The latest numbers for mobile show that there are something like 5.5 billion mobile devices out there. That’s a whole lot of opportunity, but its only a statement of having a tool. What does it mean for you to take that tool and have access to improve your or your communitiy’s lifestyle:

…Everybody loves memes and those who work in or care about international development are no exception. One meme that popped up early 2010, is the oft-quoted “there are more mobile phones than toilets.” Apparently, the origin of the phrase was the India census. Subsequently, the statistic was used to raise a point about water and sanitation in India by a UN institute. It was picked up in a New York Times article and became generalized to “more people have [access to] mobile phones than toilets” and “there are more mobile phones than toilets” and other variations.

This simple idea has captured the hearts and minds of many development and technology practitioners and theorists the world over. The phrase has become a staple illustration for those who are looking at the potential of mobiles to change the world. But there is more to it than simple ‘access.’ We need to think beyond access…

Read the rest of Mobile Phones, Toilents and Libraries – Beyond Access at Wait… What?

Personally, I like using that statistic for illustation, but it doesn’t always come within that context of doing a bit more than just having a mobile. All of us doing mobile ministry would be wise to keep this in mind. And then those of us looking to put the Gospel in a mobile context should also pay attention to life beyond the proclaimation – what does the Gospel (reading, listening, sharing, etc.) on a mobile device enable for someone besides the [necessary] eternal reward of fellowship with God? The paradox of mobile ministry is just that – its not just having a magic wand, but access to something specific that enables life to be given to another.

There are lots of moments where we can consider that having a mobile is a good thing, but might not be the preferred thing. For example, there are moments like when families come together where having our mobiles handy to take photos is good. But, when that reason is for a funeral, then we might want to reconsider such things.

Now, being out in the desert, one had to consider a mobile as a pretty necessary thing. And if you can grab a signal then you are doing even better. So, what if you were in the desert, or knew that you were going there, how would you go about building a network? What kinds of concerns would you be able to address, or need to leave behind?

The Burning Man event is an exercise is living on another edge. On that edge, some, interesting things happen. Over the past few years, I’ve been following how mobiles have changed the landscape of communicaitons at Burning Man, and what that has meant for some of he participants. In this snippet from Tech Crunch, we get a glimpse of what it is like to run a network at Burning Man:

…Every year we do this, we learn new lessons. Last year we learned that a cloud telephony API (Tropo in our case) works best if it is run inside the carrier’s network, a lesson we applied when we partnered with Deutsche Telekom who recently announced that they are offering the Tropo API on their network. This means that, for the first time ever, over 100k Tropo developers can now run their apps (with no changes) inside a carrier network.

This year’s lesson is about customisation, we used our position inside the network at Burning Man to change the user’s experience of the phone service, we created web-style metrics to see what worked and what doesn’t. You simply can’t do that stuff if you aren’t right in the centre of the network, being on the edges doesn’t cut it. We have already been busy applying that knowledge to the Tropo APIs we offer our customers and partners in the near future…

Read the rest of What We Learning Running A Mobile Netowrk at Burning Man at Tech Crunch

So, if it’s possible to build your own mobile network, and it’s also possible to own a mobile that can work on various types of networks, what can be done beyond simply communicating? And then further, in what spaces could mobiles be a good fit, or not fit so well, despite our best intentions towards being connected or not?

As a man, there is a considerable bias that comes to the table when the subject of mobile ministry activities come up. Not in the least because it seems [we] men are louder about mobile. We like to talk about speeds, feeds, and such. Yet, as we continually see from the numbers and literal observations around us, its the activities of women that do more to push these technologies forward.

That said, there should be a lot more talked about in respect to mobiles in ministry that relate to women. At many of the conferences that I attend, the number of women whom are interested in mobile ministry enough to come is directly related to how much their husbands are already invested into the subject. Should that be normal? Should the implications of this tech towards women-specific issues be only heard when her other half is present? And what if there is no other half and she does attend a gathering? Will it take having a Ph.D. or public relations/marketing platform in order to be heard with the same authority on the subject?

I don’t want to discount the efforts that have happened already (great listing at Mobile Active). For example, I think initiatives such as using SMS to report rape or facilitate medical needs for expectant mothers is a great thing. But, I know that there is more that we’ve not seen or heard about frankly because many women haven’t felt as if this is their arena to speak up. So, I want to throw out that challenge for the women whom are following MMM to speak up and let us know what’s a tick-box issue for you:

What about mobiles used in ministry efforts are you not hearing about enough of, or wanting to see more coverage of, that’s relevant to you?

From that point, let’s do what we should have been doing all along and making sure that we esteem each other in this tech space.

