Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

a different argument for the bunker'gate : my take on pga championship

if you are like me, and there are probably two of you, then you watched the pga championship. if you didn't watch the championship & you watch some sports highlight show then you had to have heard that dustin johnson incurred a two stroke penalty on the last hole to miss out on the playoff for the championship title. problem was that he didn't realize he was in a bunker & treated it like any other shot.

being a seasoned golfer for some 20 years now i am okay with the end result. call it out dated, but as golfer there is some pride & honor in self governing. it is the self governing that has me baffled that no one has mentioned.

you had a number of people responsible for the scoring of the player in that group: the player, playing partner, caddie, rules official, and probably a couple of other odd folks associated with tournament pagentry. as i have heard this story unfold it seems none of these folks made a penalty call and it wasn't until the end when the rules official got word from "replay" officials that something was possibly wrong.

so, where does "replay" come into play in golf? in baseball they have some replay, but we've seen over this summer and summers past that regular game play is riddled with bad calls we see over replay, but stand as calls a result of some human error which is 'part of the game.'

could this have been considered a human error of the team of people walking down the 18th and let go because there is no official "replay" in golf?

prezi for the presentation : not your mamma's powerpoint

i tweeted about prezi the other day. erin told me i needed to check it out (she was quite proud to know that she knew something tech that i didn't). i am doing a quick intro presentation on tech & church today for a small group of pastors and the rest of the time together is q&a and i thought, heck i'll try out prezi for this.

well, it is really cool!

what i've done is pretty simple. i've taken images that i've garnered for other presentations over the year and inserted them all onto my 'canvas.' i did the path thing for the few slides i want to make sure to start going through getting the session time going, but after that you can move in and out and focus onto each element on the canvas as questions or ideas come up. 

i am super stoked about that. so many times in doing these church presentations on tech you get a huge gamut of knowledge, questions, and 'expertise.' now i can adapt for the audience as i see who is there and the questions they ask.. brilliant! i can also put a number of presentations on the canvas and then just re-route the 'path' of the presentation for a more specific focused presentation.

i'm stoked to share this with this pastors group and i'm stoked to share this with you & tell you to go kick the tires. it does cost an annual fee, but not an unrealistic fee. especially for those who use it on a regular basis.

note: for the stickler, i did correct the gutenberg spelling.

methoApp : the methodist church into the 21st century mobile technology

you might have seen my tweet about it, or maybe the article itself about the british methodist church's new iphone app. in the short time i've had it i really do like it. my quick thoughts:

it isn't over done: too often when we make stuff in the church it has to do everything for everyone and it ends up sucking at all things. like a 'one size fits all' life preserver, it doesn't actually fit anyone. so it has a daily prayer, a daily scripture meditation & news.

it has a simple news section that not only provides the usual suspect news on the methodist church, but also tweets mentioning 'methodist' (at least that seems to be the key search term, so you should see this posting show up at some point).

the formatting is really good. some of the stuff other churches put out is taken from some other medium and just put in through some cut & paste job. i appreciate that the content looks like it should be there.

it is free.. that is a nice part about any iphone app.

i know some of the other umc agencies and entities of the church are trying to put out their own application, i think they'd be wise to take a look at the first one on the scene

adventures in golf : when not to trust the on course gps

went out today to play a fundraising golf tourney, at hermitage golf club, for conference camping scholarships. had an eventful day with my team, the highlight being that a drone the 18th green (no small feat, almost pee'd my shorts I was so surprised). sadly this par 5 was out of my reach.

Blog posted here.

me speaking & talking : here & there for your amusement

next week i'll be doing some of that speaking thing that i do.

wednesday thru friday i'll be in and around the dallas area for the united methodist reporters communicators conference. i'll be leading a churchy discussion based off the keynote speakers thoughts on new media strategy. the possibilities of that conversation could be amazing, so i'm excited to get to lead that. the next day i'll sit on a panel with a bunch of social media geek / church nerd friends on, what else, social media. that will be easily enjoyable. hope we can bring some stuff to the table that challenges everyone in the room. that's the task i'm giving myself.

flying back on friday and then on saturday is up early to volunteer with podcamp nashville and put on my session of 'sex, lies, and social media.' that's going to be interesting & a whole lot of fun. vegas is betting my awkward statement and subsequent blushing will be an over/under at 4 (its just 20 mins of talking otherwise it'd be much higher).

unfortunately, if you are not already signed up for the communicators conference then you'll have to miss me this go round, but you can still sign up for podcamp & check out me and some of the other fabulous minds of technology and what they are thinking about.

so long my friend : nashville no longer talking

noticed today that nashville is talking is ceasing to exist as the blog portal for the nashville blogging community.

truth be told, it probably ceased to be the main portal some years ago when brittney left and the whole chaos ensued at nit & music city bloggers was birthed for a short while.

