Category Archives: Mobile as Opportunity

Case Study and Comment from Mobile Ministry Course

A number of persons have written in over the year asking about various aspects of the two mobile ministry courses that have been on deck. With the CLA course on pause , the MMF/Cybermissions Mobile Ministry Course has been able to target the #mobmin audience with a unique and decent offering. And as such, there are discussions and comments that come forth that don’t always make their way into press clippings. For example, the following case study was posted as a discussion response to the question:

Describe the advantages and disadvantages of these social media platforms (for Christian ministry) – in your particular area?

Here’s that answer, posted from one of our friends at a large media ministry:

I work at a global level so it is difficult to address this week’s discussion topic specification “in your particular area.” So I thought I would pick a particular part of the world where others in the course might think it would be challenging to use social media and share how it is being used effectively and discuss the advantages and disadvantages in this particular area.

Our Digital Strategies leader in Eastern and Southern Africa did not receive the memo that internet strategies and social media do not work effectively in Africa! He is building very effective strategies employing internet-based strategies, particularly social media-based strategies.

Facebook Jesus is the latest strategy and has been run effectively in Ethiopia and Rwanda and will soon be launched in South Africa. Facebook Jesus is an evangelistic strategy mobilizing students and young professionals in a one-week focused effort to influence their Facebook friends with the gospel. Using African communal cultural concepts, people gather in groups for several hours and work together to post videos, stories, poems, Bible verses, and other content on their Facebook pages and interact with their friends who show interest. They pray together for interested friends. They celebrate together for those who respond. They repeat this for several days.

An info graphic gives an overview of the week [click here]

32 people contacted 1006 friends with a total reach of 77,531 engaged users and a viral reach of 195,020 people. (Note: engaged users and viral reach are Facebook social media terms helping measure the impact of the campaign and are based on Likes and Comments.)

Since Ethiopians tend to be friends with Ethiopians, the impact of this week of social media outreach is staggering.

Miheret Tilahun, the Digital Strategies leader for Eastern & Southern Africa, has written and collected guest posts on how to run effectective Facebook Jesus evangelistic campaigns. He has not yet collected these into a specific category so you will have to browse through his website at http://miheret.wordpress.com/. His site is full of excellent tips on how to engage and mobilize people for a Facebook Jesus campaign, how to train online missionaries, what to put on your Facebook page, how to followup, and many other tips.

The Facebook Jesus strategy was taught as part of the recent Ubuntu National Student Conference in Durban, South Africa. You can watch this video of the excitement of some conferees, including a pastor invited as a conference speaker:

Discussion about internet ministry starts around the 3 minute mark in the video.

Here are some comments I transcribed from the video:

  • Social media is a new mission field
  • By being intentional and using the tools that exist on the internet, I can do much more [evangelism and discipleship] than I am doing currently.
  • Social media evangelism is something I hadn’t heard much about before. It’s a very unreached area. It’s something most believers are not aware of. It seems more effective.
  • I was affected by how much I use Facebook and even become an online missionary. It is something I had never thought about. I have a lot of friends on my Facebook page but I hadn’t seriously thought about ways to seriously impact them effectively.

Some advantages of Facebook include: Africans who use Facebook tend to be younger and rising leaders. They are willing to take risks and to try new strategies.

Disadvantages continue to be technological limitations.

There’s a lot to be explored and discovered as the mobile ministry field grows wider and deeper. Courses like the Mobile Ministry Course help individuals and organizations get there. Don’t look past what these can offer for you. And if you have something to contribute, come on in and do so.

Don’t Forget the Bigger Picture

Read an excellent post this past weekend in which a professor of Computer Science talked about the graphic that he uses to new Ph.D. students to help them see their work in light of the rest of the world. This is one of those images:

What Exactly Is a Doctorate?

Click through to Gizmodo for the rest of this.

Remember, we have our callings, our motivations, and even our stakeholders, but you have to keep the bigger picture in mind. It makes the fruits of your labors all the more sweeter.

Rapid Mobile Phone-Based (RAMP) Survey Tools

Some folks have been asking for sometime about best methods to collecting data via mobile, or at least some best practices in doing so. For better or worse, those folks asking usually weren’t trained in the area of quantitative or qualitative research methods and so there’s a bit more of a learning curve when it comes to answering that. Nevertheless, there are some methods and practices out there and the Red Cross has pointing to a neat method/toolset called the Rapid Mobile Phone-Based (RAMP) Survey. Here’s a bit more about it:

RAMP provides a survey methodology and operations protocol that will enable national Red Cross Red Crescent societies, governments and other partners to conduct surveys rapidly, at reduced costs, with limited or no external assistance.

