Over the past week(s), I’ve been working on answering some simple questions to address building pitch slides for the weekly 1M/1M public discussion. There’s a signifiant need for sales/marketing help for MMM, and getting through these slides has been rewarding and frustrating. We are really missing a lot of pieces of data we should have, and other parts are defined enough that it doesn’t fit normal modes of “building and marketing a product.”

The “product” MMM sells is the knowledge and underanding of making sense out of the points which connect mobile and faith activities. That’s not something easily bottled, that is, unless its sold as glue and not as the bottle. Now, to sell glue, you have to identify what things need to be present in order for that stickiness to take place. You’ve got to be able to say on your label what surfaces it works best on, where not to put it, and probably some hazard information in case someone misuses the glue.

For us, that means we aren’t so much as building apps and services, as much as we are identifying those points where devices, services, and experiences come together for a specific environmental condition at the intersection of faith and mobile technology. Unless folks already see that these two areas collide, they won’t be able to discern how best to glue them together. That’s how we get the term mobile minsitry, we are looking at this intersection of two areas that have some common points (communications, sociologiy, etc.) and what happens when they collide and both those common and uncommon areas get challenged.

The other day, I responded on a post for a developer at LinkedIn. The post didn’t identify a specific need for the developer, but did mention much about the organization (the usual HR boilerplate stuff) and then some toolsets/skills needs for the position. I made several assumptions about what they are looking for ending with a statement that perhaps they are looking for something less oriented to building and something more like glue. Now, I was corrected, and in that correction was detailed the specific need for that position, but it still came across as looking for glue, not someone to make sticks.

When it comes to mobile ministry, part of that identifying what it is you are offering (our case) or what you are looking for (the folks we tend to attract) is making this distinction between building and sticks. Sometimes, you might solely be on the side of building, and therefore a specs sheet of programming languages accompanyed with certain products might be the key. Other times, and usually what we see more often than not, is that people are looking for the glue. How does mobile stick best with wherever they are? Whether that’s reformatting videos, adjusting to the appearance of mobile on the ministry scene, or introducing less friction to a reiteration of a product, its more about the glue (what happens in between the points), than the sticks (the points)..

I’d wager that many of you have been using sticks like glue and wondering why you haven’t seen the successes you’ve wanted. May I make the suggestion that you find the jars of glue (who connects the dots within mobile and ministry), and then refocus your energies? You might find that with less building that you enable more sticking to your ultimate goals.