Its been a bit quiet here as work and new tech has taken up a bit more time recently. But, that time away hasn’t really been spent away from some of what makes MMM tick. It got to a point one day that the thoughts about this #mobmin space started to overflow. Of note, this tweet:

rethinking the purpose of #mobmin: computing to facilitate living abundantly in respect of the Gospel and in the fear of God

— Antoine RJ Wright (@ARJWright) March 4, 2013

I’m spending more and more time with people who are asking for Christians to live in such a way (especially with one another) that its unmistakable that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That’s hard to tell when so many people are heads-down on their mobile devices, nodding approvingly to sounds no one else hears, or forwarding along the next social meme. I’ve got people pulling up their phones to show proof of banking transactions, but processes asking them for paper. Or, cases where folks lose ID cards, and it would almost make too much sense to use a Foursqure-like service alongside some kind of visual verification kiosk instead. Folks are either asking or being subjected to the lack of thinking through tech, and I’m seeing it and wanting more to spend the time addressing those, rather than making yet another app/service.

I don’t wonder about what is or isn’t happening in this space anymore. Only if we are paying attention to what we are doing with it, and the outcomes from it. If we aren’t, will the things after mobile also point out one of the major blindspots that we neglect?

Are we truly using computing to point and enable one another towards living in God? Or, are these Godly distractions from something more important to address?

February has that tendency to move oh-so-fast. And even then, its one of those months that can just roll past without so much of a peep. Still, we’ve been able to see some progress on our resolutions:

1. Explain, emphasize, and demonstrate the theological underpinnings to mobile ministry
2. Detail and expand on knowledge of Non-English Language/Cultural expressions of mobile ministry
3. Increase number of and collaboration with ministry partners
4. Refine and release v2 of the Mobile Ministry Methodology
5. Embed Mobile, Not Mobile As Layer

For the first one, the work getting ready for a summer course that we are teaching and the Digital Literacy Project are making some ways forward there. I’ll have to push better on number 2, but a late addition of the Bible app Web Evangelismo (Android and iOS) is a good sign. An upcoming meeting with some folks from the MMF later this month will be a better gage towards number 3. Number 4 will take some time – purposely. And the last one, well, you’ll just have to wait and see 😉

How are you doing with your resolutions? We are three months into things, hopefully you are also making some decent progress.

There are indeed many ways that one can consider ministry as an effort that can be augmented by the use of mobile technology. In that ream of thought, we usually consider things such as meditative content, evangelism, and on the fringes, educational pursuits. But, what if the mobile minister were also able to deliver healing as a part of that demonstration of Christ’s love? What then would mobile ministry look like if it were not simply speaking a word, but actually diagnosing the illness and putting forth accepted medical practices for rendering healing? What then would mobile ministry look like? I think a report shared to us from NBC News makes it about as plan as can be:

[from the transcript] reporter: dr. eric topol has long been one of the world’s foremost cardiologists. he has now become the foremost expert in the exploding field of wireless medicine. and this explosion, he says, is about to make our health care better and cheaper. watch what he does with his cell phone .

>> we’ll just pop this is phone into it like that.

>> reporter: he shows how simply his modified iphone produces a cardiogram for a patient.

>> so you just put your fingers on it. there you go. and in a second — you know, in the first or second it stabilizes.

>> reporter: the device was approved by the fda in december and is now sold to physicians for $199. topol tells his patient he just saved a $100 technician’s fee.

>> so are we close to using this to say i’m going to diagnose you and prescribe four or five apps instead of four or five medications?

>> well, these days i’m actually prescribing a lot more apps than i am medications. you can take the phone and make it a lab on a chip . you can do blood tests , saliva tests, urine tests , all kinds of things. sweat tests through your phone. this is a powerful device.

>> and we’ll just have you hold that on there like that.

>> reporter: topol ‘s patient, ron thompson , is dealing with several significant heart issues.

>> you saw that on a phone. didn’t you just — weren’t you just amazed the first time you saw that?

Watch (or read the transcript) of NBC News’s report iDoctor: Could a smartphone be the future of medicine?

It might sound a bit amazing, and a bit far-fetched. But, this is the present of what mobile devices can do. Is this the kind of mobile ministry that you put forward?

Watch Video – Community Voices: Digital Literacy Project

For the past weeks, I’ve been involved with a rag-tag group of people around Charlotte (NC, USA), including a few journalists (Street Corner Prophet) and a group of students who participate in Central Piedmont Community College’s STARS Program. We started in talking about how to enable senior citizen to share their stories using social media, and what this has evolved to is a series of workshops on mobile and social media technologies designed (a) to enable [seasoned] seniors to use these technologies to tell their stories, and (b) to utilize the passion, energy, and technical acumen of college students to help these seniors while also learning some of the challenges with tech from another perspective.

