Mobile Ministry Magazine

Another great look at mobile use in Africa, this time from the side of mobile enabling social change. Here's a snippet:

Technology in itself does not lead to social change. For change to take place technology needs to be appropriate and rooted in local knowledge. People decide why and how a particular technology will be used and, depending on the political and socio-economic environment in which they live, adapt it accordingly. As we shall see from the case studies in this book, there are considerable local innovations and non-instrumental uses of the phone – using phones in ways not intended, that step outside their technological aspects and which attempt to bypass traditional power structures. Firoze Manji describes this process as ordinary people taking control of their destiny rather than technology driving the change: 'Social change is actually driven not by technologies but by ordinary people being able to exert an authority over their own experience and, through common actions, developing the courage to determine their own destiny.'

Read the rest of the excerpted chapter of SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa and order the entire book from Pambazuka Press.

Labels: Africa, mobile activism, mobility, SMS, social change, social networking

Saw this article over at Mobile Active and thought that it would be really good to link to considering all the attention paid to SMS here lately. Here's a snippet:

...Smart texting is an advanced form of keyword response in which an incoming text message triggers a complex interaction. This may include calling external programmes to process the message, or requesting further information from the user. It can also be used to run an SMS information service, in which the incoming SMS contains a query ('WEATHER cape town', 'CROP PRICES cofimvaba') and the response is retrieved from a database or the web. Example: A basic citizen reporting system could work as follows: Someone texts the word “REPORT” and a description of the incident to a widely publicised mobile number...

Read the rest at Mobile Active.

In what ways could you enable your organizations, or even missions teams, to utilizing this technology (both the SMS and knowledge sharing) as a means to demonstrating the Gospel's effectiveness?

Labels: communication, development, SMS

Was forwarded a note about another group SMS service for ministries called Ez Texting.

Similar to other SMS services, Ez Texting enables an organization to setup a custom keyword for subscribing. Once a keyword is generated, an organization can begin to use features such as multiple subscription lists, website/blog widgets, and group management features in order to communicate messages and announcements.

Like some others, Ez Texting is limited to US and Canadian audiences. There are monthly subscription plans, and a free trial is available.

For more information, visit the Ez Texting website or interact with them on Twitter (@eztexting) .

Labels: communication, SMS, subscription

Here's a press release about a new product called Twext from the folks at Church Community Builder (CCB). Seems like a solid product for those organizations who'd like to add the additional broadcast layers of Twitter and texting to their church/organizational communications.

Colorado Springs, CO, JANUARY 4, 2010—Church Community Builder (CCB) (http://www.churchcommunitybuilder.com), the pioneer of socially-based church management (ChMS), has released an innovative new communications tool that combines Text Messaging and Twitter - called CCB Twext - that will provide church and small group leaders with leading edge communications capabilities.

"Effective communication tools are critical for all churches. Because CCB highly values the interactive social nature of church communities, adding Text Messaging as a communication option was a no-brainer for us," states Steve Caton, VP of Sales and Marketing. "However, we really wanted to take the next step by providing a way to seamlessly integrate texting with Twitter, thereby adding yet another communications vehicle to the mix where appropriate."

CCB Twext™ Offers the Following Benefits:

Group Texting: In addition to email and mail merge, every Group Leader has the option to communicate with their Group participants via Text Messaging.

Twitter Integration: If a group within the church has its own Twitter account, the Group Leader can add that account to their CCB Group. When utilized, a Text Message sent to the group will also immediately post as a Tweet on the group Twitter™ feed. This further extends the reach of the Text Message to those who may not receive text messages but are a member of the Twitter group.

Member Controlled: Group members have full control over their ability to receive text messages. They must proactively edit their CCB profile before receiving them. This ensures people don’t end up paying for text messages they do not wish to receive.

CCB Twext represents another major milestone and differentiator for CCB’s innovative church management solution. In addition to providing benefits to the entire congregation, CCB also offers the most robust communication tools to your leadership so they can remain connected to those they serve in the most relevant manner possible. For more information or to speak with someone at Church Community Builder about this and other valuable functionality, email sales@churchcommunitybuilder.com or call 1-866-242-1199.