Note about the picture: the woman in this picture I saw when last at an airport. Her smile as seeing her likeness reproduced on a digital screen was encouraging; when her husband (?) returned, that smile went away, and her mobile device was no longer in her hand. There’s a lot to uncover about such an interaction that we just need to do a much better job of highlighting and speaking towards.

Analytics and metrics can sometimes be fun, and other times discouraging. Earlier this year, MMM went through this marvelous period where readership via website, mobile, and RSS just continued to pick up. It was amazing to see for a number of months, and really helped drive a lot of the content that was being generated here. And then just it flattened out a bit. Not sure what all was the reason, but we kind of got to a plateau and it was just kind of… blah. It seems like we are back on the upswing now, and it seems to be happening from different sources. One of the latest of these streams is Pinterest.

Pinterest is a social network that’s based on the cork-board-and-picture idea. You see something online that you like and then you pin it to your board to share with people who might have similar likes. Tag those items and other people can see what you’ve pinned.

What I saw the other day is that there’s a set of pins out there for items posted from MMM. There aren’t many items, but that did get me to thinking about creating a few more media assets, and making it a bit easier to link to others done previously, so that those looking at this intersection of faith and tech, but coming visually, can have a bit of something to work… er pin with.

So, with that now said, and if you are visiting from Pinterest, what kinds of graphics from MMM would you like to see so that you can pin?

Sidenote: we do publish sketchnotes from various presentations/conferences (for example, here are a few from the latest ICCM USA Conference Sketchnotes Mobile Apps BOF,Spiritual Reboot Keynote, Intro Sketches), these would be suitable for pins.

The other night, I took a late night run to McDonalds and realized that the Monopoly game was back in play there. I don’t eat there often, but when Monopoly is on deck, I do tend to make my way around various Micky D establishments just to see what kinds of game pieces that I can obtain. I’ve not gotten any of the big prizes, but, it has been pretty fun to have this mobility-infused aspect to eating out from time to time.

And it was after that last trip, when I stumbled into a piece about the ineffectiveness of ebooks at the NY Times that got me thinking again that there’s something more that we should be doing with religious texts besides text and static images on the screen. What about something that was setup as more of an adventure that included things you’d uncover as you traveled in your local, regional, and global domains? Parts of books that would open up only when you triggered some social, event, or locational context. For example, this snippet from that NY Times piece:

…They wrote a 160,000-word book and, using the iPhone for inspiration, created a “scavenger hunt” element allowing readers to see more story lines by visiting specific locations — like China and Washington, D.C. — that are outlines on a map within the app. Users can also add their own story lines.

The whole idea, Mr. Horowitz said, is finding ways for devices like the iPhone to tell a story in a way that a print book could not.

“It’s a way to create a communal reading experience, so people can experience it in a certain time span together,” Mr. Horowitz said. “What we tried to make was something that allowed for the reader to approach it in his or her way. We wanted to allow for all levels of interest and obsession.”

Read the rest of E-Books Expand Their Potential With Serialized Fiction at the NY Times Blogs

Setting this in something of a more relevant frame of reference, you have your Bible, but it only comes to you in snippets that are just 15 minutes of reading long. As you read this Bible in various areas (on your mobile/tablet device that is), there are aspects of it which open up a bit more. You are at a bus terminal when reading about the Tower of Babel and another story about the development of languages and histories of various cultures are opened up to you from the text – some in video, some in audio, and some in text. Or, you device’s calendar notes that you are at a family event like a wedding or funeral, and then when you open the Bible, you are presented a shared family tree of your family, alongside a similar listing as what could be found in Matthew or Luke.

Confused? Take a look at the iPhone/iPad ebook & app called The Silent History. This is the approach that is taken here, and its one that is getting to the poiint of leveraging some of the unique and native characteristics of mobile devices, rather than simply relying on packaging older media types into a new one.

If you will, what about infusing a bit of mobility and context to the text? In a real sense, throwing ourselves into the story so that its more than just the things we’ve kept hearing, but now – like when the 2nd generation of Israel crossed on the way to promised land – there’s a relevant marker to go along with the history that you’ve had passed down to you?

Yes, I know that some people couldn’t deal with a Bible handed to them in parts; but imagine the possibilities for actually learning the text when its not 66/83 books you are dealing with at a time, but just 15 minues of content that literally meets you right where you are?

Thoughts?

MMM (Mobile Ministry Magazine) was on the scene recently with a few members of the Mark 5 Ministries IT team. Mark 5 Ministries is a community of Christians dedicated to solving computing technology problems for missionaries. Learn more at their website