i enjoyed that community of folks at that point, some of the people i'm still in conversations with today. {in fact, have to thank newscoma for tipping me off to this.} back then you looked for the 'fresh rolled blogs' and knew when your site got linked because hits & comments would take off (well, for someone small time like myself). i remember going to the first barcamp cause all my blogger friends were planning on going, which was the first time i met many folks.. remember sitting next to rob robinson & recognizing him immediately because his hat & outfit was exactly like his thumbnail pic on his blog (yes i teased him about that one). met kate o in line with john carney (john whom i've known for years) we were all first in line (well, kate was actually first).

fast forwarding: that medium, that town square, we all met & built our friendships and community on ceases to exist. since those days of nit i can safely say that twitter, facebook, or anything since has garnered the loyalty & passions that the nashville is talking site did for us some four or five years ago. (gosh, has it really been that long?).

i would love some new place find some of that community. but alas, not all good things are forever & nashville is talking served a great place in my cyber musings life. so much so that it impeded into my real life, which i was more than okay with (it just took some explaining to the wife). so long my friend, nashville is talking. (i want to say some 'long tail' ulogy comment, but its just not quite there, so assume i said something clever & smile)

top tech trends of 2009 for youth ministry : new day in @ymtoday

i was asked to write a, shorter than this, article for ymtoday on the tech trends of 2009. this is my unedited & proper use of capitals article for your review.

Gone are the days where spent calling everyone on the youth phone list, cutting clip art books and taping graphics to papers for making posters, and sorting slides into a projector carousel. Today's youth ministry is full of early adoption to new technologies to communicate and build relationships. It seems to be 2009 amped that trend of leaving behind the those things we used to do so routinely in the early 2000's.

Here's a little list of technology trends from the past year used, being used, or to use for your youth ministry. Not all were created in the last year, but they did seem to pick up more steam.

1. Facebook: Do you remember MySpace? I do, and I thought it was pretty cool. Facebook though is just a fabulous youth ministry tool where MySpace wasn't. Create a group or fan page for the ministry you are a part of, easily send messages to the whole group, create events, post pictures & videos. It is easy to do, takes less time, and its where your teenagers are hanging. Have you watched your teenagers spend time onFacebook, it borders on problematic. If you have some cash, you can invest in ads on Facebook , the metrics for adverts is amazing, not terribly expensive either, plus it shows who are 'fans' in your ad extending the trust relationship. You can even get on board with a free mission trip via the social media network.

2. Twitter: People are up in the air as to whether Twitter is a usable youth ministry tool. My teens many follow a few friends and a bunch of celebrities. I don't have a youth who would create a twitter based newsletter for us like Adam. Twitter for me is brain trust & community of other youth and ministry leaders. Have a question, need prayer support, want to celebrate, need consolation after loosing a job, and more you can join into the community of youth workers on Twitter. I sought help developing this list via my Twitter community.

As a program, Twitter is a mobile based application, so it has txt and alert capabilities. Which leads us to our next item.

3. Mass Text Services: If you think it is going to be a pain to get all your people onto Twitter and then to enable the cell phone alert tweets for your twitter account, just set yourself up for one of the many mass text messaging services. If you are like me, youth gathering times are their normal loud and crazy, but now its all that with the teens staring at their cell phones. They have entire conversations overtxt . I've even caught teens not answering their phone calls but then answering text messages. Tap into that behavior with some of the paid services like txtsignal or a free service like broadtexter.

Note: Txt services use two basic formats: One is where message is more like an email going thru the system. Different cell companies handle that information differently, so a txt service will have you indicate what type of provider the corresponding phone number is. Other services are more like a phone to phone communication, big difference with those is you do not need to know service providers, but they will most likely charge by the number oftxt's and phone numbers (ie. each txt to 1 number is 5 cents, so one mass txt to 50 people is $2.50).

4. SmartPhones: I was told once that 'there haven't been any new inventions, only inventions making everything smaller.' This is certainly the case with the fusion of computer & cell phone. Whether you are iPhone, Blackberry, or now Droid the day of a phone being just for talking is gone.

The smartphone as it continues to become more affordable & builds in development will become the youth workers greatest tools (might even out do the guitar,haha!). As new applications are being developed from YouVersion's Bible app, Youth Specialties Tough Topics, productivity apps like Evernote, GPS directions, to even creating your very own phone application more & more will administration and communication will be done through the phone. I can be sitting at an sports match and send out emails & text messages to the whole group or just our leaders, make notes for the next days to-do list, take pics of the game and load them up to ourfacebook group or flickr page, and then post new information to our website.

5. Flip Cameras: Video used to be the toughest thing in the world. Cameras cost a bunch of money and then you had to edit the videos. Chances are your computer was not powerful enough to deal with all the resources needed for video, so it took many days to put together and render videos. Those days are gone.

