m-musings

Holy App! Church Has Gone Social.

How times have changed.  I remember when I was the oddball back in 2008.  I’d just joined Twitter. There were probably only three people in my church that were on Twitter at the time; the majority of my congregation just didn’t get it.  If I took my smart phone out during service to tweet or share what I heard or experienced, I would get “looks” as if I were being irreverent.  The only entity at that time that I knew that was seriously combining their ministry with social media was on Twitter.  LifeChurch.tv arguably hosted the first legitimate all-virtual worship service online.  Mind you, they had a huge campus in OKC, but the worship service online, was an interactive webcast solely for people online.  “Bedside Baptist Church” would never be the same.   I met the pastor of the OKC campus that is home to some 30,000 congregants (@ScottWilliams), where else but on Twitter? 

But what a difference a few years makes when technology is moving so fast.  Between then and now, Twitter exploded. Facebook blossomed to 600 million users.  iPhones and Android phones forced Blackberry to play catch up. A couple of iterations of the iPad have forced other tablets onto the scene.  Kindles and Nooks have evolved, and now we’re seeing websites like YouVersion which allows you to read and study the Bible in nearly any translation from your laptop, desktop, smart phone, tablet or eBook reader—all while sharing socially and interacting live, in real time with other Bible studiers.

Now, I’m not an oddball anymore. Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Gentiles, all seem to be onboard. I caught this report on CBS Sunday Morning a couple weeks ago, and realized, this trend is definitely being adopted across faiths. (Check out the Jewish app makers in the report.)

Let’s face it…people are showing faith in technology and the information-, even, gospel-sharing power of social media.  And I’m excited about it. I personally thought the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19) was the first PR case study for an effective call to action.  What a way to get the word out. 

Afterall, church bodies are based on the very concept of community, and that is definitely aligned with the premise of social media.  Now when I glance down the aisle, and my Pastor is beginning his message, I see iPhones, iPads, eReaders and other tablets along with Bibles, as everyone is reading from the same scripture; it is just a different way to access the Word.  I knew it had taken hold when my Pastor, @BryanLCarter (who is now on Twitter—give him a follow!), toted an iPad into the pulpit, then volleyed between his study Bible and his tablet to deliver multiple text to his sermon. Thank God for touch-technology…it moves faster than page turning!  My church,  Concord Church in Dallas began streaming its multiple services live online a couple of years ago.  This year, my pastor proudly announced the church’s new app.  Concord Church’s app can be found in the Android Market or the iPhone App Store, and it allows us to hear podcasts of sermon series, stay in touch with upcoming events, stream live worship services and read and share the Bible.

And by the way, seems everyone at my church is connected on Facebook. 

No more “looks” in the pews for me when I whip out my smart phone to check in on FourSquare or break out our nookColor to access the Bible!  And I can appreciate the fact that when life takes our members to other parts of the country or even the world, they can stay connected with their home church.

What do you think about this convergence of old (religion) with new (technology)?  Is your house of worship engaging social media or technology in a unique way?  Let me hear from you.

Technorati Tags: Social Media,Technology,Church,Religion,LifeChurch.tv,YouVersion,Twitter,Facebook,streaming,iPad,iPhone,Android,App,Nook,Kindle,Concord Church,Scott Williams,Bryan Carter

First Lady, Beyonce Get Students Moving with Flash Mob Campaign

We're giving this a thumbs up for effectiveness and the viral nature of it is great.  How genius.  Who else could get a bunch of sedentary kids to move, but Beyonce?  Check out First Lady Michelle Obama as she hits the Dougie at a Washington, D.C. elementary school.  How cool is that?  ....and then Beyonce's surprise visit to a school in Harlem.

  If you want to learn the dance, just search for the how-to video with Beyonce on You Tube...and bust a move.

 

And if you're tempted to bust a move, go right ahead. It's good for you!

We give the First Lady's campaign to fight obesity with Beyonce an A+, especially for this fun viral component.

Heeeeeeey!

Bulldog Reporter - Daily Dog | What Are Companies Doing And Not Doing About Social Media Workplace Compliance? New Study Shows Disciplining Of Employees, Policies For SM Use "At Work" and "Away From Work" On the Rise

In order to find out what effect the social media explosion is having in the workplace and how companies are responding to its use, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and its affiliated Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) fielded a survey among compliance and ethics professionals. Survey respondents reported that discipline of employees for their activities on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is on the rise. According to the survey results 42% of respondents reported that their organization has had to discipline an employee for behavior on these sites. 

