Lessons From Babel http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel ...thinking strategically about Internet ministry Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:03:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Highlights from around the web – 3/9/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/09/highlights-from-around-the-web-392010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/09/highlights-from-around-the-web-392010/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:03:31 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1096 What I've been readingI haven’t been blogging much in the past week while I was speaking at the TIEN conference in Istanbul, Turkey. I am back and should get into the blogging groove again soon. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here is my regular update from my Google Reader shared items:

Here are the latest things that caught my eye from around the web in the past few days. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and news sources via my Google Reader and share them. You can keep up with them by following me on Twitter or evensubscribing directly. I will also post them here in my blog from time to time.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/09/highlights-from-around-the-web-392010/feed/ 0 Highlights from around the web – 3/4/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/04/highlights-from-around-the-web-342010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/04/highlights-from-around-the-web-342010/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:59:59 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1080 What I've been readingHere are the latest things that caught my eye from around the web in the past few days. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and news sources via my Google Reader and share them. You can keep up with them by following me on Twitter or even subscribing directly. I will also post them here in my blog from time to time.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/03/04/highlights-from-around-the-web-342010/feed/ 0 Highlights from around the web – 2/26/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/26/highlights-from-around-the-web-2262010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/26/highlights-from-around-the-web-2262010/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:44:44 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1077 What I've been readingHere are the latest things that caught my eye from around the web. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and news sources via my Google Reader and share them. You can keep up with them by following me on Twitter or even subscribing directly. I will also post them here in my blog from time to time.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/26/highlights-from-around-the-web-2262010/feed/ 0 Interviews with leaders in the online ministry field http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/25/interviews-with-leaders-in-the-online-ministry-field/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/25/interviews-with-leaders-in-the-online-ministry-field/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:37:45 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1062 Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of some of the top names in online ministry?   Have you ever wondered what they thought it meant to be “excellent”? As part of the preparation for our study on excellence and presentations for the CLA 2010 Ministry Internet and Technology Summit, StateOfMinistryOnline has conducted several interviews with top ministry leaders, asking the question: what does it mean to be excellent online?

Interviewees include:

Here are some highlight quotes from the interviews, see if you can figure out who said them:

Sometimes online excellence is seen when someone has taken the initiative and laid the foundation for others to follow.

Great content must be wedded with high usability. If you have excellent content but it’s hard to use the content is obscured. Not focusing on usability creates distortion that gets in the way of the content. Even if you have financial resources and a competent staff, poor usability will lead to an ineffective website.

When you go to a restaurant, you don’t go just for the food or for the look of the dining room, you go for the experience. This is how Facebook draws so many people: not just the content, not just the design, but the experience of it. The experience of a web site is created by how you navigate through the content. When you are designing your site, foremost consideration must be given for how the users will experience it!

Go read the interviews at StateOfMinistryOnline to figure out who said these and to get much, much more insight!

Of course, it couldn’t let this finish without reminding you of the CLA 2010 conference coming up in San Diego in April. And encouraging you to come! I am part of the team putting together a special 12-session summit on the Internet and technology, where we will be taking the principles learned from these interviews and other research and presenting them.

Also, if you are interested in coming (or even if you’re not!), please consider taking the online survey we have developed to help us further our research. For your time (about 20 minutes), you will receive a $50 discount to the conference.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/25/interviews-with-leaders-in-the-online-ministry-field/feed/ 0 Getting in their stream http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/24/getting-in-their-stream/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/24/getting-in-their-stream/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:15:35 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1052

I wrote last week that I believe we are now in a “post-website” world, where the organizational website, while important, is no longer the centerpiece of how we interact online.  Continuing to think along these lines, the question then becomes: what should be the main focus of our online communications and interactions?

My answer to that question is not simple. I believe that the best way to interact with our target audience is to build relationships with them online.  And one way to build relationships with them is to insert ourselves into the “streams” of information that they consume everyday.  To have the maximum reach possible, we must understand the streams that our potential audience wades through on a daily basis and become part of it.

Streams can be found in many places online:

  • Facebook status updates: get your content on people’s wall. Depending on your target audience, this may be the #1 way to get into people’s streams. Facebook is now the #1 site that people spend their time on.
  • Twitter: get your message into Twitter clients, whether that is text message, Tweetdeck, or Twitter.com itself.
  • Email: many people still use email as their primary “go-to” tool. While this may seem “old-school”, it also can be powerful and effective for certain target audiences.
  • RSS reader: the more tech-savvy out there (and those who prefer to read) probably use an RSS reader to aggregate content into one place. Be sure you make a feed available.
  • Mobile apps: as mobile devices become more and more integrated into our culture, you will want to make it easy for people to get your content delivered to their mobile device.
  • Search results: if people are looking for you, can they find you?
  • Wikipedia: many people go to Wikipedia first when trying to find information. It is listed as a “top 10″ web brand. Wikipedia results almost always show up in the first page of search results.