With the advent of YouTube being the quality standard and the destination for most created video content the Flip Camera is the new video must have. Not only are they extremely cheap ($100-180, for a decent one) they shoot really good quality video, transfer extremely easily (digitally, so you don't have to do the tape playback recording), and portable so they can always be on your person. You can purchase one, two or three of these gems & hand them out to youth during events to capture footage for a highlights video. Pull out a camera when you are out on the town and inspired to do a little devotional for a video podcast. Get some of the youth to create a news/announcement video. Have a bunch of cameras to do a scavenger hunt and post stuff immediately to your presentation software or to the web.

So what's on your list of big trends for the year? Leave a comment or two, I'm sure there is something I'm missing or maybe my numbering is off.

Honorable Mentions:

• Digital Photography: Every youth event I go to seems to have youth & youth leaders in tow with high quality cameras. Bye bye disk camera & slide film.
• Digital Publishing: All those pictures & graphics can be printed into beautiful books & posters for affordable prices & effort. Forever keeping the narrative of that ministry
  
• Netbooks: Though I'd say that might be more for the college scene
• Google: From Google Voice, Docs, Earth, Ocean, Maps, Latitude to the beta test of Wave there's something for everyone
• Affordable Presentation Equipment: Doing the projector thing was a huge ordeal (not to mention projectors were HUGE!) now the hardware & software is small in size and price
• Collaborative Tools: Maybe its Basecamp, could be Google Wave, we all are using stuff to help us collaborate with our team of ministers & cohorts.

making a splash in social media : its okay to loose control

i liked this little ted talk presentation on social media, in part, because it is short and tells a simple story. the learning point that i would suggest my church tribe needs to take a hold of is, "its okay to loose control" and that "no longer does the message come from the top down."

we can all think about how 'the world is flat' and everyone has an equal voice to traditional media institutions and powers & that was really scary to them a number of years ago (might still be). but if you embrace that others are talking maybe not just about you, but with you, then they are people to lift up and share the genuine voice/face of your ultimate cause.

but, the control factor comes into play.. 'what will they say next?' etc.. well, as someone who comes from a religious background, we say that one needs to have 'faith'.. yes, novel concept, but a good concept when one practices it. my experience though is that people really only have faith as long as it falls within their boundaries of human control. with that, we miss out on the possible beauty bound up in the mystery of individuals and community. i hope for a day when my tribe's structural institutions that helped it to get a certain status and size, see the way to get out of the way and have faith in its community to do something remarkable.

churches doing twitter wrong : churches can do twitter well

i am constantly frustrated with church folks who extol their social media use for their churches. one such statement is the proverbial "our church is on twitter." i am not sure what that means? how is a church on twitter? church, can be there if we are looking at church as a verb, chronicling the interactions of the congregation with the community, but most of what we see is same thing we see so many times with church websites.

1. church twitters often rehash their inner content creation and just throw it out there as if people who haven't graced their walls are all of a sudden interested. much like marshall mcluhan says we do.
2. the face they always show is the church building or fancy logo. again, it works for the people in the church, but doesn't do anything for establishing a relationship with others outside your congregation

so how does a church community use twitter?

1. use it just like you probably are using twitter: making church announcements, posting links to your website/sermons/etc. i am fine with that, just know that you are only talking to the audience that is already invested into your church body. there is value to that, so its okay to do, just don't talk about your media use as something getting outside your church.
2. get personal by:

• make a formal twitter background with images of your church people, not your steeple
• change your avatar to some people. folks want to see how they will fit into your congregation, give them faces (often changing avatars) that help them see themselves as part of your church
• use pictures a plenty
• interact, don't just follow people from your church, but all over your community
• give out helpful information for community events, family building, parenting, schools
• affirm what others are saying
• talk about your people
• be ready to use direct messages to invite folks & let them know where to meet you
• be willing to show weakness/struggles/frustrations as a church body. authentic is the word
• start some helpful "lists" for your followers to plug into (this would involve knowing who to follow and what are important topics for your community)

sorry to the folks at highland park umc for picking on them with my chosen image.. it was just to easy.

i am all a twitter about the news : bud adams gets me air time

so i was rather surprised last night when i get a call from one of my youth. i apparently was on the news.. or rather, my twitter was on the news. yup, christian who does the social media & news coordination for channel two read off one of my twitter postings about the whole bud adams show of guns. not sure what i'm talking about.. well, just watch the story here.

we're all gonna die : so who is your digital executor

saturday i spent my day at barcamp nashville 2009. barcamp is one of my fav days of the year. that along with podcamp are when i get to really hang with the geeks of nashville's tech community. one of the sessions i took in was dave delaney's session titled "we're all gonne die!"

i like dave's presentations because they are never quite what i expect them to be and his gift is that he doesn't try and cover everything in his braintrust. i say that's a gift. anyways, i recorded his session for your viewing pleasures with my notes & thoughts to follow.