Read more at Bulldog Reporter - Daily Dog | Previous Stories - Daily Dog | What Are Companies Doing And Not Doing About Social Media Workplace Compliance? New Study Shows Disciplining Of Employees, Policies For SM Use "At Work" and "Away From Work" On the Rise.

Toasting Death: Good Marketing Strategy?

People have personal reasons for cheering or not cheering the death of Osama Bin Laden.  But what do you think about a free cup of Joe at the dead terrorist's expense? Customers at Muddy Waters Cafe in New London, Connecticut, react.  How do you react? Good marketing strategy?  Or is it in poor taste?

 

The Right Message?

Take a look at this screen shot from today’s CNN newscasts.  Throughout the day, the cable news network broadcasted this super: “…on the Bin Laden Killing.”  We know that it is a matter of usage, but it struck us as odd.  Typically when we hear the word “killing” on the news, it is in reference to a crime.

Semantics experts, please chime in, but as messaging experts, we feel this sends an unintentional and perhaps an editorial message about the operation that took the terrorist, guilty of some of the more horrific crimes that scarred our country, out.  Perhaps the person running the chryon was fairly junior, or the associate producer that is running the key is just in a hurry to place words on the screen that fit in the banner.

Still, how does it strike you?

Technorati Tags: Osama Bin Laden,CNN,news,newscast,message,killing

The Privacy Debate: "Life 3.0"

Last week, I posted an article from CNN on my private Facebook profile that discussed how "undersharing" online might be a misstep for those looking to manage their reputation online.  While they spoke of how the collision of some personal and professional information online "balances" your image out for recruiter, revealing authentic dimensions to your online persona; the article also warned of those perils repeatedly told, of how information on the Internet never really goes away and to be aware of the life thread you create with the information that you share.  It could paint a negative picture, experts warn.

I've even written about how you might approach managing or even creating your online image in the post "What's Your Internet Snapshot."  But as some of you may know from updates on Twitter, posts on my blog or even updates on the agency Facebook page, I've been reading The Facebook Effect.  And I've come to the chapter where Facebook launches the feature that would make or break the social platform--The Newsfeed. The author, David Kirkpatrick, does a fantastic job of building up the intrigue while painting a picture of how the entire organization was poised to celebrate the launch of the new feature.  They literally broke out the "bubbly," but to their dismay, they began to receive new forms of hate mail--Facebook groups emerged in protest, one of which was growing by the thousands by the minute against the Newsfeed.  Why?  They said they felt that they were being forced into "stalkerdom" and that the service encouraged "stalkerish" behavior.   The writer goes on to reveal Mark Zuckerberg's thinking throughout this reported "dark time" at Facebook.  Had he been wrong about Facebook user's desire to "know more about the people they cared about?"  Or had he been right?

Later in the chapter, the author goes on to explore how this very moment in the young company's history shaped the position of the social network and how it would move forward.  Zuckerberg pushed for "transparency" and the Newsfeed was the very vehicle that would fulfill that vision. It was an ongoing debate among Facebook executives.  Some debated that one's personal information and professional information should be separate.  After all, The Newsfeed launch coincided with another launch that would change Facebook.  They called it "open reg."  It's the period of time when Facebook would open up it's registration to include adults and not just college students and high school student. Students didn't yet have a "professional" image to guard.  Only a few weeks later, Facebook opened up to adults.

And the privacy issue became real.  From The Facebook Effect--

"The older you are, the more likely you are to find Facebook's exposure of personal information intrusive and excessive.  Many adult users of Facebook have trouble accepting the idea that a singe profile should conflate their personal and professional lives."

One tech writer quoted in the book called this conflate, "life 3.0." 

And I have to say that it's not only here, but for others resisting it, it is inevitable.  If it's not in the least bit scary to you, then you might not have much to lose in life.  There have been reports on the privacy issue and Facbook in the news over the past two days. 

 

Then I've simultaneously  listened and reflected on Zuckerberg's position--that even if you keep the personal and professional separate online, a thorough search of the Internet will ultimately bring the two together and paint a picture of you.  He believes we should therefore embrace it.

So if Facebook isn't founded on the idea of keeping information private, in fact it finds merit in transparency and authenticity (two concepts that sound fairly positive on the surface), these demands, all out cries, for more privacy measures for this social network will be in constant conflict with how people seem to be actually behaving and Facebook's percieved agenda of openness. Facebook is after all 600 million strong and growing...primarily with more adults., and nearly every week a new feature is quietly introduced that reveals more about your friends.

It definitely explains why with every "upgrade" that Facebook slips in, it typically renders the social platform more open, not closed.  Have you noticed?  So the pattern is, listen for the public uproar, apologize only a little, then pull it back...but just a little. Reading the history of Facebook, this is a dramatic shift in what it started to be. After all, it began as a way to simply allow elite groups of people who knew each other on campus at Harvard  to stay connected.

