Posts Tagged ‘analysis’

How to Select Mobile App/Web Content Options from a Buffet of Offerings

Monday, November 14th, 2011

One of the challenges that larger ministries tend to run into when looking at developing a mobile ministry strategy, or even developing a mobile ministry website, application, or service, is that of taking their entire plate of content and making it mobile-friendly. Chances are, if you are at this place in your mobile strategy, you’ve probably hit a nice speed bump. Here are some tips to help you over that bump and move towards something a bit more digestible to your audience.

First: Understand What It Is People Do On Mobile Devices

This part doesn’t take any complicated statistics, viewpoints, or trends studies. It actually is just one of those common sense moments. You have a product or brand experience that you’d like to offer on mobile. How much of that experience translates well into a 10-30 second glance on a 3.5in screen?

Take email, people get notifications of messages. They check it. They might throw out a short reply. Then the device goes back into their pocket. You might get them to scroll a bit. But, you know how it is – get too much scrolling or the subject matter is too thick and that’s something relegated to viewing on a larger screen like a tablet or laptop.

Think about contexts like this. What about your brand experience translates to how people already use mobile devices? Will what you offer on mobile expand on that existing behavior, or invent something new?

Second: Figure Out All of the Features/Services That You Offer

This might come as a shock, but in many organizations, there are a number of people who don’t visit that organization’s website. Even more shocking, you might find that the people who do visit it don’t go to the places that people who don’t work for the company venture to. This mis-association with websites leads people to not know the entire swath of services/products that the organization offers.

Once you’ve figured out what all it is that you offer. Make a two-column list. Title one column “things I’d like to see us do on mobile” and the other “things I couldn’t see on a mobile.” Then, take that first column and, using your mobile device, do those items. Log that experience. You might need to adjust the number of items in one column versus the other.

Third: Determine What is Uniquely Yours to Offer in/on Mobile

Of that listing of items that “you’d like to see us do on mobile,” there are hopefully some items which are unique to your ministry or organization. These might be siloed items (meaning that they have very loose connections to the overall brand/marketing strategy of your ministry/organization) or that they might be so very custom that it might take some signifiant work with either communications behaviors, technologies, or even convincing executive company members. Still, these are unique to your mission, and have some value if you can determine what in these can go mobile. This is where the bulk of your decision process for specific mobile features needs to lie.

Fourth: Reach for the Low-Hanging Fruit First

The last thing, and the most focused thing is taking that list of what you’d like to do, that’s been filtered to what you uniquely do, and then saying no to everything except one. Go for the low-hanging fruit. This will be your initial mobile app/web/service offering. It will allow you to make mistakes, generate successes, and see a faster return-on-investment for your efforts.

The Example (Fictional, Based on a few Real Ministries)

A ministry has been working in the southern region for sometime, and they’ve created a wealth of communications materials (daily devotionals, newsletters, reading plans, and the occasional multimedia piece that coat-tails on a popular local event). They want to “go mobile” but find that they have entirely too much content, and an unwilling content management system (incl the organizational processes) behind it.

They decide to take a look at their goals for going mobile. Thankfully, this is encapsulated in their mission statement (entreat, reach, and teach). These goals – when viewed through some of the unique characteristics of mobile – flow nicely with that initiative. They look at what they offer right now in terms of features (daily devotionals, newsletters, reading plans, and the multimedia items). All of these can go mobile, but only the daily devotionals are unique to them. They decide that their first engagement in the mobile space will have these daily devotionals as their backbone.

Due to the current reach of those devotionals (email and web analytics give this information), they know that developing a mobile website is a better proposition. They don’t have the in-house resource to create a mobile website from scratch (see other Mobile Web App services), so they invest in the Mobify service in order to make it happen. Those devotionals are already on their website, so they just need to use Mobify’s content editor to add their own branding and styles. At the end of the process, they choose a paid option for Mobify since their was little upfont costs in terms of reflowing content or learning HTML/CSS.

They release the next newsletter, daily devotional, and multimedia event with a link to the mobile-enabled daily devotional. The new m.fictionalministry.com website URL points only to the daily devotional which has links at the bottom of it to be shared with social networks. They also realized during the process that SMS (text messaging) also needs to play a part in sharing, and so they investigated Greater Calling and other SMS service providers whom are able to take the mobile-enabled devotionals and send those as a link via SMS.

We now have a ministry that’s utilized their brand position to take a deliberate and specific step into mobile. With minimal effort, they’ve been able to take existing content and make it available within mobile channels using both web and (version 2) SMS. Using the analytic tools within those services, they can see what works and what doesn’t and refine their plans for other areas of their site assets which need to go mobile. And to those portions of their ministry assets that cannot, they don’t lose the positive feelings generated by what does work well. Its not their entire offering, but just enough to feed the mobile appetite.