Dave Delaney : We're All Gonna Die : BarCamp Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

my notes:

• what is going to happen to our content when we die?
• when die what to do with email, paypal, websites, domain names, web hosting fees, facebook, etc.
• facebook will close off profiles to new friends when someone is confirmed as having passed away, but will keep the account live for friends to visit.
• need a "digital executor," someone who knows all your stuff to keep your digital footprint going
• i see this necessity as much as leaving a 'digital legacy' much like the last lecture was from a dad to his children.
• facebook/myspace/blogs become a new place of mourning for a loved one or friend as they pass away. taking the place of the makeshift memorials on roadsides, fences, building walls, etc.

this was an interesting chat with erin after this, exploring the 'digital executor' idea. i'd thought of what might happen to all this stuff i do if i were to pass away. erin knows my passwords that i use and could figure out how to get into each account should she feel that need. however, her expression was, if you died i wouldn't want to mess with that stuff, so it'd be better to have someone to handle that stuff.

so i'm contemplating that.. who would you put in charge as a digital exector? friend, family member? someone you are close to or someone that is close to your wife/family who they are comfortable talking to?

chris brogan on evangelism : being there before the sale

chris brogan : be there before the sale : relationship in marketing & evangelism from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

so i took in that live web event last week with chris brogan and i've been pondering on some of what he said and i'm reading in "trust agents." he wasn't at all speaking to a church context, but as with most things (but is becoming much easier in todays business environment & language) i turn it around into some church framework.

one of the things chris brought out were some stories of 'trust agents' who were "there before the sale." it was one of those quotable moments as you could see heads dive into notepads and laptops typing.

it reminded me from a time last summer where i hosted a conversation with regular church going folk & those who are disenfranchised with the church and might call themselves non-religious or spiritual but not religious put together by my friend jim palmer. one of the stories that really stuck with me from a participant was how they were put off that the friends they made in their neighborhood, invited them to church, eventually helped them come into Christ, then left them hanging as they moved onto some other couple. this person then found out that this was a process of that church and they were to go befriend new people to bring them to the church as well.

so what makes up evangelism in when our common framework makes up some commodity sale & that conflicts with how people want to be treated & how we improperly fix some consumption to grace? is there a way in which one could just "be there" with people and not try and control the workings of God to force a sale of salvation, but allow God's mystery to work?... i don't know, maybe you have some ideas

chris brogan & trust agents : stories & philosophy of social media

today i spent my morning (and greater part of the rest of the day) with chris brogan. if you do not know who chris is, my quick description would be that he is the mayor of twitter & one of the most recognized people in the world of social media 'who gets it.' i stumbled across his blog some years ago and have been a constant reader since, many times sharing his postings via google reader or twitter. he's good stuff. so good, i even payed a decent penny to attending this sucker.

anyways, he has a new book out called 'trust agents' and was in nashville as per a promise in a psuedo book tour live web event. a crew of local tech geeks & other business types showed up to hear from the guru for a special 1 hour pre-web conversation with chris & then got to be front and center for the rest of the web event (which was an interesting thing to be a part of).

here is the footage i took from that 1st hour with chris. its on my mini tripod, so the angle is something you might have to get used to, but its doable. with that said, he's tall, but not nearly as gigantic as he looks in video.

Chris Brogan : Trust Agents conversation : Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

you can follow the twitter stream of thoughts and conversation by visiting #cbnash at twitter search. check in next week for some expanded thoughts off some of the footage i have from his live web session.

church in second life : religion and ethics expose

stumbled across this story covering the various church & spiritual experiences found in secondlife. i've chronicled here many times my happenings in secondlife. its been a few months since i 'hung out' there so it was like seeing an old friend as they visited the anglican cathedral and seeing other creative spaces that make up the imagination of the virtual world.

theology of twitter : spirituality and social media

emergent conversant, fellow social media friend, steve knight put together this presentation on a theology of twitter. it has some great content. maybe the greatest content is him quoting me from my spirituality and social media series i did with matt cheuvront.