Labels: ChMS, Church IT, communication, community, SMS, twitter, Web

This is so beyond just a website that its cool. mGive is a very cool serivce that allows non-profits and charities to receive donations via contributors mobile devices. And this is mostly an SMS-based service. From their website:

mGive allows your organization to raise money through text message donations. Supporters of your cause send a text message to your keyword & short code and their $5 or $10 donation is applied to their cell phone bill. Once you create a campaign, you can drive awareness via print, radio, television, online and social network adverts.

mGive provides a campaign-specific keyword, a shared shortcode (for use across several mobile carriers), online reporting and marketing tools, widgets for many blogs and social networks, a volunteer management tool, SMS scheduler, and donor collection reports.

The serivce is limited to US mobile carriers at this time (seems as if carrier billing is enabled). But for the most part can allow many organizations to get started with mobile giving pretty quickly. Check out the mGive website, Facebook, or Twitter for more information.

Labels: giving, SMS, stewardship

I wish that I could have written this a bit earlier, but my friend Tomi Ahonen posted some really neat stats about mobile devices the other day. Here's a quick summary:

• More than 3 billion people in the world use SMS;
• The total revenues for SMS has passed 100 billion dollars, which is more than the combined total of the global music, global video gaming, and global movie industries!
• 31% of mobile phone users use the mobile web (over 4 billion registered mobile phone users globally);
• A little over 1 billion PC internet users versus 1.2 billion mobile internet users

Personally speaking, these numbers are amazing. And just point to the sheer impact that mobile devices have been over the last 10+ years.

That's not to say that the PC will go away, but mobile means a lot more to more people than PC does. And we are just getting started.

Labels: global, Internet, mobility, SMS

I can't tell you how long I've been looking for a means to do this, but it seems that I might have finally found a way to enable you - the reader - to keep up with MMM without using an RSS reader.

Check out this beta service called Pingie. Pingie is basically a service that turns RSS feeds into SMS messages (read more). No app needed, and definitely painless to setup. You simply create a profile and then that's it. The service also supports plenty of mobile web and SMS-based commands to get some better use/admin out of the service.

Currently, Pingie supports US carriers only (possibly Canada, the website wasn't clear on this). I'd recommend Google Lab's SMS Channels for those in India and supported countries as an alternative to Pingie. For either, you'd need to have an account, so do be sure to read all of the terms of service, and make sure that your SMS plan fits this kind of use

For more information about Pingie, check out their website. Here's the direct link to add MMM to Pingie or you can add your mobile number in below to get the SMS updates.

By the way, if you know of other RSS to SMS services, do list those in the comments below. We'd be happy to post about them, or just create a massive connect page for these items :)

Labels: Pingie, RSS, SMS

If I had to rank my experiences of the Visual Story Network Summit, it would have to be one of the questions that I was asked after presenting:

(Paraphrased) Can I ask you a question? And you can be honest with me, I hope that you are. Do you send text messages while you drive? I looked at him blankly, impressed, and convicted - simply saying that "yes, I do SMS while driving.

At that moment, everything that I spoke in that presentation meant nothing, as I showed by that answer my clear selfishness towards tech over people.

For all of the adrenaline that I had going through me, feeling a lot like I did a horrible job - that question not only slapped me back to reality, but in so many respects, leveled the kind of accountability to mobile that I many times do not display at all.

Truly, I've thought about that question all weekend; and today when driving back and forth to/from the office, I picked up my mobile intending to SMS a few people, only to remember that for all that I have in my hands, the lives of others on the road are so much more important.

Christ asks us simply to give our lives for someone else. When we text while driving, we are being selfish; taking the inventory call that their lives matter less than our own. Totally convicted by that moment, I'm changed. I hope that in Christ's stead, and as accountabilty for yourself and others around you, that you would consider putting down the mobile while driving as well.

