Communication has seen a rapid change in the last couple years. Most of that shift coming from the demand side as people have changed their content consumption habits and content creators  have had to play catch up. People are going to less movies, reading less newspapers, watching less cable and network television.

When I was taking my public speaking and homiletics classes in college the entire focus was on delivery. How to talk. How to stand. How to look around the room. How to not be boring. There was very little focus on understanding what the consumers of my talking were thinking our how to cater to their needs in any given environment.

This is where design comes in.

No longer is it good enough to simply make something that works. Or to simply write out an idea. Gone are the days where you can walk on stage with your notes and do the talking head thing for 40 minutes.

Communication needs design just as much as anything…and maybe more.

Enter the film Objectified.

It’s a film about design but as a watched it I understood that design wasn’t just about tools, furniture and living spaces.

Design is the vehicle that communicates the idea of what an object is and how to use it.

The film takes you on a journey of stories from different people at different places in the world of design and as I watched it I couldn’t help but draw the parallels to communications.

If you teach, write or in anyway communicate, you must watch this film.

If you watch it and don’t get it, take an inventory of how relevant you…because things are changing have changed.

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For 2011 I’m going to be focusing very heavily on content creation and delivery. An important part of content creation is for me to consume a lot of content. On Mondays I’m going to share three blogs that I read regularly and I would love for you to share blogs that you’re reading in the comments.

This week, some design focused blogs:

Public School

I started subscribing to Public School a few months ago because it was making some noise here in Austin. Public School is a design studio here in Austin and the content of their feed reflects that. It’s less of a source of a original content as it is a aggregate of what the designers at Public School come across in their internet travels.

// Keywords: design, culture, communication

Mike Industries

Mike Davidson is a seasoned web developer with some really big sites under his belt. He doesn’t post a lot so this one won’t bog you down. If you are into user experience (not just the web kind) you might want to add Mike to your reader.

// Keywords: user experience, industry news, web design

Promise Tangeman

Promise Tangeman is a good source for design inspiration. She promised (hehe) to post more often this year….didn’t we all? Anyway, a little of this a little of that and some good links to.

// Keywords: graphic design, photography, fashion

Hit me with your favorite design blogs, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 go!

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We have spent most of the last year looking for a way to improve community communications around Gateway Church Austin and we have settled on SoChurch to fill in the gaps between our ChMS, website and social media outposts.

Becky Laswell, who is the project lead, started a blog series to outline the details on how we’re using SoChurch.

Go check it out.

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I hear it all the time from people I consult and work with.

Guess what, you’re not the only one in that position. So is my church. So are the churches that you look to as thought leaders.

So is time magazine!

Maybe I’m wrong and I’m going to get flamed for it, but I think if Mark Zuckerberg deserves person of the year it was 3 or 4 years ago not this 2010. Facebook did the work a few years ago that we are now seeing.

Or maybe it’s a lesson in the long tail.

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I have this conversation often:

Me: “Are you on Twitter?”

Them: “No; I’m already on Facebook”

Every time I have this conversation an angel gets it’s wings…clipped.

It does go the other way…although less often. There are users who are above using such blue collar social networks like .

Truth is, when done right, Facebook and Twitter are very different spaces and it is my opinion that if you want to rock at social media you need both.

I’ve shared this analogy with a lot of people and even mentioned it in a post or two.

Twitter is your coffee shop

At the coffee shop you connect with both people you know already and people you don’t know in a public space.

Twitter is quite the same. You will most likely initially connect with people you already know and then be introduced to people you don’t know and eventually make your own connections.

Twitter works best when you are open to meeting people you don’t know and connecting. This will be the biggest hurdle for people who have been on Facebook for a long time before getting on Twitter. Truth is, if you’re not willing to meet people and network, Twitter will not click and you’ll give up.

Quick tips for Facebook-ers moving to Twitter

• Do: Follow people you don’t know
• Don’t: Post pictures of your kids in the bath tub
• Do: Engage in conversations
• Don’t: Just be a broadcaster

Facebook is your living room

Your living room is for people you already know. Sometimes the people you know will bring people you ‘kinda’ know to your living room but for the most part it is people you know that come over to your house. Not everything that happens in your living room should be made public and most of the conversation that happens there is only interesting to people who know you.

Facebook is at it’s best when you share content and interact with people you know. People who use it as a networking space tend to come off as spammers and get ignored.

Quick tips for Tweeps moving to Facebook

• Do: Upload lots of photos of your kids
• Don’t: Add people you don’t know, that’s not the point of Facebook
• Do: Connect with your mom
• Don’t: Play Farmville

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• Technophobia
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• My church is behind the times so is Time magazine

Eric Schmidt of Google fame said that more content is now being created in 48 hours than from man’s beginning until 2003.

Wow.

That is a huge piece of information that should haunt you in some ways and motivate you in others.

Take a look at your church and the content that it creates.

Most likely your church creates most of it’s content for consumption on Sunday morning in a live group setting. Worship. Talking head. Maybe a video. Some churches also produce content in the form of books and curriculum. There’s a good chance your church has some web presence and maybe a blog. Churches are catching up on Twitter and Facebook.

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Earlier this week I wrote about . Looking at your toolbox of communication apps and spaces it is important to categorize them in terms of context and voice. Who is the targeted recipient of the content and how do you voice it?