The Theology Of Twitter

View more presentations from Steve Knight.

ministry tool you might not have heard of : new tech for the old tool

United Methodist Reporter & Variable Print as a Ministry Tool from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

note: i will be open about this one, i sit on the board for the united methodist reporter communications so i'm a bit biased that you need to use them for this ministry tip. but you might be able to find another variable printer.

do you ever feel like your printing needs miss the mark or you are having to create massive publications that are super wordy to meet you church congregation or ministry? well, that is a thing of the past if you want it to be.

andy clued me into the world of variable print some three years ago & i just love it. i have my plans this year to harness some of its beauty for our youth ministry.

the basic concept is this, you combine a spreadsheet document with some specific 'variables' such as children/young adult/active-inactive and your publication is set up (similar in concept to a mailmerge where they put your name into the 'dear someone' spot) with variable designations. when its all set up your publication is run with individual personalization in full color, address printed on, and then mailed & you never have to look at it.

cool thing about this

1. gone are the days when you needed to do plates that look the same for everyone and cost you extra money to make simple changes
2. you can cut down on the paper usage because you don't need to produce mega documents that you're specific ministry gets lost in the mix of everyone elses
3. color printing (at dirt cheap from what you might think) gets an almost 85% more response rate than a black & white or one color publication
4. youth can feel affirmed when their newsletter/postcard has them and/or their friends doing ministry activities (and they aren't mixed into a huge messy collage)
5. you never have to deal with stamping an envelope, taping a trifold, once it prints they can send it for you

so, if you want to know more about this stuff give andy a shout. he's one of the sales reps at the umr & my buddy.

the persona of gavin richardson : filed under cool stuff

one of my hendersonville geek buds, darren crawford, tipped me off to this quick piece of coolness. basically its an mit project that compiles the various persona's associated with your name on the internet. it was really cool to see some of the stuff i've written, been mentioned on showing up in the collection. neat stuff.

youth ministry's future : glimpse of youth ministry in the year 2400

so i don't usually write fiction, let alone, sci-fi type fiction, but when ken asked if i would contribute to the upcoming issue of the reporter (which is focusing on youth culture & youth ministry issues) i felt honored to do something.

"so what do you want me to write about?"

"well, something on youth culture."

little did ken know, i for some reason had this curiosity for buck rogers that day.. so i had been doing some reading up on the old show & comic series.

"how bout youth ministry in the future."

"like 2050?"

"no, like the year 2400...?"

some time passes

"cool, can you write that by monday?"

"probably not, but i'll try."

"you sure?"

"yes, it'd be nice to have something not so serious"

here's an excerpt of my futuristic view of youth ministry in the year 2400. published by the umportal, that i turned in on thursday, after my monday deadline

Just then, he receives a ringing in his communications chip. Zahn taps his head and a visual hologram appears of one of his teenagers, Jessup (one of the oldest and more active teenagers in the ministry). Jessup is visibly upset. 

Annika, Jessup’s girlfriend from the Saturn moon Titan, has broken up with him, and Jessup is worried he’ll never find another person like her in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Jessup is now convinced he will grow up alone. 

my concept for this article is simple.. the tools and trademarks of the culture will change (which was fun to try and imagine), but the human needs & behaviors will not change. as i see, they haven't changed in thousands of years, they aren't about to start. beyond that, anything you read into it is purely your own speculation.

telling stories on missions : sharing experiences with congregations

how to use social media to share your ministry story with home congregation & ministry partners from Gavin Richardson

one of the things that social media has allowed myself & you the lay web designer to do is easily share missions, event, and other ministry experiences with our congregations and ministry partners. i know folks are starting to do this more & more, so here's some of the set up & tips that i've used in the past.

• site: have a website that you can do quick updates to. this might be a special wordpress site or typepad/blogger are all formats that give you ease in telling little stories or updates without having to know code or ftp information. you can even use twitter if you need. i also like to use flickr for posting pics & videos. so much easier to upload a batch than to put into a blog posting.
• connections: ask ahead if you can get wifi in the area or cell service, and which kinds of services. if you can get wifi (which is surprisingly much more common than not) its wonderful. next best is cell service & you can probably spring for one of the broadband connecting cards depending on your provider. next, if you can only find cell service you might tether a connection, or just plan to use a smart phone application. my iphone has applications for all kinds of blogging updates, or i can just surf the web browser.
• ahead of time: depending on my anticipated needs i'll set up a posting ahead of time. example: our experience up into appalachia last summer i knew there was no wifi options, so i set up a blog post with a twitter widget that i could send updates to. i gave a shortened url link to the one of the ministry secretaries that she could put into the prayer chain emails.
• hardware: if you have a wifi connection bring your laptop. if you do this right you can stay up a few minutes after lights out, do what you need to do and then close shop and move into the next day. one of my key hardware pieces is a universal card reader. the best 30 bucks i ever spent in ministry. if you don't take the pictures, no worries, borrow someones camera card download theirs and use them to upload. same thing with video. if you have one or more video cameras (we used a sony webbie flip camera and a harddrive camcorder for our bahamas trip this year) bring what cables you need for charging & downloading. if they use flash/sd cards then you just need your universal reader..
• mobile upload: most social media sites have mobile upload options. you need to have them in your back pocket. twitter has an email to post option, as well as twitpic (which will post to your twitter). so if you can send pics or video through your cell service you are good to go. flickr also has an email that will post to your account. have your mobile apps tested out and ready to go before hand.
• choose your portal: life on a missions or other ministry experience is generally filled with little downtime. if you are like me you don't want to spend your every minute telling others and not living into the moment you are in. so, choose what your portal is for sharing. do you want to write out stories? or, like we have done, take the photos and put them out there to tell our story. this year we went more immediate video doing some little one or two minute update videos. since we are photo/video heavy this year, we just used flickr. set up a trip set and gave out the shortend url then populated it as the week went on. boy have we ever populated that... most likely too much. if you want to just have the youth or adult participants write stuff for blogs, give them a heads up. sometimes though its hard for people to sit down and write, so you either need to tell them what to talk about or give them the whole week to work on writing to get into a flow. some folks though, write very easily, well & quickly, look for those folks, but not at the detriment of the experience.
• clean it up: once you get home, clean up some of the url updates, spelling errors, add captions, edit finished versions, add more content, etc. people don't need everything, they love to get a taste or idea of what it looks like & what is happening.