In 2011 and early 2012, RAMP was piloted by Red Cross societies, the IFRC and partners in Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria. In these countries malaria is a major public health problem. Programme managers were interested in finding out the extent to which malaria programme objectives were being reached. The surveys provided statistically significant data in a number of areas including: ownership and use of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs), and the percentage of children under five years old that were accessing health services within 24 hours of the onset of fever. A RAMP survey bulletin was available within 12 hours of completion of the final survey questionnaire with a full draft survey report available within 72 hours.

Read the rest at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

RAMP-slideshow

We’ll be getting this added to our listing of resources pretty soon, while the case studies section will link to the reports already posted. For some of you, this kind of info will speak directly to your efforts. For others, it might make for a means for you to move forward with mobile/mobile ministry, with some additional insight towards areas of opportunities.

Extending Your Mobile Reach with A Server

Imagine the situation: you have been given a suite of mobile-friendly content by your organization. They expect you to learn the content, and then share it with others. You have an Android device, but not one with access to the Google Play Store. You get decent battery life, but not as good when you visit the church, bookstore, or the university. It’s not that you are at those places often, but when you get there and there’s not a workstation, you do use WiFi for a while. You are almost to the end of that content, and now need to start looking at how to share it. What are your options?

  • Would you use a flash drive connected to a wireless hotspot?
  • Would you install a mobile web server to your mobile device?
  • Would you install it to a memory card, then share it to others via Bluetooth?
  • Do you use a web service from which you and others connect to it via an application or API?
  • Another method?

How would you use the analogy of a server and terminal to extend the reach of what you can do with ministry content? And once you have a point where you/content can be reached, what do you enable?

Case Study: Vumi Go Redesign

Vumi Go style tile

Part of the opportunity that mobile has allowed has enabled all kinds of people-groups to be empowered to either create or have access to tools that traditionally were not as available. Depending on the motives of the programs though, several services have come and go, leaving both the designer and the consumer at a disadvantage of maintaining a connection to that service offering. Case studies which look then at the redesign of an application or service tend of be quite helpful therefore. You aren’t just reading a technical trope of the issues and opportunities of design or function, but you are also seeing how the consumer’s preferences factor into the planning, design, and final result.

A recent case study read which follows along this line of thinking was posted at Elezea in reference to the product/service Vumi Go. Take a look at it, and consider the entire scope of the problem and opportunity described.

If you have a case study which should be added to our listings, do get in touch so that we can get that added to the listing.

2013 Mobile Ministry Consultation

You might have seen this posted on the #MobMin Event Calendar (subscribe to it if you’ve not), and its since been updated. If you didn’t see it, then all of the below is new news for you. From the folks at the Mobile Ministry Forum:

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Please consider joining us for the 2013 Mobile Ministry Consultation (December 9-11, Orlando, FL)! Learn with more than 100 other mobile ministry innovators how to reach the next generation for Christ via mobile device strategies. The consultation includes TED-style presentations, discussions, ministry field reports, workshops and networking time.

Cost: The registration fee is $230 (inludes meals). Early registration is available for $200 throughSeptember 25.

Housing: Limited on-site housing is available for $35/night on a first-come, first-served basis.

Ministry Booths: A limited number of promotional booths are available.

For more information and details towards upcoming talks, visit the Mobile Ministry Forum website.

Introduced to the Lightstream Gospel Sharing System

Did you catch what was posted on #mobmin Twitter yesterday

We’ve talked about various ways to share the Gospel via mobile devices, and highlighted some of the groups which are doing innovative things in this space. Here’s one example of this from the folks at Renew Outreach. Haven’t gotten a full play with it yet… that will happen soon. For now, just think about what it means to carry a hotspot and a number of connectors for various types of mobile devices, along with Bluetooth connectivity options. Pretty neat stuff.

And here I was doing it all these years from my mobile phone with a server to host the content. Goes to show that with companies behind a movement, innovative and neat things can happen.

Its Merely Practice

Dr. Richard Street

There’s something endearing about some of the conversations that we have in academic and consulting circles as it relates to mobile ministry (#mobmin). Sometimes, I get the expression – not just an impression, but a stated fact – that those who are leading in this space have all the answers. Or, at the very least have the body of work that makes it possible to just call solutions into the ether. And I get it, we are familiar with other industries where folks aren’t just working out whatever works, but they are putting for best practices – these actions that have predetermined results.