This idea is nothing new, marketers have been thinking in these terms for decades. Billboards, television and radio ads, door-to-door salesmen, telemarketers and multi-level marketing companies all understand this. Our potential “customers” will not come to us, will not engage with us, unless we go to them first.  But of course, many of these methods have an extremely negative connotation: we may not want our ministry to be identified with telemarketing or advertising.  So do we forget the idea of streams and just build a great website, hoping that it will get visited? No.

As I stated in my answer to my initial question: the main focus on our online communications and interactions should be to build relationships. To do this, you need a carefully crafted strategy that is research-based and encompasses a variety of online methods.  Some ideas on how to do this include:

  • How will your ministry start your relationship with someone online? Will you post ads asking them to “subscribe” or “follow” you? Will you look for recommendations through friends?
  • Each “stream” should be carefully identified and its role in your strategy examined.  The number of content items you place into a stream should be enough to get noticed but not so much that it is considered “spam”. Remember: users can choose to stop getting your stream.
  • If you choose to have multiple streams (and you probably should), work to find tools that allow you to manage them from one place. For example, if you post to Facebook and Twitter, you can link them together so that only one update needs to be done.
  • Don’t offend – if it is not appropriate for your content to be delivered through one of these methods, then don’t! Remember, each stream has unique pros and cons. Some are more public than others. Examine each thoroughly.
  • Who is going to manage all of this? Don’t think it will run itself! Someone on staff should have this in their job description!

This is a topic that I will be continuing to work through as I put together my book. I would love your feedback! What other “streams” exist out there? How are you engaging them? What are some of the differences you’ve found between different streams?

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/24/getting-in-their-stream/feed/ 0 Highlights from around the web – 2/23/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/23/highlights-from-around-the-web-2232010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/23/highlights-from-around-the-web-2232010/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:42:42 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1048 What I've been readingHere are the latest things that caught my eye from around the web. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and news sources via my Google Reader and share them. You can keep up with them by following me on Twitter or even subscribing directly. I will also post them here in my blog from time to time.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/23/highlights-from-around-the-web-2232010/feed/ 0 A Framework for Seeing Our World: the Millennium Matrix http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/22/a-framework-for-seeing-our-world-the-millennium-matrix/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/22/a-framework-for-seeing-our-world-the-millennium-matrix/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:49:40 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1038 A I prepare to write my book and update my curriculum for my summer course in online ministry, I have been catching up on some recommended reading (many of which I pulled from John Dyer’s excellent list of books). One of the books that has come highly recommended is The Millennium Matrix by M. Rex Miller.

The goal of this book is to provide a lens through which we can look to better understand how the changes in communications technologies have affected our culture in general and the Church specifically. Published in 2005, this book gives clear insights into why we do things a certain way and why those things are beginning to fail. In many ways, this book discusses the same issues that books like UnChristian and, even more so, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture do. And, like those books, it offers a plan for moving forward to address those issues. But I would have to say that, of the three, this book is the most comprehensive and detailed.

According to Miller, we have gone through four different eras in communications technologies, each era changing not only how we communicate but also how we relate to the world. The four eras are: oral (pre-history to 1500 AD), print (1500 – 1950), broadcast (1950 – 2010) and digital (2010 and beyond).  Miller sums up the four eras this way:

The oral world trusted in God’s hidden wonders: the coterminous reality of heaven and earth lay just beneath its ancient languages. The print world was confident in its ability to know, through reason, the what and why of the world. The broadcast world is interested in what we don’t know, as a flood of fresh images blurs our once fixed and stable thought boundaries. The work of the coming digital world – whose birth we are now witnessing – will be in synthesizing our past into our desired fuure, shaped and influenced by the integrated character of digital media.

The centerpiece of the book is an actual matrix that specifies the effects that each of these communications eras has had on five distinct facets of our culture: how we believe, how we know, how we live together, how we see beauty, and how we work and trade. The matrix breaks each of these five areas down and gives details on how they have changed as communications technologies change.  This matrix is quite detailed and really requires that you read the full book to get a good understanding of how these eras affected our world.