Here are the communication layers I use personally and the context and voice that I have in them starting with the outer layer and working my way in:

Twitter | the coffee shop
This is a public space. And like a coffee shop the content you broadcast is targeted at people you know, but it is overheard by people who may be listening. If they like what you have to say the may chime in and you make a new connection. This works the other way too.

Blog | my platform
This is my space. My words. This is where I give away the best thoughts I have to the world and engage in conversation about those thoughts.

Facebook | my living room
My living room is for people that I actually know. It’s not for strangers. I’ll accept friend requests from people I have a connection with but I keep my feed trimmed pretty tight so that it’s just family and close friends that I interact with. I’ll add that I treat Facebook email just like regular email. And I block every app from my feed (farmville).

Email | grand central
I have been trying really hard lately to reduce how much email I handle by pushing a lot of the interaction to Twitter and/or in person. When I need to document something or handle some details this is the place to keep it. I use Gmail and all the awesome GTD features like labels and server-side filtering to keep this place squeaky clean and efficient. I try to turn email around in 24-72 hours. I’m currently in the habit of working through email in the morning only…in one sitting. If you need me today then you need to move down a layer to Twitter DM/Text.

Twitter DM/Text Message | my phone
In this shrinking world where we are connected with more and more people, Twitter DM has replaced a lot of phone calls for me and in my world it carries the same priority as a text message (be warned, if you abuse it I will drop you. I’m talking to you auto DM’ers). Talking on the phone is so inefficient that I rarely answer when I don’t know who it is and I schedule just about every call I make on my calendar because it has become the new meeting for me.

In Person/Video Chat | get it done
When it’s time to get stuff done I go in person or video chat…not the phone. I hate the phone. For as unproductive as it is it takes up too much time and mind space.

Meetings | avoid them
I won’t even classify them as a necessary evil, they’re just plain evil. OK, maybe I speak too harshly. The traditional meeting is evil and unproductive. Lately I have been scheduling meetings for like 12 minutes in the hall. I picked up this tip form the book; Rework. It works well. Meetings aren’t social time…just get stuff done and go rock!

What are your layers looking like?

If you liked what you just read you may like:

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Technology and the communication tools that come with it are supposed to make things better. More productive. More Efficient.

I am a fan of tools, if they work and if my team will use them.

Here’s a run down of the workflow of communication layers that I’m trying to implement with the staff and leaders at Gateway Church. Starting with the outside/front door communications and moving toward the internal staff communications.

Public Spaces

Main Website
This is still our main portal with the most content and traffic. It is voiced so that people with no affiliation with our organization can understand the content and navigate to the info they will be most interested in. People who are a part of our organization still use it and it is a very important tool for communicating with them but it is targeted at people who are not yet a part of our community.

Organization’s Twitter and YouTube channel
A companion to the website, our twitter account is voiced for people who are not yet a part of our community but is used also for communicating with insiders. YouTube videos are voiced to people not affiliated with us.

Organization’s Facebook Page(s)
I may get some disagreement here but I think Facebook is for people who have accepted your brand or organization as a part of their life at one level or another. Yes, some may find Facebook as a front door to your organization, but the voice and interactions on it are geared toward your community.

Organization’s Blog
This may differ for you in where you place your organization’s blog in these layers; but for us, a non-profit church, it fits in here. We find that it is a place that gets most traffic from Facebook and is read by community members. It serves as a place to provide more detailed info than Facebook.

Community Space
We are rolling out an app called SoChurch that is launching this month to provide more robust communication and group management for our church. Facebook can’t quite handle the functionality that we need. This also provides a way for us to voice directly to and with insiders. The app will work with  Facebook and Twitter so that members won’t need to worry too much about tending to another social media profile.

Internal and Employee Communication Layers

There are a plethora of tools for communicating and implementing one without understanding where it fits in the layers will just frustrate your team and put everyone on different pages making an attempt at improving workflow do just the opposite.

Here are the layers we use, ordered by time sensitivity:

Face to Face | Real Time
Need an answer now? Don’t email, walk to their desk.

Instant Messaging/Video Chat/Phone Call | Real Time
We use Google Apps so we are all on a common platform for IM and video chat. We are also distributed throughout the city of Austin so face to face isn’t always an option. This may be true for you if you are on a large campus. I like IM a lot because a lot of ground can be covered while at the same time team members can multi-switch and keep moving on other things. A phone call works but requires more attention than an IM and can slow you down.

Text Message/Twitter DM | +/- 15 minutes
Not quite real time but close. If you don’t hear back in 15 minutes assume they are out of pocket and you may have to move to a slower platform.

Yammer | 1-4 hours
We use yammer for this layer and so far I’m digging it. Not everyone on your team will sign up for Twitter nor is all that content appropriate or helpful to the Twitter community. Yammer works like Twitter as far as functionality and it takes some training to get your team up to speed. This has helped us trim down a lot of email that should have never been emailed; “check out this link” or “what is everyone doing for lunch?” and it has even replaced more useful emails too.

Email | 24-72 hours
Email is not a real time communication tool! It’s not a project management tool either for that matter. I can say that by bringing in Yammer and Google apps my internal email has been cut in half or better. If you can establish with your team that you will not respond to email for at least 24 hours…you will be 90 percent of the way there in terms of communication efficiency. I recommend turning an auto-responder on that let’s people know that you will respond to their email in a day or two. I do this every couple months to remind people that there may be a better way to get a hold of me.

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