Labels: accessiblity, SMS, tech, VSN

Your church should be using SMS a lot more. Seriously. You should have groups that get notified by SMS for church-wide announcements, offerings/tithe payments via SMS, etc. There's no reason to not be doing this right now. Most of you have communities where over 95% of the people have a mobile phone and some type of SMS plan to them. Use it? Become the point of reference towards using the technology in a manner that's relevant to the needs of your community. Then sit back and watch interaction happen. Its not that hard really. You should just do it.

Or maybe that was too blunt. Its really easy to take a service like Twitter, add your church, and teach people how to subscribe to Twitter via SMS. Then you have a means for broadcasting announcements and other items, that's always from a single verified place, and promotes interaction with those who want to be interactive.

I'm simply saying that instead of wondering how this tech could work, SMS is an easy and relatively pain-free means to trying something new. Why not?

Labels: communication, community, SMS

I responded to another of Gabe's insightful posts (Twittering in Church) because its a subject that I think needs all kinds of abilities to understand. Afterwards, I wanted to post the response here - as this is a slightly different audience - and continue some of that discussion because it hits on areas of contention that have been had online and off. At the same time, this is the kind of discussion that we should be having as a gathering (here @ MMM) of tech-enabled, worshipers of God. Here's the comment (please do read the blog posting and comments afterwards for the complete context):

Teaching what is appropriate and not is a cultural and social function [of technology]; this should be something that is done independent of the technology trends [for example in discipleship], and at the same time it [the teaching/discipling] should mind those trends and give wisdom where needed.

Simply saying that "because a pastor is preaching doesn't mean you should be texting and tweeting" is not a remedy for the issue – that is, you are only addressing symptoms of a greater thought that most likely wasn't taught. Namely: ethics (re: Proverbs and Ecc.).

It is only after teaching these ethical issues of social, technology, and culture that one can sit and make the rules that others suppose should be the case of this digitally native and very social generation. I’m sorry folks, but most of you commenting are more like myself where you sit as a late Gen X or early Gen Y-er; you aren’t native to this way of communitating and therefore your "rules" and "perceptions" will cause more problems than they solve.

To those peeved that people can text better than they can recite books and doctrine, do a better job discipling and then maybe you won't have the tech issue to harp on as loudly. And yes, I very much practice what I preach – Gabe can totally vouch for that much.

Lastly, I too am of the opinion that "church" is what happens in-between the Sunday worship gatherings. That the active acts of creating community with people in and outside of the Christian faith should be what defines church. If this action is spilling over into our use of tech, and moreso into those worship gatherings, then we need to (a) redefine and further emphasize what it means to be a gathering of worshippers, and (b) do a much better job of discipling one another towards healthy boundaries and margins, making sure that we don't miss that knowledge and understanding of this specific time and space towards technology, while sharing the implications of this change and what it needs to mean for us and those around us as we engage in this thing called church.

Labels: church, community, mobility, SMS, twitter

This was pointed out to me a few days ago and is a pretty neat service for those of you looking to share Bible verses with folks on Twitter, and would like to have them actually link to the verse.

The service is called Ref.ly (http://ref.ly) and is by the folks over at Logos. Basically, its a URL shortening service just for Bible verses.

Sure, there's a pretty narrow need for something like this, but there is a need. And the best part is that this works whether you are just posting the links to twitter, or looking for a short URL to send to someone via SMS.

Check it out and let us know (via twitter - @mobileminmag) what you think of Ref.ly. And, can you think of other uses for this kind of service?

Labels: Bible, SMS, tech, twitter

I embarked on a bit of communication cleansing this week. In the early part of the week, I answered some questions relating to ministry activities. Then some items at work had be both flustered and prayerful. And then the (near) big thing; I made a call to eliminate email from my life.

Now let me say this. Its almost impossible to do so due to MMM, Brighthand, and work responsibilities. However, personally, I can do this, and it would be hard, but possible. So I set about forwarding various personal email addresses to my mobile phone number's email address. Every mobile phone number is an email address, and messages sent to it would become SMS (text) messages.