The fact is, that "we" continue to willingly, not by any means coerced, pour our information into Facebook at no cost to them (in fact to their profit), but then we complain when Facebook is only doing what the company is really all about--openness and transparency.   

So do we really want privacy?  Really?

As long as the social sphere multiplies with users and platforms, our actions, as a whole,  say no. Zuckerberg is on to something.  But you knew that already, didn't you?

What are your feelings about this?

Slamming the iPad is Wrong on So Many Levels

Now, I’m a huge fan of the Android platform but understand that all of this smart phones and tablets and even social media have created all sorts of opportunities for people around the world to make money.  So what in the world was Jesse Jackson, Jr. thinking when he said this?

Shut the front door. 

Demystifying "The Cloud"

If you're wondering what "the cloud" is, we're here to tell you that it's not as mystical as you might think. In fact, you participate "in the cloud" each time you log onto a social network and share information.   The cloud didn't just appear.  It's been  around for some time.  It's just been conceptualized as a metaphor.  The cloud is ultimately another name for the Internet and the network of servers and computers where the applications actually live.   The cloud is reallying bringing all the applications you need to do what you do to you, so that you won't have to store all the applications on your computing device--wheter it's a smartphone or a tablet or a Mac or PC.  In fact, it makes sharing across platforms simple.

So what in the world does that have to do with public relations?  Here at the agency we use the cloud on a daily basis...beyond simply e-mail, which by the way has been our primary access to the cloud for almost 20 years now.  (Yes, the cloud is that old!)   Our favorite cloud space right now is Huddle for collaboration, CRM, document sharing and versioning, knowledge base management and communications.  Huddle is our private cloud.  Our clients are digging it. 

Want more insight on the so-called cloud? Here is a basic video that will help you navigate the cloud.  Don't be afraid.  The cloud is not a spooky thing.  The cloud is your friend, and chances are you're floating on one as you read this. :)

 

The State of Cloud Computing from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Being President Isn't What it Use to Be Thanks to Social Media

It occurred to me the other day, being the big media history buff that I am, that to be President in the age of social media and the Internet is quite a different cup of tea.  And we all know that President Barack Obama has been called “The Facebook President” not only because of his incredibly successful campaign in 2008 (and his millions of Facebook fans), but because he cherry-picked a Facebook employee to run his social media efforts during that campaign.  Marketers have dissected case studies concerning Barack 2.0 and applied it to their online brand awareness and fund raising efforts, but I would like to go deeper than that for a moment. There is a distinct drawback, or two, or three…or more…to being President in the age of social media.

Consider the fact that the President in this day and age has to be always on, always listening, always reacting, always looking impeccable, always ready with the right talking point, always abreast of what information is flowing thanks to the eternal information and public opinion fountain which is the Internet and the social sphere.  Faster than any other information medium known to man, the Internet has a real impact on the highest office. Seem like no big deal?  Consider this:

President Roosevelt, in the late 20s and early 30s could be characterized as the radio President.  He took hold of a medium with his Fireside Chats and communicated with the American people in a brand new and fairly effective way.  Because of the relatively slow nature in which information flowed, there may have been foreign affairs that happened and weeks later his aides may have advised him of it.  Then, he had time, sometimes months to react, or not react because the threat of that information getting to the public faster than he did was nearly non-existence.

The first television President, as media history enthusiasts would agree, had to be John F. Kennedy.  Still the speed and proliferation of information was not truly a factor, but suddenly visual impact with video was now an issue.  It’s safe to say that until then, it really didn’t matter what a President looked like.  You could have a face for radio and no one cared.  Some historians argue that President Roosevelt, as politically incorrect as this would be considered these days, would not have been elected if people had seen him rolling around in his wheelchair on national television day in and day out.  These things just didn’t matter back then, because we couldn’t see them. Now, suddenly, the American public cared.  Enter Camelot.  Image meant everything.

Ask President Ford if image mattered after he tripped down those steps.  Arguably, President Jimmy Carter wasn’t a made-for-TV president either.

President Reagan was likely the first to use television to his advantage to shape his foreign and domestic influence. It did not hurt that he was a tall-dark-and handsome Hollywood star of old.  Still, I believe his demand to Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” was taped. It definitely wasn’t “uStreamed” or captured on any smartphone and posted to the Internet. And although we watched the Challenger Speech live, Americans were much more forgiving and understanding that the President didn’t appear immediately with his speech thereafter the disaster.  Today, it’s a whole different ballgame.  We want to see a reaction from the top office immediately.

