism + user is always right (Dervin)

29. Information Horizons: Engineers

30. Horizons: Social Network + Context

31. Fieldwork 2.0 : Crafting Interviews Three interviews with local crafters Open-ended, topical questions based on questionnaire Focus on personal details of processes of sharing Major findings: Crafters more likely to share business-related information than design-related information Personal contacts (2) and online message boards (1) most important

32. Devon: Once Upon a Pedestal, Etsy.com Mainly interacts through online message board – more likely to find, share information online than in person, and always business information. “I feel more connected to the information than I do with the people”

33. Samantha: Monkey Sock Monkey Most information exchange is with trusted non-crafter, small business owners. “Getting information from someone else saves me time.”

34. Megan: TheOrganizedKnitter.com Generally felt very positive about sharing information, but … Small group of local crafters, all non-competitive Difficulty of obtaining information + relevance to specific craft

35. Information Horizons Social Networks Context + Rules Crafting our Model

36. River of Crafting

37. Information Horizons (Sonnenwald, 1999) Proposition 1: “Human information behavior is woven around, i.e., is shaped by and shapes, individuals, social networks, situations, and contexts.” Proposition 3: “Within a context and situation is an ‘information horizon’ in which we can act”

38. Business Information Crafters’ Horizons of Information Sharing Small Business Owners Crafting Community Fellow Crafters Internet Followers Craft Organizations Crafter Friends + Family Internet Followers Factors = Competition, Feedback Personal Relationships Reciprocity, Community Creative + Design

39. Crafting community Libraries Government agencies Implications

40. Implications: Crafting Community Hoarding information can have negative effect on hoarder, must share information to access crafty “hive mind” + community Community has self-identified business information needs Trying to meet that need D.I.Y., but … Organizing workshops, classes, conferences http://www.creativeconferencewest.com/ http://www.grassrootsbusinessassoc.com/

41. Implications: Libraries Making crafters aware of library as a resource Personal and virtual connections Lists of resources targeted at crafters Meeting room Library as office Partnerships between libraries and crafters Crafting workshops Exhibits Collection development

42. Implications: Government Agencies Micro-retailers don’t fit SBA standard “mold” Policies or information tailored to the particular context of micro-retailers Local gov’ts should explore micro-retailers Their role in the economy Small but vital 54% said “essential to livelihood”, 68% said “important” to livelihood Look for ways to support them Urban Craft Uprising, etc. – partnerships with city resources http://smallbusinesssaturday.com/

43. Sarah Caldwell Sarah Ganderup Erica Leigh Nelson Meredith Slota Julie Tanaka THE END