Nebraska Public Media Labs: Our Vision

Public media is a distinctly human endeavor. It is a core component of a healthy democracy and is most impactful when it uses technology to bring people together as communities – via story or experience – in ways that connect and empower them to create a more civil society. These creations are made by people for people who increasingly live in an algorithmically generated reality. Realizing impact in that reality by creating a future that includes public media requires that we have a dedicated research and development team focused on these core concerns.

Nebraska Public Media Labs is a post-broadcast R&D unit. Existing independent from Nebraska Public Media's traditional broadcast philosophies and intentionally positioned beyond the organization’s traditional broadcast production models and workforce, our primary goal is to support and inspire innovative individuals (or groups of individuals) in the creation of content and experiences that reflect the values of public media onto the wider digital media landscape of the 2020s, and to connect with audiences not currently reached by other NPM content initiatives.

Central to achieving our goal is the maintenance of an incubation space that allows us to rapidly prototype and explore technologies and platforms for content creation and communication without fear of stigma from failure. Each experimental initiative aims to achieve three broad outcomes: first, testing ideas to deepen our understanding of emerging media opportunities for public media; second, expanding the technology tool kit accessible to all public media creators; and finally, producing content and experiences that yield measurable impact aligned with our organizational values. The media, techniques, and ideas we explore are not the exclusive purview of Labs. But prioritizing incubation allows us to create focus in Labs that might otherwise be challenged by competing priorities in other innovative parts of the organization.

This vision will guide our work through 2027, anticipating future transformations in public media and digital culture. In that time, we will have three strategic areas of focus.

Methodological Approach

Nebraska Public Media Labs takes a first-principles approach enhanced by design thinking methodologies and tailored explicitly to our public media context. This approach emphasizes:

• Audience-centered problem solving.
• Iterative prototyping and user-feedback loops.
• Transparency in experimentation and strategic decision-making.
• Develop scalable tech solutions for NPM (and public media more broadly)

Adapting to Industry Shifts: Our approach positions us to navigate and adapt to the rapidly evolving media landscape. By continuously questioning assumptions and focusing on core objectives, we will remain nimble in the face of technological advancements and changing audience behaviors, ensuring our strategies prioritize impact as a critical measure of success.

Measurement and Impact: Labs will implement an evaluation framework combining quantitative metrics (user engagement, reach, conversion rates) and qualitative insights (audience surveys, focus groups, playtesting) to ensure that future projects benefit from what we learn.

Learning from Failure: Embracing a culture where failure is viewed as a learning opportunity, Labs will institutionalize post-mortem analyses and report out insights from all projects, regardless of outcomes, documenting lessons learned to foster continuous organizational learning.

Core Values (Implicitly Informing Every Action)

Our departmental core values are the foundation for our identity and strategy. All our messages, actions, and communications must be rooted in these values and reflect our personality. Our efforts remain grounded in an unwavering commitment to audience relevance, creative craftsmanship, humility, agile collaboration, perseverance, inclusivity, and the thoughtful celebration of achievement.

OUR VALUES:

Content in Context - We create quality content that provides a context relevant to the subject matter.

Audience Focus - With clearly defined audiences in mind, we design and deliver media products that support communities.

Effective Process - We seek agility and efficiency in all that we do, so that we may afford creativity.

Craftsmanship - We respect skills earned through experience, celebrate curiosity, and value mastery of craft.

Perseverance - We apply discipline and confidence to work through challenges.

Humility - We strive to be humble, trustworthy, and respectful as we work through the creative process with our team, colleagues and collaborators outside the organization.

Versatility - We respect and celebrate the individuality of our team’s members and believe that diverse skill sets and different points of view result in the greatest creations.

Diversity & Inclusion - We are committed to diversity and inclusion in the staff we seek to hire, in the stories we tell, and in the experiences we create.

OUR VISION:

We support the Nebraska Public Media mission of enriching lives and engaging minds by connecting communities and celebrating Nebraska with services that educate and enlighten. We tell a wide range of stories in the arts, sciences, and humanities; capture dynamic performances of art, sport and intellect; document the majesty of both the natural and manmade worlds; and develop educational media that respect and elevate the learner.

OUR MISSION:

Using traditional and emerging digital and multimedia storytelling tools, we create, curate, and deliver compelling content designed to reflect, engage, and inspire the communities we serve.

Create - We use emerging and traditional electronic media—video, audio, text, photography, xR, and data visualization—to tell stories. We create engaging, trustworthy content and products. We take our time, embracing a laboratory model that allows our content and products to incubate toward success.

Curate - We create with clearly defined audiences in mind and always with the goal of appealing to a wide range of users. We archive and organize materials in consistent and intuitive ways that allow users to either follow prescribed narratives or explore on their own.

Deliver - We seek to reach audiences through Nebraska Public Media content and websites, and through partnerships with collaborators outside the organization. We design reliable platforms and build user interfaces that provide an engaging and immersive user experience.