Resources to Help

 

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Pulling In Some Perspective on Mobile Apps

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Wikitude AR Web Browser - Share on OviOne – and probably the most popular – method of utilizing mobile a a channel for ministry is that of the mobile app. I’m working on a future piece that talks some about the return on investment question in regards to mobile ministry. But until that posts, I’d like to point to an excellent perspective on mobile apps from the marketing side of the mobile conversation from the folks at MobiThinking. Here’s a snippet:

…“When I saw the mobile winners at Cannes Lions, I immediately tweeted how the majority of the advertising festivals tend to think of mobile marketing only in terms of iPhone apps,” comments Leo Xavier, CEO, Pontomobi, the Brazilian mobile agency that built the official Cannes Lions mobile apps. “Obviously, it is a disappointing to see that four Gold mobile winners are nothing but an iPhone app. I really like the Heineken Starplayer app, though, because it is based on the new concept of co-viewing. And, yes, the best option to deliver that experience is an app. The problem here is that it is only for iPhone.” (Apple devices were about 3.5 percent of handset sales in 2010, so focusing on iPhone-only will exclude the vast majority of the client’s customers)…

Read the rest of Why Ad Agencies Like Mobile Apps at MobiThinking.

We do have some understanding of what works for mobile apps, but not necessarily what always works with those apps when “ministry” is envoked as part of the platter. Effective mobile ministry apps are few and far in between – at least if we have some common measure for what makes an effective mobile ministry app. So that approach is quite important. Probably mores than the app itself.

And now for a question to consider, if you are thinking of a mobile application as the/one of the methods that you will use for mobile ministry, what aspects of investing in that approach are you most unprepared for?

 

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Should I Have An App?

Friday, June 10th, 2011

The question of mobile applications is a popular one. Certainly, there are a number of people who cannot see mobile devices and services without them. And to some extent, this has always been the case. The question though that’s been been hard for some to ascertain for themselves though is whether they need an application or not.

Applications are event or task-driven software. Sometimes, this might require some input from the person who desires information. Other times, this input information may be derived from outside sources such as another website, sensors on a mobile device, or a combination of these plus input from the person. So then, with asking this question (should I have an app), we should probably start with the key piece of data – what will this application be providing?

In previous articles, we’ve talked about mobile having three components (devices, services, and experiences). In this piece, we’ll try to answer this question (should I have an app) through this lens.

Content and Services

There are two things you provide through any computing interface: content and services. Depending on your realm (media, education, etc.), what you are providing is key to discerning whether you need an application or not.

Taking from a recent inquiry where we were asked to help someone determine what kind of app they needed, we asked the question: what will your application be giving that your current endeavors on your website and Facebook do not already offer? The intention was to have a spade of content that was readily accessible to potential fans of their work, but that question (a content question given their realm) was already answered through their existing media engagements.

Platforms and Ecosystems

A consideration for any kind of application (whether native to a specific computer platform like Windows, iOS, etc., or more ubiquitous like the Internet) is where it will be living – if you will, what is the platform that you will choose to serve this application from. Again, depending on the realm that your content or services exist within, this can be a simple answer or a complicated one.

Graphic taken from VisionMobile’s article HTML5 and What It Means for the Mobile Industry. Also, Mobify has written recently on the topic of mobile apps versus mobile websites (disclaimer: we use Mobify for our mobilized website) with some items to consider that correlate with Vision Mobile’s findings.

Going back to the example above, the person was interested in an application for mobile devices, but was not aware that to address their current audiences, developing a mobile application for at least three mobile and at least one desktop platform (mobile: iOS, Android, and BlackBerry; desktop: Windows or Mac OS) was the course. Or, they could opt to take the route in developing a web application (using HTML5 most likely) that could fit across most of those platforms, but would (in that case) simply duplicate existing efforts on Facebook and their current website.

Closing the Experience

Regardless of your content/service and the platform, there’s a larger goal that you have in mind when you are asking the question “should I have an app.” Have you clearly defined the goal of this experience? What are the spiritual, theological, social, or personal takeaways that someone will (not should) have when they finish a session within your application.

Let’s go back to the example we’ve been using. Remember how we asked the question “what will your mobile application offer that your website and Facebook site don’t?” That question gets extended here. What is it that your content or service offers that changes the person? Does your current website or social networking engagement follow through on this experience goal? For what you think of building into your mobile application, is this a realistic goal for a mobile application? Mobile use is different than a regular PC, and even other forms of media (radio, TV). Given the attention span that a mobile device might have, and what you are thinking of as a mobile application, do goals line up with what can be had given this mobile context?