disclaimer/distribution: i've been asked before if i've gotten permission for posting photos and such. yes & no. i've put in our release forms that this is part of our group & i tell parents that this is what we do, so if they have issue we can remedy the situation. most of the times our parents are exstatic to see what's going on. how often do they get frustrated with their kid going to camp, only to return & asked "what happened?" responding "nothin.." with this, they know something did happen. now, we do take some precautions of not putting in names, certainly not full names. we generically name photos most of the time. i don't do uber tagging so it falls into the greater searches, but is usable for my own search. with flickr you can protect download of pics to just your contacts/friends/family which is helpful if you can get people to get a free account and 'friend' you.

social media love song : it aint no joke.. well, maybe it is

how can i resist a country music song extrapolating the ills of a man trying to meet a woman via social media. many thanks to john for unearthing this one

where faith is going wrong in social media : life without pants & a little bit of south park

the last of my four installments guest posting at matt cheuvront's "life without pants" blog on spirituality & social media is out for the world to see titled "where faith gets it wrong." i bring back some thoughts you've seen on this blog before, from my thoughts on why your podcast isn't reaching who you think it is to some of my ideas i shared at podcamp nashville. go check it out and comment on any of the postings. tell me i'm full of crap (i just might be) or whatever else your get to thinking about.

some things are still just fun : revisiting one of the things

as i am catching up on the blogosphere & other feeds i was reading up on josh browns continued dismay with social media. i get his sentiment.. it had me thinking then of some of the stuff that made the early onset of social media really great. wandered around the net a bit and stumbled back upon this viral video gem. it is still great to me & for many others i am sure.

it has me thinking, what gives some web sensation staying power?

blogging towards enlightenment : discovering your virtual self

i've been doing some guest postings over at matt cheuvront's 'life without pants' blog talking up spirituality and social media. last week we talked about enlightenment & blogging today we are talking about discovering your virtual self.

got check them out, let me know what you think. lay claim to some of the stories & expand on them. did i mention that my latest posting i actually use capitalization? yeah, it was wreaking havoc on matt post editing

rear view mirror on violence & identity : because you need more marshall mcluhan

almost 30 minutes of great thinking & conversation debate

marshall mcluhan on getting it wrong : shades of a new politic

i don't know care about your politic with this posting. but one needs to take notice of how the obama campaign took a long shot candidate and made him into a anomyly. david bulluck goes through how the campaign used social media in barack 2.0.

went back to these thoughts as i listened to mcluhan bash how presidential campaigns used television. are politician handlers figuring it out finally?

holy week worship video : worship tricks

next week we are doing our midday holy week services in our youth space (cause its' the coolest) and most artistically driven area and the pastors want to do some more experiential worship stuff. we'll do some prayer stations stuff for sure & some various smells. but what about our visuals?

i've pretty much sold myself on parsing this video stopping it through good friday & then showing the full thing on easter. i love simple & creative stuff. this is right up my alley

spirituality & social media : perfect together

when i grew up in new jersey i remember these ad's saying something like 'new jersey & you, perfect together'.. well, matt cheuvront at 'life without pants' has posted the first in my guest series on spirituality and social media. today i throw out the case that this who social media / web 2.0 explosion can be good for the faith.. is twitter the new town square, introduction to spirituality and social media.

marshall mcluhan on church safety : life without pants guest post

for the next few weeks i will be guest posting over at matt cheuvrot's blog 'life without pants' covering thoughts on spirituality & social media. some thoughts (listen for the return to tribal culture mention) i ponder in my first posting are reflected in this snippet of marshall mcluhan. as with most things i hear, i relate them to church life. can you guess what i was thinking?

hendersonville geek breakfast : come hang with all my geek friends

erin & i have been a part of the tech community for a few years now. our latest thing has been to attend the monthly geek breakfasts. tho we've missed a few cause our doctors appointments seemed to have fallen on the same thursdays. anyways, if you are around the hendersonville i invite you to join in with our first hendersonville geek breakfast. fellow geek bill seaver has taken upon himself to be our organizer.