Once the matrix is laid out, the remainder of the book is Miller’s prescription for how the Church should respond in this new digital era, or as he calls it: this new convergent culture.  Of his many recommendations, I found these to be the most thoughtful:

  • Leaders need to be “high-tech/high-touch”.
  • The Church needs to be more family than organization.
  • He suggests a model of “infrastructure convergence”, where churches can share their technology and other infrastructural pieces with each other in a network.
  • We must remain authentic and real in the ever-growing transparency of the Internet.
  • We can leverage the talents of individuals within our ministries much more easily now. We must find them and get them involved!
  • The dynamics of organizational power will shift as the congregation will have more input/expect to be able to have more input: “Unmediated dialgoue actually brings about change more rapidly and fundamentally than current top-down vision proclamations and change programs.”
Though this book is not directly related to online ministry, it is an essential component in understanding those to whom you will be ministering.  In my own online ministry strategy framework, I point out that researching your target group is a key component of developing an effective strategy. This book is a good starting point for that research.
The only real criticism I have about this book is that it doesn’t address mobile technologies specifically. But in 2005, when it was written, the iPhone and “Droid does” were still on the drawing board, so I can give it a pass. If you are interested in understanding our culture and how it has changed over the past few years, this book will help you understand not just what has changed, but why. And this will give you insights into the directions your ministry (online or not!) should take.

I would like to point you to more web resources for this book, but frankly couldn’t find much. Miller’s web site (millenniummatrix.com) is down, though Google seems to still be sending people to it. I did find this Slideshare presentation that may help you understand more of what was in the book.

You can buy Millennium Matrix by M. Rex Miller from my Amazon store. Support my research!

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/22/a-framework-for-seeing-our-world-the-millennium-matrix/feed/ 0 Highlights from around the web – 2/19/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/19/highlights-from-around-the-web-2192010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/19/highlights-from-around-the-web-2192010/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:18:43 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1035 What I've been readingHere are the most interesting, instructive, and innovative articles from around the web that I’ve read in the past few days.   I am sharing these, along with my comments on them, via Google Reader – you can read them all there or subscribe to the feed if you like.

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/19/highlights-from-around-the-web-2192010/feed/ 0 Living in a post-web site world http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/17/living-in-a-post-web-site-world/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/17/living-in-a-post-web-site-world/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:56:01 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1030 Whenever someone comes up to me requesting help for their church or ministry’s Internet effort, I usually get asked a question such as: “How can we make our website better?”  In my opinion, this is the wrong question to ask.  We are now living in a “post-website” world. I don’t know when this happened, but over the past year or so, there has been a shift away from the organization website being the centerpiece of the online world. We need to go where the people are; they are not going to come to us. The advent of social media, including the massive popularity and mainstreaming of Facebook, has changed the game. The question should now be: “What should our online strategy be?”

This is not to say that you don’t need a web site. A web site is your stake in the ground, it is how people will find information about you if they are looking for it. But it is not going to be your primary means of interaction. Sure, you can build your own social network or your own photo-sharing site, but what is going to draw people to it? They are already on Facebook! They are already on Twitter, YouTube, Buzz, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many others! Do your research and find out where the people whom you want to reach are going and then go there yourself! Your strategy should include an intentional focus on specific social media sites based on your research.

So what does this look like? For many, it means Facebook, absolutely. For others, it means getting on board with mobile technologies. Looking forward (as you must do) it should include location-based technologies such as FourSquare or Yelp! And be sure you are getting on board with the augmented reality applications starting to appear! It can be overwhelming, but by making intentional choices, you can move forward in a strategic way that will bring success. If your ministry is struggling with strategic decisions regarding online ministry, consider working with someone like me who is keeping on top of these technologies and can provide strategic planning and advice.

So what do you think? Is the web site as the priority Internet presence a thing of the past? Can an organization get away with a minimal website if they focus on social media sites instead?

]]> http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/17/living-in-a-post-web-site-world/feed/ 4 Highlights from around the web – 2/16/2010 http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/16/highlights-from-around-the-web-2162010/ http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/2010/02/16/highlights-from-around-the-web-2162010/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:07:37 +0000 Dave http://genesys11.com/lessonsfrombabel/?p=1028 Here are the most interesting, instructive, and innovative articles from around the web that I’ve read in the past few days.   I am sharing these, along with my comments on them, via Google Reader – you can read them all there or subscribe to the feed if you like.

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