I then set up some autoresponders for those email addresses letting people know that its best from this point out to contact me via SMS and/or IM. And because I'm stingy with both SMS and IM, I know (based on relationship to me) whom will contact me how.

So I made this change and you know the first thing I noticed? I get way too much email that I don't read. I'm speaking of newsletters and such. I just don't read them. And getting these extremely long messages as SMSes didn't help one bit to make me read them. So I've set about unsubscribing from them all.

Of course, not everything was that simple. I needed to also change the email addresses for those entities that I like to the mobile email/SMS address. That was harder than I thought it would be because I needed to click on links to verify the change, but the links were usually broken. So I had to type (copy) the link down in Notepad and then click on it in another web browser so that I could make that change. Thankfully, that only had to be done twice.

Lastly, its responding to people. Already I've had some people message me asking what is the correct email address because a SMS is too small; I simply responded that if it can't be said in 160 characters, then you probably are saying too much, or should call/visit to discuss it.

Sounds harsh, but there's a point I'm trying to make with this. We have all noticed that (certain types of) tech has gotten to the point where its ruling our lives. Where we are bending-over-backwards-and-above to see who is contacting us when, and a lot of times the messages can wait or be better prioritized. Because SMS is about as pervasive as messaging gets and not web-based, I ensure that I get the message, but the response time is still up to me. If you will, I'm changing my behavior to address the content/context, not the will of the technology.

Given this story, I'd like to encourage you to think about your use of technology. It may very well be that you need certain types of interactions for your life/work. However, if you are letting the Facebooks, tweets, emails, SMSes, IMs, and voice calls rule you, then you are no more than one of Pavlov's dogs, simply responding to a bell, rather than using your will to delegate the importance of the communication. Find better filters; then change your response to messages with them. You have only so-large of a bucket of things you can take in (directly and indirectly).

To those messaging you, they too should respect context. Not everything needs to be said in three pages (like this post), and many things need more than 160 characters. Find a balance, and then clearly communicate which methods are best for them to best reach you. You might not get rid of all the junk that comes your way, but the reduction in stress will allow you to better serve Christ and others with the tech you've resigned yourself to use.

Labels: communication, community, SMS, tech

Two things of note since this is pretty much a light posting day.

First is to let you know of the 177th Carnival of the Mobilists. As usual, there are a smattering of pieces by mobile-oriented bloggers from all over. I've got a piece in this week's postings as well, though I'll warn you that it might offend a bit ;)

Then there are these thoughts/actions on mobile that I'm pondering in my head: for instance, my church is small, and we have a few college students home for the summer. There aren't many things to do towards keeping them occupied, and so I wanted to do a bit of Friday night fellowships. However, being so SMS/mobile-oriented, I'm debating on the best usages of a service like Church Texting Manager to make it happen best and keep it in a position where others can just find out about it on a whim.

Then I have some thoughts about how to handle some of the requests from friends and family towards helping them to attain a solid mobile device. Now personally, I simply go to Craigslist and find a good deal. But really, who has the time for that. Maybe something like the MMM Smartphone Guide can be done in a smaller, more search-friendly format that would make it easier for people to not just shop, but purchase devices on their own effectively.

I'm also wondering if MMM can include those who bike. You know? Just keeping it mobile ;) hehehe.

Labels: biking, Carnival of the Mobilists, community, mission, SMS

One of the more interesting notes to come out of BibleTech (and even in my preparation for my presentation) was the idea of added SMS to the texture of community interactions.

One company, Church Texting Manager, from the founder of Laridian Bible Software, aims to hit that niche squarely by enabling announcements and group management via SMS. The great thing about this is that there are some churches already in the game and enabling SMS within their services now.

For example, Ricky Cadden (of Symbian Guru and Mobile Burn fame) has posted on his personal website about the new experience of his church doing SMS during service. Here's a snippet of his reflections:

... I rather like the ability to pose questions anonymously, and definitely think that it helps others who might not be comfortable speaking out to ask a question, or who might not know who to ask. This setup also closely adheres to my belief that technology should enrich and enable real life, and not get in the way. In this case, it enables others to easily get answers to questions they might have, in a nonthreatening way. It also enriches others, as it helps the staff know what things the congregation might be confused about, or what things would be good to focus future sermons on.