details: thursday april 9th, from 7:30am to 9am at mimi's cafe.

twouble with twitter : hilarious look at twitter

i get asked about twitter & why enough times that i am fine with saying, if your skeptical don't do it. i like len sweet's framing of twitter as passing on the town green. i've established some relationships, made a bunch of jokes, shared a ton of information, & wasted some time that was probably better off done somewhere else. adam cleaveland shared this hilarious video about twitter, on twitter, by the folks at current tv. as with most good satire, you need to know a bit of twitter to get the full fun, but even without that knowledge you'll be able to laugh at it. for a more serious look at twitter you can check out the 'twitter in plain english'

update: the folks at neatorama are having a bit of a slam on twitter after sharing this video

social media comprehensive : barbara rozgonyi

i met barbara rozgonyi a few years back at a worship leading & keynote session up in chicago. had some fab conversation and we've been blogger & twitter buddies since. she's much more advanced than i in the world of public relations & marketing in the social media spectrum, so in the past years i've learned a whole lot more from her than i taught in one chilly morning. she posted one of her presentations on slideshare on social media presence. this doesn't have her teaching it, which leaves out some of the fun, but within it you can find some very good numbers and warnings. for me too, it was a heads up that i probably need to pay attention to linkedin better (which as of now i just haven't done much with).

Speaking Of Social Media Marketing and PR

View more presentations from Barbara Rozgonyi.

business cards & youth ministry : the green business card

i've been in youth ministry for going on 15+ years now. in those years i've possessed maybe two business cards, all bought for me by someone else. never in those 15+ years has a teenager asked me for a business card. so why have them? i never saw the need.

now, in this new day of my youth ministry career i find myself doing more networking within the larger church & most recently the nashville (soon to be hendersonville) tech community. i am feeling the need to get some business cards. here are my two options i'm going with.

1. i've put together the sms contxt card. all you need to do is txt 'gavoweb' to 50500 and you will receive some of my basic business card info. this is paperless, which is an excellent 'green' usage. wasn't technology & the computer supposed to get rid of the need for paper?.. right.. well, here is atleast a spot to try something new out that is paperless. not to mention, if you are a youth leader like me, your primary audience is one of people who txt like mad seems logical to use.

2. i am ordering "mini-cards" which are small, baseline essential versions of business cards. now, i don't know if they prove to be something more effective than a stack of traditional business cards, but i like the concept and the coolness factor of being smaller. i might not call this 'green' i don't know the ins and outs of paper product to say that just because this is smaller means it uses less paper. it probably does.. but really i think its cool, not to mention the cool mini card holder.

religious spiritual christ-follower emerging emergent missional : other defining typos

i just love religious satire. its so telling & holds up a mirror showing us how we really are. i pulled this gem out for a twitter conversation, but it reminds me of some of the whole definition/tags that people are willing & not willing to give themselves. it also reminded me of one of the snippets of prophetic twitterspeak i shared at my spirituality & social media session at podcamp nashville.

someone who gets social media : interview with charlene li @ sxsw

as i've mentioned. our church gets social media & networks wrong all over the place. here's a gem of an interview with charlene li of groundswell. its not over the top point making, but she is so on target for where church/corporate entities need to examine themselves within the social media spectrum.

getting over our control issues : linked data for everyone

i'm a huge fan of ted. if i had the money i would so geek out at their conference. so it is with no real surprise that there is something shared that might in fact aid one of my passions, the church & specifically the umc.

in a lunch conversation i had with larry hollon on tuesday (thanks larry for the time) he had asked my thoughts on some of the things i might address in rethink church & the agencies approach to using social media. one of the things that i suggested was the release of control of materials. creative commons is the new framework we move in, not exclusive copyright. so i found interesting some similar themes & possibly an answer in tim berners-lee ted talk on how he developed the internet (no, it wasn't al gore) and his newest 'play project' of linked data.

things that jumped out at me quickly were when he mentioned "you've payed for this" in regards to the data that the government has. because we have payed for them with tax payer money. within the united methodist church, we have apportionment's that pay for the agencies to do a large amount of their work. in essence, we are owners of that information. we should have access to it.

but there is a control mentality that if you give it away you loose 1. your ability to make money (which isn't the role of umcom or the other agencies) 2. that people will re-purpose your stuff (ala. a mashup or sound clip it for their own thing)... both of which, are navigatable (i don't think i just made up that word). many of our biggest companies give their braintrust away for free and they've parlayed it into a living and the most loyal of customers. why assume that someone re-purposing your stuff is innately bad? i go with the assumption there are more creative people out there than i. as a youth pastor i keep trying to groom them that way as well. they do things i would never have imagined re-purposing my ideas for the betterment of the ministry.

so what do i suggest with this?

