Context and Voice Book Tour Stop #5 | Rich Kirkpatrick
Rich is a dear friend and fellow creative who I have enjoyed having great conversations with about church, communicating and creativity.
Go check out what Rich has to say about Context and Voice
Context and Voice book tour stop #4 | Collide Magazine
Stop #4 takes us to Dallas Texas with Scott McClellan at Collide Magazine. Scott is the creative mind behind the always awesome Echo Conference which you should check out if you are at all interested in communicating the Gospel in creative ways.
Scott and I went for a Skype interview on this one so you can sit back with a cup of coffee and listen to the mindless rambling of two 6’5″ + communication ‘experts’. Go check it out.
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Technophobia
I have the conversation literally every week. In the conversation I usually hear a line not unlike this:
“People don’t know how to interact in real life any more.”
…or some similar phrase. I undersand where people are coming from and I believe, based on the information that has been presented to them, they have a valid reason and a solid case for having these feelings. These thoughts are usually formed by a diet of To Catch a Predator episodes with a side of cultural disconnection. This is backed up by ‘studies’ and news stories that want to diagnose ‘Internet addiction’. I think there is valid evidence for this I just think we need to get past it.
Most of all I think people have these feelings because this has all happened so fast. It wasn’t until the late 90s that the internet started to get traction in America and it was around 2002 MySpace started to get serious momentum. Even then there were a whole lot of people that had no idea what MySpace even was. I would mark the year as 2007 when Social Media really got traction in culture most notably with the explosion of Facebook. That was just 4 years ago!
And to to think that it took 40+ years for our society to find a way to get in 20 hours of TV watching every week; we did the same with Social Media in 4 years.
I firmly believe that we are past this and that the conversation is all but over. I think in the short time that ‘Social Media’ has been pervasive western culture has come a long way in terms of education and integrating it into every day life. As our culture learns to use the tools of the internet to make life better it becomes precisely just that; a tool.
Facebook is not a community
The mistake we make now is to classify Facebook (or any other media channel) as a community which is categorically wrong. These are simply just tools just like a phone, a mailbox or email. This attitude propagates that false sense of it being an alternative to real life when in fact it is not; it is simply another way to share information with other humans.
I have more or less given up on trying to convince people that they need to get in the game, they’re just going to have to figure it out themselves.
Social Media Gurus
So you’re a social media guru (I tell myself that’s who reads my blog); here’s my plea to you: Let’s stop doing workshops on introductions to social media. Lets stop writing how to blog posts on 101 level social media stuff.
Rather; here’s what we should do: Move forward. Keep using the tools and pushing the technology forward and eventually it will become the norm to the masses. If we keep going back to the starting line to pick up stragglers then we will never be able to blaze new trail and we become stagnant ourselves.
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Context and Voice book tour stop #3 | Jason Morris
I met Jason at Echo Conference a while back and we had some great conversations about using the internet to reach people. I was just starting to form the vision that would force me to ask the questions that I pose in Context and Voice and as I shared my early ideas with Jason and he had great questions to add. Great questions inform great ideas and I was stoked to have sharp people like Jason to bounce ideas off of.
Jason leads church online at Westside Family Church in Lenexa Kansas, go check out his blog post.
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Context and Voice book tour stop #2 | DJ Chuang
Stop two on the tour brings us to DJ Chuang’s blog. DJ is a super intelligent and respected mind in the communication, leadership and innovation space…and he’s a good friend.
DJ does an awesome job of getting right to the point on his review of Context and Voice and calls out some of the flaws of the ebook format and my lack of writing skills which he mentions I point out in the intro. Fact is…I’m a terrible writer and much more comfortable on stage.
He also touches on something important to me in this whole thing….this is a conversation starter rather than a complete thought. I hope the book leaves you hanging; wanting more from it.
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Context and Voice book tour stop #1 | Matt Carlisle
My book, Context and Voice, is on sale now. To celebrate I have asked my friends around the blog world to help me with an online book tour to get the word out. This is a completely self published effort that fits with the subject of the book; new media. I have a couple spots left on the tour if your interested. Hit me with a tweet if you are.
Matt Carlisle is an amazing resource of knowledge when it comes to church communications especially in web space. Head over to his blog for a bit of Q&A on Context and Voice. Add to the conversation in the comments on Matt’s blog and I can answer more questions.
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My new playground
the Austin Skatepark finally opened and it is epic. Just thought I’d share….have an awesome father’s day.
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