The first President truly impacted by cable television was “Daddy Bush,” AKA, 41, George Herbert Walker Bush.  I was in college at TCU, standing in the lobby looking in on the R.A.’s television in the dormitory office at the scud missiles and patriot missles chasing each other in Iraq circa Desert Storm.  It was the first war overseas, piped in to the U.S. live via CNN and suddenly, we not only saw the pictures, but we had an opinion about it.  President Bush now had to react to those pictures, consider public opinion about those pictures, react faster than any President before him to issues and happenings happening internationally because suddenly the visuals made foreign affairs real to us.

If a President had an extra marital affair before the 50s & 60s, it’s likely the public didn’t hear about it until well after he’d passed on.  Even more accurately, it was probably confined to rumor and innuendo.  Not so for President Clinton, also known as the first President of the TV age because he was likely the first in office that actually grew up with a TV set in his living room.  Cable news was not his friend,and there appeared some other tidbits on the Internet about the Black Dog and that blue dress, cigars and such, but his ability to use live, national television to his advantage (he’s the only President that can have negative news looming, appear on television and then  have his approval ratings jump immediately following) defined his presidency and his legacy.

“Dubya,” #43, was likely the first to seriously consider the impact of the Internet on his Presidency.  Pictures of the planes flying into the World Trade Centers aired before he could react, and they were replayed on the Internet not simply from reputable news organizations, but also by conspiracy theorists.  To this day, You Tube has its healthy share of videos that claim that it wasn’t really a plane that slammed into the Pentagon. President Bush also had to contend with the speed of the Internet during the Florida debacle and “pregnant chads” which could have ushered him out of office. News gathering had changed.  Reporters had laptop technology in the Iraq dessert and were “embedded” with troops. Pictures were coming home faster than ever. Remember how quickly that “Mission Accomplished” banner flashed on our screens and repeated over and over again on Internet video channels and blogs?  President Bush’s administration was in the midst of a new age, but never caught hold or truly adapted.

Which brings us back to President Obama.  I don’t know your politics, and it nearly doesn’t matter.  But this President taught us how to tweet and showed us how “the little guy” can be heard in the social sphere if s/he is echoed.  He showed us that a couple dollars donated online can have impact if millions donate even in small increments. He showed us how to keep cool even when the negative rumors echoed across the blogosphere. 

Today’s revolutions may have been televised.  But they had more impact because they were tweeted, and “Facebooked”… from one country to another.  We’ve raised money for earthquake victims in Haiti, tsunami victims in Japan and beyond by mobile fundraising.

Still, what a feat it must be to be the leader of the free world when information comes, goes and develops with the stroke of a key or the click of a mouse.  You have to look good, never let them see you sweat, listen, react, don’t react, filter out what’s not important and address what is…all at the speed of the Internet. They say that President Obama is now dying his hair black.  If he is, I completely understand why!

And to think, The Office will only become even more demanding with the continued improvements in technologies.

Ever thought about what it’d be like to lead the country in this new age of information?  Would love to hear your thoughts.

LMH

Issues Management in the Social Sphere

Sometimes, we have to put up our “virtual dukes” on behalf of our clients. Our first line of defense is deal with the person or entity off line as soon as possible, and then “kill them with kindness.” If that doesn’t work, there are more clandestine strategies that we will keep somewhere in our virtual secret vault of social weaponry  (we can’t give everything away, you know!).  That said, we’ve seen a number of companies go into out-and-out battle on the Internet to attempt to protect their brands from getting eternally soiled from attacks of disgruntled or dissatisfied customers and the like.  Some of them made it out of the fray with very few scars.  Others aren’t so fortunate.  I was reminded of a few previous blog posts that we developed over the last few years, and today seems to be a great time to serve them up as a package deal. 

• The first was back in 2009,  Issues Management on the Interwebs, where we discussed some considerations on when you need to consider doing battle with your brand’s attacker. When exactly should you put on the gloves?  And when is it really not necessary?
• The second was in 2010, Top 6 Tackiest In Social Media for 2009, where we reviewed the social web happenings in 2009, and highlighted some of the foulest incidents in social media.  Pay close attention to #3 Brand Smearing and #4 Disgruntle Employees…
• The most recent, Handling a "Troll" on your Social Platforms, offered tips and a mini-case on how one well-known brand handled a naysayer on their Facebook page without banning them from their site.

Take a read and leave your thoughts.  Have you ever had to fend off negativity for your brand on the web?  Worse yet, have you ever attempted to “flame” a brand online? Let us know, and in the meantime, people, keep it classy!