Its been a nice and busy week technologically and spiritually. Concerning mobile tech, we saw in introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S4 as the headline for the week. Concerning those things spiritual, the Roman Catholic Church introduced its new pope, Pope Francis, an Argentinean. Lots to think about, and amazingly enough, it took a tweet and some analytics to put it to the forefront.

Perhaps its not right that the tweet should have started things, but or brother in the faith @bibliata pointed to this TwitPic by @JayCaruso:

Now, @bibliata tweeted that this is a picture of mobile ministry. My response is that its merely a picture of using tech to capture a moment. Ministry hasn’t happened yet. You see, when I saw that directed tweet, I immediately thought of James 1:23-27. That idea of ministry being derived from one of the clearer passages of Scripture which detail the outcome of this faith. Amazingly, these are the standards that Pope Francis is being painted towards esteeming the most.

That didn’t motivate much in the way of anything. I’m actually stalling from two projects as I write this. But, I turned towards MMM and took a peek at the analytics as we had a spike a few days ago (that Google-juice caused by Hacking Imaginations was pretty sweet to a lot of folks). And saw some other things that just pointed at some of the contrasts demonstrated with Samsung and Pope Francis.

Technology Ratchets was a piece that still rings as a mark of the disruption that mobile tech can be in various capacities. Samsung clearly realized it, and designed the SG4 around it. But what about the church. Pulling something nearly prophetic, the rise of the church in Central and South America isn’t just a matter of changing economies, but a changing view of what matters the most in all communities (relationships, family, and consistent beliefs demonstrated in daily actions). Its not just what you swing, but how what you swing effects your life and those around you.

We have been playing with augmented reality (#AR) pretty often this year, and our experiments with Layar have been something to behold. Sure, we can do neat things here at MMM, but the value of it isn’t going to make sense until its applied to your life. Samsung’s GS4 has so, so many features. Many of which that I can look at and say “I’d use that,” and “hey, my Nokia N95 used to do that.” But, its really all about what gets life done. I hope that Pope Francis is adamant about pointing that the Holy Spirit is the best life companion any of us could have, while admitting the Babel effect that having a companion in your pocket can cause.

That’s where the next piece in our analytics makes things even more interesting. Our insistence that if you are going to go mobile that you should embrace its unique characteristics isn’t lost on some folks. There are a number of folks that I’m coming across who tell me things like “I don’t have a PC, can I just show it to you on my phone,” and that kind of activity makes me smile. Of course, these are people to whom public services such as libraries or personal commodities such as owning a tablet or a laptop isn’t normal. They really do everything on their mobiles. Samsung seems to recognize this in their latest, does the church continue to understand and navigate to a similar communicative state?

Lastly, there was a piece last year where I talked about the beginnings of the All Books Project and this idea of spatial interfaces. Interfacing not only with content in a linear manner, but one that also takes into account context and physical space. Its pretty hard to wrap your mind around, or, you can just take a look at some of the neat features in that new Galaxy 4 mobile and start from there. Interacting with your mobile in space… and then what? What happens next? Who’s life is impacted by your ability to take a photo on both sides of the lense, or with whom do you share that gallery of images from your missions trip? How do you show someone who needs to better manage their health how their mobile can participate with that? Or, do you leave them to that part of their life’s space without accountability?

It was only a tweet and some analytics, but it got me thinking about the two main news themes of this week. New tech and new positions are good. Lives that empower others are better. What’s in your hand that can change the world around you?