Again with one of those moments where perspective and expectations are clearly much different than cultural norms… its ok, there’s a point to this (too).
One of the tasks that’s taken about within MMM is to visit with other churches to connect and get a better sense of how they deal with communications in light of mobile, web, and other channels. To this end, visiting with a community is one part enjoying the time connecting, and another part looking at behaviors. For example, the welcoming of visitors is a pretty common function within church services, but, its also one that’s continually stayed low-tech.
Example (based on past many churches visited):
Break in the singing period for announcements (and a chance to catch one’s breath). At the end of announcements is a time to welcome those visiting. Visitors are asked to somehow identify themselves (raised hand, standing, or being sought out by regular visitors), and then handed by ushers a card with which would be filled out and placed into the offering basket.
After filling out the card and placing it into an offering basket, an administrator/secretary is tasked with entering the visitor’s information into some contacts system (anything from church database, to Outlook Contact Manager, to filed in a manilla folder). The visitor is then contacted by email and/or snail (postal) mail, thanking them for their visit, offering them to come back again, and given some sense of community activities with which to connect to that community again with.
The only acknowledgement of that message being received is them appearing again to some fellowship activity, usually at this point engaging in some face-to-face communication with someone a bit higher in authority than a layperson. Communications failures are (sometimes) logged – that is, the email is no good, or the address given comes back as undeliverable. Very rarely is there a feedback channel connected to that outreach communication. Therefore we end up with the appearance of welcoming persons, but really only more concerned that we broadcast a welcome, rather than actually meaning to connect with the visitor, or them with us in a manner that doesn’t look like consistent attendance or membership.
Could this be done better? Yup. Here’s what came to mind the last times I was given a visitor card:
- I wonder why they didn’t put a text message code (shortcode) on the screen for me to submit my visitor status, questions about the sermon, or receive updates about *that* event that I was interested in that they briefly mentioned (in voice and paper announcement)
- Is there a Twitter handle or Facebook page URL where I could respond more directly to the general community?
The text messaging piece poked me more than anything else. You see, I’m already sitting in that community seeing more than half of the attendees pulling out a mobile device when its time for reading/sermon-speak. I’m not even caring about the Bible version – I’m assuming that YouVersion and/or Olive Tree are already firmly entrenched. I’m actually willing to learn more about your community, just not by re-transcribing information that’s in your announcements document into my notes/calendar/contacts. Therefore, I’m looking for that community to take advantage of those characteristics of mobile – especially: personal, audience measurement, and point of creative inspiration – as a means of literally making me want to know more about them.
What Could It Look Like
I’d honestly prefer to hear a church say something like “here’s the shortcode to sign up for updates from our community. Or, if you are giving electronically, text “TITHE” and the whole number amount of your gift to the same shortcode. Remember, type “STOP” anytime you want to discontinue these updates. Or, “EMAIL” if you’d like these alerts to also come to the email address that we have on file for you. For those preferring paper, that can be found in our foyer.”
Yes, that’s thinking (a) digital first, and (b) mobile first. And its about time that many of you who have $40K sound systems, multiple-access point WLANs, multiple campuses, and a means to pay for streaming your sermon in real time to do something like this a good bit closer to the immediate and traceable activities of the moments that are nearest to people.
Organizational Communications Bias
If you look again at the example, its not simply just a matter of the communication method, but the impression that it gives off. I’m biased having dealings with organizational communications on a continual basis professionally. Input mechanisms always point to workflow behaviors which may or may not be optimized for that input point. These organizational communications insights also bend into those things that happen after the message is received (how long between the end of service and receiving an email/snail mail communicaton thanking me for a visit for example). As a visitor, I look at the surrounding investments into media, infrastructure, and even clothing of leadership and ask if in that paper solution that the same investments are being made. It is indeed a bias, I won’t shy from that. Hence the article and question.
Potential, Possibilities, and Present Services
For those without those extravagent systems, and see this as a decent idea, take a look at some of the SMS types of services out there and experiment. The immediacy of mobile, and its nature to be very accurate as a means of audience measurement, means that you can much faster get your finger on the pulse of events and moments like visitors.