Read the rest of Ricky's experience over at RickyCadden.com.

Much like we've chatted about on several occasions, SMS is the kind of mobile-enabling technology that can not only cut down response times in admistrative facilities, but it invites the kind of interactions that offer new windows towards being open in faith - whether that is simply being available for a question, or including someone on a random request for a group prayer/fellowship. And as Ricky's post showed, enabling SMS messaging also has the side-benefit of driving people to the church/org's main website. Making for some more potential avenues of feedback and interaction.

Just think, what if your kids were able to use SMS for more than just random chats to friends, but had an outlet - a personal one - to get the questions answered they'd been looking to have. What could the response to life and faith be there?

Labels: community, mobility, SMS

One of the points that I picked up in reading Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media is that mobility can be defined in a number of ways. One really effective way to look at things is in respect to the time it takes to do tasks - or as it was stated there, 30 second and 30 minute tasks.

There are some things that we just do since its immediate: check weather, look at a calendar, sports scores, etc. There are other things that we do in longer durations: read and reply to email, watch videos, blog, etc. For some of these tasks, mobile devices can be pretty effective. When you need information right now, SMS search services and the mobile internet can be pretty effective. However, as many of those systems are built, if you want to do something like invite people to something, it takes sitting down and patching information from many places - turning that 30sec task into a 30min one.

Now, let's frame this in the context of some of the things we do in the Body. For example, we have various services and meetings. For many of us, we'd do well to have those meetings near us in some kind of calendar, and maybe even a reminder. How about then your church having a service where in addition to a church calendar that you can view from your normal browser, that you can elect to get SMS alerts for the most upcoming events?

Or let's make it even better. Suppose you are at that point in the service where the pastor will be preaching in a few minutes. A notification is made (voice or big screen) that you can dial a shortcode in order to get the outline sent to you via SMS before the pastor starts preaching. To those who are visiting a new church who aren't in that church's directory, they are made aware that they will get a second SMS asking if they want to opt-in to other announcements. Those who are on that list already would just continue with having the outline on one screen, notes and Bible on others (or not).

The idea is simply that with mobile devices in the hands of most of us, we can start looking at better enabling those types of content that can fit within 30sec stints, instead of forcing them into 30min ones.

Yes, there is always that case where you will want to do more. I'm not saying that you cannot. I am saying that skilfully using this technology means that we start looking at better ways to do simple tasks. Its in doing this that we start to see the potential for mobile-enabled devices and services to come alongside what we are already familiar with, and create that 4th screen (or 7th dimension) to a fuller expression of unity in Christ and beyond.

Small additional note: Tomi Ahonen expounded on this from the perspective of mobile on a post at Communities Dominate Brands today.

Labels: communication, community, innovation, mobility, SMS

I've been thinking about ways to enable some of the MMM content to reach people a bit more readily. Things like email newsletters and RSS are conventional, and they do work, but I was looking for something a bit more... immediate.

What if MMM was available to be delivered right to you mobile as a SMS (text) message. When a new item is posted - or at a time you determined - you would get an SMS with the latest post (title and link) or a list of the last five posts with a link to the front page?

From there, you'd be encouraged to share (forward) the SMS with friends, and others would also be able to subscribe either via email or sending an SMS shortcode.

Of course, I also think of a service like this working for something like church announcements - where your church has a shortcode where you simply type it and then are subscribed to SMS updates in a digest form from your church. You would then have a place on your church's website where you could also have the articles sent to an email address, or change SMS delivery options.

Thoughts? Its just something in my head I'm playing around with for now.

Update: I found out that there are two services similar to this idea, SMS Gupshup and Google India's SMS Channels (found via Digital Inspiration). Uhmmm...