• get over your control issues. that might start with just naming them. (as a personal shot, why are we asking people to take down meaningful & helpful videos on youtube)
• put people in charge of sharing your braintrust. put together the linked data setup with your information and let others come in and put in their part.
• allow them full access so that they can know their people better & serve more fully
• open up resources for them to re-purpose graphics, videos, logos, etc to reach a demographic that you are trying to reach, but painfully not.

more explaination of technology & virtual community : shane hipps day

zach lind did this little video interview for his podcast expanding a little more on what shane was getting at with technology & the virtual community.


Shane Hipps and Zach Lind Discuss Virtual Community. from Zach Lind on Vimeo.

virtual community is not possible : shane hipps day

this is the video by shane hipps in a little snippet interview by the out or ur folks at the national pastors convention. scot mcknight took some of this to task as well & kept going with it as shane chipped back in. tony jones also threw in his thoughts on virtual community into the conversation.

know how your technology is shaping you : shane hipps day

this is a good little video interview between rob bell & shane hipps (tip terrace) where shane flips on you what might be your preconceived notions on how technology is shaping you & culture.

Rob Bell Interviews Shane Hipps About Technology.

twitter mosaic : just cause its cool

Get your twitter mosaic here.

don't confuse who you are actually reaching : why i say your church tech stuff is lame

in my recent presentation at podcamp nashville on spirituality and social media i was talking specifically about podcasting when i made statement along the lines of 'sermon podcasts are lame.' i believe that statement.. really i do. i have posted sermons online, in video and audio format. i have downloaded sermon podcast in video and audio format from many churches and the thing i've found.. i generally don't care about them. i'll end up deleting the subscription after a few months of only watching one or two.

why is this? is it the preaching? generally no.. most of the time the preaching is quite good. its the relationship. i have no clue who this person is really. i don't know their family, i don't know if they like football. we've never shook hands.. i just have a hard time investing in the words of someone i have no connection to. i can listen to you. take your wisdom, but in the long run, the lack of connection wins out and i fade away.

but i have heard stories where people say "but this person checked out our podcast and came to church" sure.. there are those folks. they are not me & i'm pretty average so i default that most folks are like me.



but i hear that churches like mars hill bible church is at the top of itunes subscription list. how is that possible? well, for one, it doesn't stay up there. but two, why does anyone care about a church up in grand rapids michigan and what they have to say on sunday morning? truth is, they don't. what they do care is what rob bell has to say. people who have heard him speak at a conference, watched a series of nooma videos or read one of his books are invested in this guy. he's opened up to them in various ways. they know him & they want to know what more he has to say. the podcast, is just the conduit to continue to keep that relationship going. even if it is one sided.

so with this train of thought in mind. let's be honest about what our tech is used for. 1. your church facebook page/church twitter account/etc is not going to be populated by people who are unchurched and looking for a church. yes, a few may lurk as they church shop, if they are that point (which would technically not be unchurched). the grand population of all that technology is speaking to your own people. that's not a bad thing, just be honest about it and direct your energies with them as your focus.

i will give blogs (not housed on your church website) and youtube accounts a pass on this because they are more readily showing up in keyword searches (if you have indexed & keyworded them well) on google or youtube platform.

truth is, if you are wanting to reach out, what you are generally only doing is 'speaking out' and with todays cultural and generation values, that just doesn't cut it anymore. no one cares to get involved in a one sided conversation.

so when you are talking up or talking about how to use technology to reach out of your church. remember these thoughts. just taking what ever is created within your church walls and then broadcasted out for people to hear is just lame. figure out a way, commit to doing, some things that truely engage people in a converation.

some quick thoughts.

• start a podcast that uses call in or email questions, much like father roderick or mitch joel.
• have other people in your church be given a recording device to take home or on a trip to record some real life conversations and put that out there.
• go interview some people just walking the street (use video or audio) and ask them what questions they'd like someone to give an answer for or expand upon. then sneak them a business card with the feed url.
• take the effort to transcript a video or audio podcast so that is searchable if someone was looking for Christ the King sunday thoughts (no affense to CtheK sunday, you're one of my favs).
• set up personal accounts for facebook and twitter and make friends with people who are not in your congregation (this might mean putting an email note in the facebook friend request so you don't weird someone out). don't immediately invite them the the umw meeting (no affense to the united methodist women here either, i love you gals).
• visit some secular events, take photos (good ones) then put them in facebook and then ask to be someones friend so that you may be able to tag them. then you can have an opportunity to share in one more vehicle.
• if you put up a sermon, why not do a 'directors cut' with some commentary that makes it accessible, or trim down to just the most key points (trust me, not all of a 20 minute sermon is a critical key point).