No, its not normal. And I’m not making concessions to those who don’t have those mobile tools that could use this. That’s not the point here. You should – especially if you already see some mass of people using mobile in the midst of services – have some idea of the penetration rates of mobile/social web in your communities. If you don’t, that’s another matter entirely. Because if you are anything near the example given above, you’ve got to get a handle on that before you can even think to go this route.
Mobility in the Midwest (US) – A Cautionary Tale
Monday, October 25th, 2010I live in Kansas, where technology isn’t at the speed of light like the rest of the world. In the rural part where I am, until October there was only one local provider with old phone models and old phone plans. October 1, AT&T came into the rural parts of the Midwest bringing with it better choices of technology and better phone plans. However, people are resistant. AT&T should be very careful here, play their hand right because Midwest people are not like rough New York people used to the hustle and bustle of sales and deals. This is a place of slower moving people, business and while I see it changing, here are some things that can make the transition better.
First, AT&T bought out a local company which was a CDMA-based cellular provider – AT&T is a GSM carrier. While that means something to me and probably to the reader, it means very little to 90% of the population here. People in my town have been used to buying the simple phone, having it for 2 years on contract and then switching. The concept of putting a SIM card in a different phone every week or every day is foreign and mostly unnecessary to many of the people here.
Because of the move to a different cellular technology, AT&T is forcing upgrades on phones and plans for people who are/were happy with the phones they currently have. Granted, there’s a technical reason why they cannot keep their old phones, but changing their plans by force is not the way to keep customers.
I believe GSM is the way to go, who should be locked into one phone for one year, two years or however long the provider wants? This should not be the main concern with this target of customers. As with any change of service, people are looking for AT&T not just to keep their service on, but to woo them towards something better that they may offer. Locals are used to Unicel and 10 years of service and support – that’s a long time in business relationship terms – and so change has to come with some kind of incentive for existing customers.
The thing that AT&T is doing right is bringing the newer phones into rural Midwest. I finally have been able to attain an iPhone and be able to have service out here. Yay! There is a catch. I don’t have 3G yet. I believe it is coming. Having a national GSM company out here is first priority, then 3G will follow. And not to sound like an Apple fan girl, AT&T is bringing Android 2.2 out here as well, which is great also because there will not just be a better network, but more choices for mobile devices which people can use on it.
As with many places, I’ve noticed there is a younger set of population in rural America that wants new technology, and has been craving it – yet availability and education towards newer technologies has been lacking. I have been bringing in my handsets for three years now and asked constantly, “what is that?” In many respects, I have been an evangelist of Nokia, Apple, and HTC smartphones for three years in a place that hasn’t seen anything like them. Now that a national carrier will sell them here, there’s a chance that a better understanding how these phones can help improve business practices and personal lives can take root.
Which takes me to back to my first point – while we are a slower moving part of the US, once we understand how something can improve our lives, we take it and run with it. I see the rural parts of Midwest coming into technology quickly – as long as AT&T doesn’t alienate the core customer base that it obtained. What I’d like to see AT&T do for their base customers, and for new customers is this: help rural America see how much a smart phone can help smooth out daily operations of lives. My father still has business cards from 1975 of people who are no longer in business, but the family has remained in contact. How can that be idea transferred to mobile? My smart phone can hold thousands of contacts, even if I never use them, with a search function by name so I don’t have to scroll for hours trying to find Sally Mae’s phone number. That is useful to people. Even if they don’t use the numbers often, they want to know that they can, and a phone that can only hold 100 hundred numbers is limiting. Touting a phone that can be a phone book, calendar, and hold pictures is something new to people here. It seems arbitrary to some city people, I know. I’ve had phones that have done that for at least 5 years. Yet this is a new way of life coming out to Midwest America and having people use it in a way that enhances life will be a fun transition to watch, and if handled correctly, will change lives for the better all around.
Come back next week when I discuss the ways the new technology coming in will affect business practices, church functions and community events.
Editor Note: Mobility in the Midwest is a weekly series that will be looking at some of the mobile technology challenges presented in the Midwest US, and what the transition to mobile and connected communications means towards these communities.
Tags: Apple, CDMA, communications, communtiy, education, feature articles, GSM, HTC, Midwest US, mobility, Mobility in the Midwest, nokia, SIM, tech
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