The video linked here is the first of these series. Besides showing again some of the implications of mobile and technology, there’s also that aspect of seeing what it looks like when we place #mobmin in a posture of serving others. Now, if this is a program that you would be interested in for a mix of college students and seniors, get in contact with us, and let’s see what can be done at this intersection.

Of the positives and negatives of going mobile, one of the points that’s very rarely talked about is the idea of a faith that’s independent of the tethers of traditional visitors, but a greater grasp on the interdependence of one to survive because of the needs of the faith. If you will, does the tech and what it enables put us in a place where the past actions of living out faith only matter to store of the faith? Or, does it matter more that we are connected, with theology coming from that, rather than behavior and doctrine?

It was this article that sparked that thought:

…Where it gets interesting, though, is that independence isn’t necessarily being foisted on people. Of those who went independent in 2012, 57% chose to. Even more telling, whether these independents pursued this path of their own accord or not, only 13% intend to go back to traditional employment. Certainly that has been the case for me. After leaving Merrill Lynch, I co-founded Rose Park Advisors with Clay Christensen, veering ever closer to independence. A start-up environment may be grueling, but you are more your own woman — or man.

This trend cuts across all demographics. Millennials (Gen Y), ages 21-32, for example, 40% say they’re likely to choose independence of their own accord. 58% of Boomers (ages 50-66), are choosing independence. And Gen X (33-49) is the most likely to choose independence — 68% of those who have gone indie are there by choice rather than the result of job scarcity or loss. You can see this growing appetite for autonomy reflected in the burgeoning number of books and blogs looking at the meaning of work and life, from Umair Haque to Cali Yost to Gretchen Rubin to James Altucher…

Read rest of Independent Work Might Be Inevitable at the Harvard Business Review blog

If independent work can be sparked by tech, then can an independent faith be indicated by the same?

Whenever we read about those things mobile, it’s always country (USA and China) or region (Europe or Central & South America). Unfortunately, when the conversation talks about Africa, it is like the continent is treated like a country, it some region so far removed from normalcy that what happens in mobile is novel. Thankfully, not every perspective is like that. Thankfully, we get solid pieces like this:

…Context is important. In the 1980s and ’90s, computer and communications technology took hold in the West. But in Africa, if you ran a business, say in Kenya’s cities or up-country, you were hard pressed to communicate efficiently with your suppliers. Lag time between customer demand and inventory levels was legendary. You could show up at one auto store to find that the owner had a mountain of supplies that would sit gathering dust for the next 10 years. Or you could show up at another auto store just 10 miles away and find that all its inventory had been snapped up and nothing was coming in for another two months…

Read the rest of The Mobile Continent at the Stanford Review

What games your views of mobile, and is it grounded in reality, or perspectives too broad to be applicable?

Going further down the line of thought about the implications of mobile in ministry, we would do well to pay attention to some of the lessons that are being unveiled on the side of mobile marketing initiatives. One of my favorite points of research and insight comes from Mobile Groove (formerly, MSearchGroove). In one of their recent published pieces, they go into two aspects of engaging people with mobile and driving the experience into something that can be better monetized. Here’s a snippet of the article:

…Whether you are an individual app developer poised to take your good idea to greater heights, or a company mapping out a more comprehensive engagement strategy with mobile apps at the center, it’s both exciting and terrifying to think about the opportunities ahead. But don’t limit yourself to strategies that drive, measure and monetize app installs. There are also huge opportunities around app re-engagement.

Don’t think this is just for the benefit of your customer. There is also a hard-nosed business model at play here because campaigns that only count app installs are on the way out…

Read the rest of Mobile App Developers: Use Messaging To Activate Users, Monetize Engagement at Mobile Groove

Remember how we talked about that mobile is made up of three parts: devices, services, and experiences. Its in the last piece experiences where you gain the sticky that mobile becomes. Its much, much more than having a library of content – seriously, if the content is only addressable to a small audience, you are carrying essentially a lot of dead weight. Its more than having something shiny that has the same features of a market leader, but your own twist on it. Whatever device accessory, application, or service you develop needs to also have the experience of what it means for someone to come back to it.

I’ll use Bible Bloom as an example. They have a pretty Bible reading app, and in that core it offers nothing more than other Bible readers (there are literally thousands of Bible readers out there). One of the ways they separate themselves from the rest is in using the Notification’s component of Apple’s iOS to give you a verse if you’ve not opened the app in some pre-set time (1 or 2 days, or a week). They activate the application at a point of relevancy (“are you meditating on the Scripture?” Joshua 1:8), and then opening it is the conversation you take with their application/service.