Labels: community, mobility, SMS

In the earlier years of MMM, we had this series called "If Paul Had A Blog." What was really interesting about this series was looking at the effect of the technology that we use now on the missionary journeys that Paul experienced.

Since its been a while, I wanted to take another look at this. And given the attention that smartphones and mobility have taken with a more mainstream audience, we can get a glimpse of just how indepth technology is today, and some of the challenges that could be had.

First thing to note, Paul would have had a mobile phone. Probably not the N95 that I get to carry around, but something along the lines of the Nokia 6210 Navigator. This device has a few things that would have been beneficial - at least until a shipwreck or three - GPS with a built-in compass for Nokia Maps, ability to access the web, and a camera that had the ability to not just send text of what he was experiencing and whom he was thankful for, but images as well.

Now, he would have had to do all of this on a prepay system because there would be no way that a person could move that much across various countries and have a contract, it would just be a hassle in dealing with the billing.

He'd have the ability to use something like Nokia nviNe in order to allow others to keep up with his journeys. The really interesting part about this would be that we could see where he would be shipwrecked, and then when he gets a new mobile and starts up the service again, we can see that break in action and begin to keep him in prayer or launch a search.

Now, it would also be of his benefit to create sermons that could be uploaded and shared to places like YouTube, Flickr, Ovi, Facebook, or MySpace. He'd also have the benefit of being able to keep tabs with the latest policy changes happening from Rome with SMS alerts (if he was willing to sign up for an SMS service from Rome that is).

I would be interesting to see also how Paul would teach the use of this tech. He speaks on his ability to speak many languages to the Corinithians, but always emphasized the need to make sure that the Body was best served with whatever was brought to the table.

The more I think about it, the mobile tech tools of today present an easier means for us who are missions minded to be like Paul. Sure, we might not travel the world, nor need everyone to know what we are doing. But we can create lines that intersect with the lives of others, and then allow the technology to better accent or even encourage the lives of those who might not get a chance to see us in person.

I wonder if the Body is looking to go back towards doing this in various applications? It would be pretty interesting don't you think?

Labels: blog, camera, maps, mission, mobility, multimedia, Nokia, Nokia Maps, SMS, tech

This is the meat of the MMM Mobile Experiment Report, and also where it makes the transition from being just a review of software and online services to one of looking beyond the offering to the ability that it lends. Here's an outline of what is covered in this, Part Two, of the MMM Mobile Experiment Report:

• Additional Setup Items
• Day to Day Use
• Immediate Challenges
• Accessibility versus Versatility

Given the length of this, section of the report, it will be an extra day before publishing the third and final section. This report will also be made available as a singular download (debating on the format of that now). Enjoy Part Two, and please do not hesitate to give any comments to this or Part One.

Part Two:

Having set up the Mobile Web Server application on my device, and creating the Mobile Web Server website, I had to set up some initial pages so that in coming to the site, Mobile Ministry Magazine readers would be greeting with more than just a blank page. There are two parts to setting things up for day to day use; one part is on the mobile device and the other is through a browser (that can be on the mobile device or not; but most might choose not to go that route and just use a separate computer).

Setup on the Mobile Device

On the mobile device, one navigates to the Web Server application and is presented with a series of screens. First, you are asked to insert your user name and password that was set up on the MWS website. There are a few easy to figure out section of the application that is always shown when it is opened from here: Users, Status Message, Statistics, Access Log, Folders, and Settings.

The Users section was probably the one that I spent the most time with initially. There is a default Guest account where one can set Guest access to the MWS; and then from contacts in one's address book, you can set specific users to have ability with a user name based on their name in your address book and a password that you have set for them. I quickly abandoned doing this for a lot of people and just settled on making sure that I had a user group for my family to special sections of the MWS site, and everyone else just got the Guest account.

Truth be told, I spent a lot of time looking at the Access Log. I wanted to see how many people were hitting the site, and it was kind of neat the first few days of the experiment. We averaged about 10 unique users per day and for the most part people did not have issues with logging in (user names are case-sensitive; found that out halfway through the project).