The “Checklist”

Clearly, this isn’t always an easy question. And for those whom are looking towards developing a mobile component to their offerings, there are other questions that come along as the prior two sections are nailed down. We have these three layers of mobile (devices, services, and experiences) that help guide towards answering some (or all) of these questions. This at least gets us to the point of having a checklist of sorts towards answering this question.

Should I have a mobile application?

  • Am I delivering content or performing/administering a service?
  • What does a mobile application enable my content/service to do that current channels (website, social networking, etc.) cannot do as effectively?
  • What platform should I choose for my initial mobile application?
  • Is my content/service complicated by logistical constraints (languages, delivery/receiving methods, etc.)?
  • What resources do I have to develop on the platform our audience is most likely to meet us on?
  • What experience should be gained after this mobile application is closed?
  • Does this follow along with our vision/values?
  • Are there aspects of the experience that we can’t control that we are ok with?

Granted, this is a simplified checklist, but it at least should help some in getting through the question of “should I have an app” towards the perspective of making sure that you don’t just have it to have it, but also profitably put your energies on reachable goals.

 

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Analyzing Mobile After Its Applied

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

In the previous post, we talked about how innovation needs to be relevant for it to have some kind of initial impact. How about we look at things later? For example, one of the questions that we pose to groups that want to work with MMM is: what else are you expecting to happen after the introduction of ‘X’ to your community?

If you will, is it possible to look far enough down the road towards the application of mobile or web technology to see some of the implications that you just won’t be able to control? For example, a group decides to add mobile technology to improve the ability for people groups to communicate with one another. But, doesn’t see that down the line, it was the use personal communication devices (and no longer sharing a single regional phone line) that caused group conflict, sometimes on a major scale (see the testimonies of the introduction and implications of mobile in the book Where Are You Africa).

Is it right to ask someone/organizations to be cognizant of the effects of mobile that can be so far down the line that its not (technically) controllable? I think so. And I think it comes in how we approach the technology as driver towards some kind of intended outcome.

What is the intended outcome of having a device that takes someone attention to their mobile device for one hour, instead of 5 minutes (the time spent on a game versus checking email)? With heads down that long, are we expecting that they will become less attached to the technology and more attached to reflection? Or, are we expecting that what we are doing is simply replacing an analogy behavior that’s done already? If we had them head down playing our ministry game/watching our movie, they now have a need to charge their device in more places. So there’s a purchase to extra batteries, car chargers, etc. They are using it more often so we now have to add sermons and teachings on fixing one’s attention spans. And the list goes on.

I’m not necessarily of the thought that gadgets are making us stupider or stealing aspects of our humanity, only that we haven’t totally thought through the implications of using this technology. While we can start for ministry (good, serving) needs, the impacts are always further. Being honest with some of the projects and applications we’ve come across, we’ve not done as good a job thinking ahead of use. That’s going to cause some unintended consequences. Some of these we’ll be ok with, but others might cause problems much too large for an application (or Facebook revolution) to solve.

 

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The Layers of Mobile Life

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

One of the points that we tried to get across in our BibleTech presentation is that there are several layers to mobile life that need to be understood if mobile ministry initiatives are going to meet with any success. Part of understanding those layers is indeed the relationship between mobile and faith. Another perspective of the layers of mobile life comes from the marketing and analytic fields.

For example, the results of a mobile life survey by TNS Global Marketing displays some of what could be understood from following, or not following trends in mobile.
screenshot of USA and Brazil mobile life comparison via Discover Mobile Life/TNS
See this in more detail along with other visualizations of the Mobile Life survey data from TNS’s Mobile Life website.

Just as important as these observations are, understanding mobile living also has to be considered from the viewpoint of what’s happening on the ground. There’s not as much data from those areas, so we are good to rely on reports such as Mobile Active’s How Small World News Trains Citizen Journalists and Captures Footage from Libya and the book Where Are You Africa?

Trends analysis (such as this one recently posted at Wireless Week) helps to get an idea of where to focus towards, and also where to look for those spaces where data is or can be best interpreted. You don’t base products or initiatives on those trends though. Trends – like prophetic versus in Scripture – need to be interpreted in light of the context in which they are given. And especially with some mobile trends’ data, you will want to get below the high-gloss level of trends to what’s actually happening as we talked about in the items above. That said, you can do a lot worse than Chetan Sharma‘s data – his work in this space is really well founded.

For mobile to be better utilized, this kind of research and data is needed. And from these efforts can sprout the kinds of insights that enable people to engage mobile not just as a layer to their lives, but as a wand to create better lives for themselves and others.