I know that some of you have been long into the business of creating content and then marketing to people. With mobile you have to get used to talking to them. Are you ready for that kind of reality with faith in this space?

I think what I like best about this interactive infographic at the Harvard Business Review is that it invalidates the approach many have taken towards mobile and validates an approach that is more measured towards what’s actually happening. Decide for yourself (click thru for the interaction):

Depending on your perspective, this article (via Paid Content) is either empowering or frightening. Most particularly, this quote:

…In a very real sense, everyone is a media entity of some kind now. That doesn’t mean someone with a few hundred followers on Twitter is the equivalent of the New York Times, but it does mean that a large corporation like Tesla Motors is on a much more level playing field with the newspaper than it would ever have been before. In the past, if Tesla didn’t like a review, it could a) call and complain, b) put out a press release and try to get a competitor interested in a story c) launch an expensive lawsuit (which Musk has also done in the past)…

Read the rest of Tesla, The New York Times, and the Leveling of the Media Playing Field at Paid Content

Now, you might read this and immediately feel that your ministry or media platform is being threatened. You might read it and feel that your school or seminary is threatened. You might not feel threatened at all, but it might open your eyes to something that’s been bubbling inside you or your organization for some time now. In all of those cases, good… you are looking at the implications of this tech with the blinders off.

Blinders off? You mean that this isn’t the case of “what can I do to get my/the message into everyone’s hands?” Yes, that’s not just what I mean, but its also the clear implication of this tech’s intersection with faith and why you should run to it, instead of away from it.

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (John 4:19-26)

Can you stand to think that the point of this tech is that people will individually make their way towards a relationship with Christ and that the only part you have to play is making known to them there is no central temple, library, or behavior? That’s the implications of this tech, and the connectivity that it brings.

Are you ready for the implications of this activity being that people realize Emmaunel is very much the reality we should be living in daily?

As much as one wants to try, much of the rhetoric around mobiles tdese days revolves around smartphones. While popular, smartphones are not the only computing interface that the world interacts with. So, its good to see where they sit as devices amongst some of the other computers we see these days.

In one set of numbers, our friend Tomi Ahonen looks at the largest computer makers when you include smartphones and tablets. Wild to me is that if you looked at these numbers a little less than half a decade ago, that you’d see just how many mobiles Nokia sold, which was crazy when I first saw it. Here’s a snippet of Tomi’s information:

Largest Computer Makers, incl. Smartphones & Tablets
Rank (was)	Brand	Units 2012	Market Share 2012
1 (1)	Apple	272 M	22%
2 (2)	Samsung	249 M	20%
3 (6)	Lenovo	77 M	6%
4 (4)	HP	59 M	5%
5 (-)	Huawei	55 M	4%
6 (7)	Dell	38 M	3%
7 (10)	Sony	37 M	3%
8 (9)	Acer	36 M	3%
9 (3)	Nokia	35 M	3%
10 (-)	ZTE	35 M	3%
	Others	331 M	27%
TOTAL		1,224 M

Read the rest of Ahonen’s Computing Summary at Communities Dominate Brands

Our other set of good friends over at MobiThinking have also put some numbers and an analysis together looking at how Samsung has been going about taking Nokia’s position as the major mobile player. Some really great pieces to take note of here, if for no other reason that you can map what Samsung is doing, to what Nokia and Motorola did before them and get a better idea of how mobile will evolve and where to look for the next shifts in mobile technologies:

…Analyzing the products available from the top five handset and smartphone manufacturers tells a very interesting story.
In the US alone, Samsung offers 153 different cell phones. Feature phone or smartphone? Cheap or expensive? Big or small? Flat-screen or physical QWERTY keyboard? 4G or 3G? NFC? Bluetooth? WiFi? Flip phone? Rugged phone? GPS? Whatever the customer wants, within reason, Samsung provides. It offers smartphones with a variety of operating systems (OS): Android, Windows, Bada (a home-grown OS) and there are plans to launch phones based on Tizen. The idea behind Tizen, supposedly, is to help Samsung reduce its reliance on Android…

Read the rest of Why Your Mobile Strategy Should Emulate Samsung’s at MobiThinking

Updated: Not long after this post published, we saw (via Twitter) that Vision Mobile has also published a suite of graphics which detail many of the statistics found in much of the mobile industry. What’s probably the best about this is that most of this data is shared on Flickr – where the licensing allows for inclusion into reports and other projects with correct attribution.

View the entire Flickr gallery from Vision Mobile

For more stats and resources towards mobile, bookmark our Case Studies and Research page; there’s always a lot of data, and at least on that page, you get some direction towards the pieces which should be near the top of your list.