Setup through the Web Browser

There is a setup wizard that one has to access from a device that has a suitable web browser while the mobile web server (MWS) is running. On my end, I used my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot at a local coffeehouse while the MWS was running on my N75.

Two parts of this allow you to set up things like the welcome screen, offline page and message, and get a badge that can be displayed on several websites. After this wizard, there is a control panel that keeps the latter items, and allows for presence updates on the status page. One can change the theme to several types; however they are nothing more than color and banner changes. Unless you want to dig in the mobile device and play, there is no way to create custom layouts or fiddle with the CSS for more customization.

From the web browser one is able to set all types of options and create content and points of contact.

• Home
• Blog
• Camera
• Gallery
• Guestbook
• Contact Me
• Presence
• Web Chat
• Calendar
• Messaging
• Phone Log
• Contacts

By default, guests only see the Home, Blog, Presence, and Contact Me sections. The Gallery has to be setup to either show (share) pictures that are shared from the phone's internal memory, memory card, or both. I found that the Guestbook was a bit of a redundant feature, but it could prove beneficial in some applications. The Web Chat section is interesting as when someone starts a web chat, there is notification on the mobile device of the chat and then an IM-like interface is given. From there chat happens just as it would in any other chat room. The Calendar, Phone Log, and Contacts are pulled right from the mobile device and gives a browser-accessible means to see and edit content. I liked this feature, but wished that there was more granularities so that some users could see "Busy" instead of the specific event. Presence tells the state of the mobile phone such as how long it has been idle, battery life, and a status message. And finally Messaging allows one to send an email or SMS message directly to you as well as see all the SMS and MMS messages that are stored on your mobile device (Inbox and those sent).

One neat feature that is present throughout is the fact that all contacts that appear in various applications such as Calendar and Messaging are linked to their contact card. This contact card shows the last call as well as links to the address book entry. Simple, but really neat.

From registration to setting up the welcome page and basic access rights it took about 30 minutes to get rolling. After that it was just a matter of running the MWS on my device and engaging with people as they visited MMM Mobile.

Day to Day Use

The Mobile Web Server is pretty much a set it and forget it type of application. I let it run most of the day, taking it down in the AM in order to use my mobile device as a modem for my Internet Tablet and desktop. During this time, I updated the status message to point visitors to the MMM Jaiku channel. In pointing people to the MMM Jaiku channel, it was my hope to engage the usual readers of MMM, and the new visitors of the breadth of content related to Mobile Ministry Magazine, as well as engage in some discussions across a social network in a slightly different function than what is normally done in blog-driven websites.

On the downside of the day to day use, the MWS was an inconvenience in terms of the other connectivity that I aspire to have on my mobile device. Usually, I run the Emoze email client and the Jaiku Mobile client. Because of the MWS, I was not able to run these and have a long functioning device. Either the MWS would take over the connections, or the applications would consume too much memory and cause one or all of them to shut down. During the experiment, I only suffered one total device crash, but this was an instance where the hardware specifications of my N75 (which has about 15MB of memory free for running programs at boot) was at the very bottom of what is needed to run the MWS.

Because of this limitation, I was not able to use programs such as widgets to keep me abreast of what was going on at the MWS without opening the application. That being said, it was quite nice to have the server running and not have to think about it unless I needed some kind of functionality that was a bit more than normal.

A small note: the Nokia N75 is a 3G phone, meaning that it has the ability to use a high speed data network called HSDPA. Because of the specifications of this network, the device is able to use applications that connect to the Internet at the same time as using voice functions. While running the MWS, there was no drop off in voice quality or phone functions except for occasional slowness for MMS message processing.

Immediate Challenges

While there were those hardware challenges, the large and more pertinent challenges to using the MWS was trying to keep the same kind of communicative presence that had been done at Mobile Ministry Magazine. Essentially, opportunities to post to the blog, upload pictures, and engage the reading community were all things that seemed a lot easier when connectivity was spread across devices instead of being centered on one device.