 

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Info-Graphics and Visualizing Mobile Contextually

Friday, November 5th, 2010

This past summer saw MMM participating in several conversations and sessions around opportunities and issues for mobile developers (with WIP Connector). More often than not, its isn’t the clearest of pictures for development when you start diving into niche arenas such as religious content. The market is indeed different, and the challenges can be pretty looming. Nevertheless, there are some consistent themes, especially in terms of getting apps to market and monetization.

This graphic, produced by Vision Mobile, makes it pretty clear the prospects for developers on the major mobile platforms. Especially as it relates to mobile software in the religious domain, paying attention to the installed base of users is just as important as just getting something developed – and you don’t want to spin your wheels learning how to develop for every platform.

The Mobile Developer Journey

Another site that offers several info-graphics towards understanding opportunities within mobile can be found at Asymco. Asymco has a ton of data and usually packs in some solid commentary around his methodologies used. Here’s one graphic that some in the Bible software industry might find interesting:
Info-Graphic: Visualizing iPad vs Mac, via Asycmo
Graphic from Visualizing iPad vs Mac, via Asycmo

Now, you can find info-graphics on a ton of areas within mobile, but you will want to make sure that you are viewing it through the appropriate lens. The data shown in this post is great, but you will need to combine it with data on (world/local) religions, tech adoption (economics), and probably media (text/publishing, audio/music, and video) in order for it to make the most sense contextually.

 

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Carnival of the Mobilists #242 at Blog.AntoineRJWright

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Carnival of the Mobilists (logo)It is always a good thing when the Carnival of the Mobilists (CoM) is published. A collection of the past week’s writings on mobile, the CoM is a chance to spread some of the wealth of thought and application occurring in the mobile space.

This week’s CoM is hosted over at Blog.AntoineRJWright and features pieces on recent stats, user interface/experience with tablets, and several things happening with platforms and carriers.

There’s always room for new contributors – so if you are doing anything related to mobile ministry, here’s a platform to get the word out about another influential area of mobile. Read the submission details and post schedule over at the Carnival of the Mobilists website.

 

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Content, Collaboration, and Mobile Ministry Case Studies

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

MMM has been going on for over 5 years. In that time, the point of the posted content was simply to be available. Mobile was too young and there were too many unanswerable questions for content to serve a purpose any more than that. Having been in this position for a while, and several others having stepped up in various aspects towards creating content, what needs to happen at MMM is a lot different than where it traditionally has been.

There are seven (7) content categories at here at MMM:

  • Mobile web trends
  • SMS/MMS Engagement Strategies
  • Mobiles in Education
  • Languages/Language Resource Development
  • Future Tech and Impacts
  • Devices, Software, and User Interfaces
  • Accessibility and Access

It is within these areas that MMM’s content is now designed around. As a general rule, I’m posing on one (1) of these items and doing so once a day – to ensure that it generates the kind of discussion and reflection befitting a magazine (moreso than just a blog).

All of these areas are fit for the submission of resource materials and the development of content/best practices which would fit the need for those persons looking for resources or examples of execution.

Therefore, the process of submitting/publishing of content is as follows:

  • Person contact’s MMM (via contact form or Twitter) that they have a content idea; discussions around the idea take place (whether it fits MMM’s model or not)
  • If accepted, the person shares (via Google Docs, Google Wave, or similar) or emails the content so that it can be reviewed and edited (if needed)
  • Content is placed in the publishing queue and the submitter is notified when this item posts to the Mobile Ministry Case Studies page
  • If this item is a downloadable – the use of document sharing entities such as SlideShare or Scribd are recommended.
  • If this item is an analyst report, the user and MMM can opt to negotiate making this item a paid (PayPal) downloadable (details on this to come later and will be detailed on the consulting and training services page
  • Marketing of the content is shared between MMM and the content submitter

In this way, the content sees a healthy set of eyes before it is published, and also there’s accountability throughout the process, ensuring that these items are published.

It may be the case that you have the data, but not the time to create the report. For this, negotiating with MMM the best way to create and publish the content is advised as this is a paid service.

Please know that I’d really like to get more voices and content on MMM. For 5 years it really has been mainly my voice. And while God has blessed me with a lot of writing and perspective over the years, there’s no way that I can capture or spark the discussion towards everything that’s happening. Given that MMM is in my hands in a longer-term mode, I owe it to the Body to be available, and use what He’s given me to bless your efforts.

So if this works not just in terms of building content, but making something of strategic value for you or your missional agents/clients, let’s chat. Thanks for your time, and your prayers. Let’s engage folks with a mobile lens and give em Christ :)

 

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