Mobile isn’t old enough, nor always refined enough to do things like that. And in a recent reading about Richard Street and a person’s reflections on his life and career, this was something I was skillfully reminded of:

Here I found the true meaning of “Practice”, with regard to medicine. Over the years, through countless struggles to preserve the health of those terminally ill, through tomes of medical literature the good doctor would pour until he had exhausted all known medical knowledge; he then would turn to the Almighty for prayer. Each painful loss only fueled his drive, his passion to prevent it from happening again. Each time, he would become better at what he did, continually striving to better himself, not only as a doctor, but also as a Christian. In essence, he practiced what he preached, and strove to become a better man while here on this earth for it.

To those businesses and ministry leaders who read this and immediately think that I’m taking the road of “well, he’s trying to hide his inexperience with a separate context,” I want to caution you. Having been in this space since 2004, an whole lot of what’s done is a matter of experiment and practice. There are items that do have definitive results – building a mobile website alongside your standard one if you are a church (or going the responsive website route); doing SMS alerts if your organization has devotional or event-led communications; and a few others. Not everything is going to get the mass of use you envision, and not everything is going to be successful towards reaching (read: broadcasting while receiving usable feedback) everyone. You have to have a measure of technical patience, and a larger one of spiritual patience.

When you do your posture either becomes one of contentment towards what is or isn’t working. Or, you derive better methods and outcomes from what you’ve learned. In any case, its mobile ministry as a practice more than it is as a finished performance. If you can get your head around that, then what you define as the “golden moment,” might carry a view that looks more like God’s than Wall Street’s.

Christian Hackathon, 14 App Ideas Demoed

Saw this neat article linked through the #mobmin tag on Twitter (lots of good stuff posted there):

Code for the Kingdom brings a distinctively Silicon Valley angle to Christian tech. Its mentors and judges include a partner at the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and Google’s head of Android partnerships, alongside more conventional mentors from charities and content companies. Reaching out to “techies, designers, and entrepreneurial starters,” organizers invited participants to “tackle the challenges confronting our society, our churches, and our spiritual lives” with “prayer and technology.” By holding an event, they are convening interest around this vision. By giving away $11,000, they are offering a small number of teams the possibility to start creating their idea.

While some of the ideas for these apps aren’t too far-reaching, there are a few approaches which should be taken and run forward. Take a look at the rest of the report at PBS.org and look into groups such as the Mobile Ministry Forum and WIP Connector who do hackathons and connect to developers, organizations, and opportunities.

The Mobile Lens According to Smartphones

I’m not really a big fan of the focus on smartphones. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of a mobile device that has a significant level of intelligence above the models that I had in pocket half a decade ago. But, overall, a lot of the push for smartphones really just comes from carriers and their stakeholders who see the ARPU higher with smartphone owners than with feature phone owners. If you will, it literally costs you more to own a smartphone, and carriers are milking that for all its worth.

That’s why I look at this recent image about the top countries for smartphones with a bit of disdain (from Textually). No, not that it doesn’t make some sense, because it does. What happens is that much of the marketing and focus for smartphones and those using it are not towards those folks at the top of this listing – at least by proportion of activities, marketing and development.

When it comes to ministry, and even some recent affairs concerning it that I put myself for, there’s this unhealthy focus on what can be done with smartphones, what can be done with English-first users with smartphones. We aren’t always looking at the cultural dynamics that make up smartphone… mobile usage. And that’s a mistake. Yes, there’s something to be said about looking at mobile and its transitioning happening in those nations that have had a deeper history of communication technologies and behaviors. But those folks that skipped a few things… man, there’s something rich and valuable about what the faith looks like in the UAE, SK, and Saudi Arabia. Are we developing towards those perspectives too?

Or, is the lens of our smartphone just confined to whatever media is pushing? If its Google-based, then the perspective starts in Silicon Valley. If its iOS, then its one part California, another part China. If its BlackBerry, its Canadian with a heaping of Washington DC. If its Nokia, then there’s the Finnish experience, with a North American attitude. And that’s not even to talk about the lens if we went with the largest carriers instead.

I wear tinted glasses, but make sure to take them off or look around the edges. Sometimes, what the world offers has a better color than what I’m usually seeing.