For example, whenever I needed to use the web browser on the N75, I had to shut down the MWS because the two applications were too large to run at the same time. This meant that I would have to create a status message saying that the server was down and point people to the MMM Jaiku channel; then initiate a discussion at the MMM Jaiku channel; and then I would be able to continue with using the web browser. Certainly, having a device with later hardware (more memory and processor speed) would have been great here.

Another issue that I found was that in order to publish to the blog, I needed some type of dual connection. Using the MWS made situations of traveling to WI-Fi hotspots a bit of an adventure as now instead of using them just as a rest place, I wanted to be strategic in making sure that I could create a conversation piece around the use of the technology. It was not until later in the experiment that I realized that there would be times that I would be able to use the web browser on the N75 in order to populate the blog. This stretched the mobile device, but creating a blog post where I was able to live blog a sermon and have my notes created on the N75 instantly appear online was quite exciting (mental note: taking a T9 typing class before doing this should be a prerequisite).

Accessibility versus Versatility

This challenge of balancing multiple devices, multiple input methods, and then just the plan fact that a web server can really go with you anytime makes one feel more accessible than ever. The granular level of being able to assign contacts or groups of contacts to various parts of one's mobile device presents a solution that is present already in some enterprise applications such as SharePoint and even commercial ones like Movable Type. But those are PC-focused solutions. Nothing wrong with that, but as mobile devices become more versatile, one should not just assume, but see that a lot more of what we do can be driven from a mobile platform.

The Mobile Web Server is an answer to a question that is not yet asked so loudly yet though. Its not so much an issue of how does one stay accessible, as many connected devices open to you; but it allows you to determine how you want people to connect to you based on the social network that you have built - your phone book. This is more powerful and empowering when combined with a communications strategy and a personality that invites people to want to connect to you. That being said, its not accessibility that is the focus of using the MWS, its versatility. Versatility meaning that you are empowered to take your social network with you, and how they connect to you is determined by you, not by the service that you subscribe to.

This is if you where using the software and service makes a change from being just a piece of software or just another online service. It would be easy to just put the MWS into one of those categories and then judge it based on its benchmarks; but there is nothing to just it against. Nokia's Mobile Web Server is a canvas that if given the network and the hardware (and economies) becomes a canvas that enable the kind of personal computing that was dreamed about in the 1950s when the foundations of the Internet began, and now realized with the fast and (nearly) open wireless networks that most of the world has access to.

Flash Sideshow of MWS Screens, via Share on Ovi

Labels: accessiblity, browser, community, device, internet tablet, Jaiku, mobile, Mobile Web Server, mobiles, mobility, N75, Nokia, review, SMS, software, tech, usability

Image via Wikipedia

A very big thing for churches and ministries to understand about mobile tech is that it is an active agent. Being an active agent means that it not only is a product of an action, but mobile technology fosters several layers of interaction. From listening to a phone call, to reading an SMS, to viewing video, to something even more advanced, taking advantage of the computing that is in one's hands is an advantage for community-building that the church should not miss.

This is why I like the service Mobile Verses. It doesn't require that one have the latest or greatest smartphone, only one that is capable of receiving text messages. Yes, some of the services might stretch budgets a bit, but that is where churches/ministries work with Mobile Verses and other sponsors towards making these services usable for mobile device users.

Now, a common question I get is "why would I want something like Mobile Verses when I have a Bible?" Any pastor, or just a general onlooker can tell you that having a Bible is not always handy. Nor is having a calendar that is always accessible. Mobile Verses not only puts the Bible at your fingertips, but can accent that [sometimes boring and crowd thinning] announcements section of services. Yes, people will have mobile devices out during services, but like I've stated in other posts; the church should be at the front of teaching tech responsiblity. What better way to do so than with using a service like Mobile Verses.

Now before anyone thinks that I am writing this because they "tipped" MMM, please understand that this is not my reasoning. Mobile Verses is a very solid offering and one that should not be looked past, especially when high school students are carrying phones and using them to write things in their calendars ;)

Visit the Mobile Verses website for more information.

Labels: community, mobile, mobility, phone, SMS, tech, usability