Is telling a narrative story always the best way to inform and engage a news audience? Not always, according to a leading digital news practitioner who spoke at this week's Mobile First conference. The takeaway: Thinking mobile first can help you make the best of scarce resources -- yours, or your community's.

At this conference, hosted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute, speakers from many digital news ventures discussed what they've been learning about how to really make news and information work for mobile users -- capitalizing on opportunities and honoring constraints that are particular to mobile devices and networks.

David Cohn, director of news for Circa, discussed how their mobile news app delivers "atomized" news, rather than conventional news articles or stories. That is, Circa conveys breaking and unfolding news by presenting four "bite sized" key elements for any story: facts, statistics, quotes and images. These are arranged Storify-style, and mobile users scroll them to understand the basics of what's happening, and important context for understanding that news.

"We don't publish articles," said Cohn, "we tell stories that persist over time."

So, rather than reading an article or watching/listening to a narrative news story with a clear beginning, middle, and end, Circa users get a quick, clear synopsis of the news. This "atomization" approach trades off flow-related stylistic story conventions such as ledes and transitional sentences or paragraphs, in favor of delivering speed, scannability, usability and clarity.

In addition, Circa users can "follow" a story by clicking a button. This means that they'll then be alerted when there are updates to that story, and they'll see first all information that's been added to that story since they last viewed it. This type of customization doesn't force a mobile user to spend time parsing through a story to sort out what's new (for that user, specifically). In short, it honors the relationship that the user has with a story.

"If you've been on vacation and don't know what's going on with a story, you can catch up," said Cohn. "But if you've been following, it, we'll remember that and only give you the updates."

To achieve this atomization and customization, Circa developed a custom content management system (CMS) that manages story elements, rather than stories (as a block of relatively unstructured news content). It also manages user-specific information about followed stories, and delivers content and notifications accordingly via the app.

It's possible that in the future Circa might license their CMS for use by other news/info outlets or projects. But here's an idea to expand upon Cohn's remarks: Community-focused news and engagement projects can experiment today with emulating some elements of Circa's atomized approach to news, using existing web publishing tools.

Here's how this could work for any mobile-friendly website or microsite:

1. Pre-parse information up front. When gathering information about a community issue or happening, categorize what you know according to common relevant elements. Besides facts, statistics, quotes and images, community publishers or organizers might also include: address/neighborhood (maybe even a custom Google Map), contacts, what might/will happen next, questions to consider, or other elements that might quickly establish relevance or support engagement or action. Update this basic overview as needed (for instance, if a local ordinance is passed, rather than just being considered). 
2. Don't write a story. Don't craft a coherent narrative that people would read from beginning to end. Instead, present these elements on a mobile-friendly webpage in order of importance, as a bulleted list. Keep this overview very short and simple. When you first publish the atomized story, position the most basic info/context up top for a quick overview to newcomers. 
3. Use social media + Storify for updates. Once your main story is published, post your updates first to social media and link back to the atomized story on your website. Then use Storify to curate your own most important updates -- as well as noteworthy updates from other sources, stakeholders, or community members.
   Avoid update clutter: Only pull into your Storify the most important updates, with the most recent first. Embed this Storify at the bottom of your story webpage (it will display in most mobile browsers), and also link to it from an "updates" link at the top of the story page. Storify's built-in connectivity will help users connect with your topic via social media and other resources. 

If you want to try this experiment, pick a shorter-term, relatively straightforward issue -- but nonetheless one that might require several articles to keep up with the coverage.

For instance, the impacts of proposed major changes to local bus routes and schedules might be easier to handle than the overall role of transit options in your community. Choose a local topic that can probably be explained simply ("The county is proposing to cut five bus routes serving these neighborhoods and towns,") and updated simply ("Today's revised proposal would cut only two routes and reduce the frequency of seven others, rather than cut five entirely.")

If your main website is not mobile friendly, consider using a free weblog (such as Wordpress.com) to create a microsite to host this story. You don't have to keep updating it forever; it's just an easy way to make your atomized story more mobile friendly.

Experimenting with the format of information is crucial to discovering new opportunities for news and information -- for global news as well as community information. Break the "story box" by finding ways to play Legos with news and information. Mobile devices are forcing information providers to reconsider format options along these lines.

And even if you can't experiment with atomizing your own stories, try using Circa and Storify on your smartphone to get a sense of the power of atomized approaches to storytelling. And if this all just sounds like more work, remember how much work it takes to craft a narrative story, and to keep people updated in that format. This shows the value of considering other ways to other ways to use your time and energy more efficiently and effectively to inform and engage your community.