Tag Archives: mobile in spiritual

A Few in the Tabs

I’ve got a few pieces sitting in the tabs that I’ve wanted to expound on, but just haven’t made the time to do so. Here are some of those items sitting under that extended contemplation:

…One of the things I love most about technology is the space it allows us to dream and innovate. There’s always an opportunity for something new and people are hungry for it. So, if mobile technology has truly expanded to become a part of our daily life, how can we use this to reach people with the truth of Jesus Christ?

Read the rest of Mobile Technology and the Church at The Issachar Initiative

…Second, I’d like to point you to a great little book called Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology by Derek Shuurman, a computer science professor at Redeemer University College in Canada…

Read the rest of TheoMedia and Other Great, New Books on Technology at Don’t Eat the Fruit

…Vision must be aligned to the company’s mission: What is great about the drones is that they actually make a lot of sense given Amazon’s core business model. As I wrote previously in Amazon’s Dominant Strategy…

Read the rest of Amazon and the Benefits of Vision at Stratechery

…this points to how important research triangulation is to make good decisions based on insights, not just data. Real insights are found at the intersection of different research methods. Not over in the corner with just one method…

Read the rest of Conversions Are Not People at Elezea

In the case of the touchscreen, the spatial and visual meaning is not exactly gone, but is now floating and inflated. The touchscreen has multiple screens—each screen, a unique landscape. The single smooth surface offers itself for multiple landscapes and constantly changing meanings. At one moment, a swipe will unlock the phone; the next, the same swipe will answer an incoming call. Same motion, same locations, different meanings. The touchscreen’s agnosticism permits multiplied meanings.

Read the rest of Unbuttoned: The Meaning of Buttons in a Touchscreen World at The Second Eclectic

…Digicel built its business model around going to small, difficult countries that larger companies would avoid. These countries are challenging environments that “you’d run a mile from” because they don’t seem to have the resources to afford mobile telephony, says Colm Delves, Digicel’s CEO…

Read the rest of This Company Brought Cell Service to the Remotest Countries on Earth — and Then It Ran Out of Places to Go at Quartz

These all might read like stars on a cloudy night. But, I’ve had them set because these all speak to various points about mobile ministry which might elevate opportunity, best practice, caution, or surprise. I don’t know what might consist of those items on your reading list, but these are just a few of mine. As you walk though the holiday – and a slower news cycle – perhaps part of what stays open in your tabs provokes your imagination or sense of opportunity.

Mobile, Privacy, and Considerations

Its easy to continue down the consumer line that the holiday brings – talking new devices, apps, and services, and leaving weighter concerns to the opt-ed pieces which might hit a magazine or two. And then there’s that sense of responsibility. A condition of mobile in ministry is to understand the landscape and the challenges of just being in this space. In light of what we do, own, or promote, it our responsibility to pay attention to what might negate this landscape as well.

…Thanks to smartphones or Google Glass, we can now be pinged whenever we are about to do something stupid, unhealthy, or unsound. We wouldn’t necessarily need to know why the action would be wrong: the system’s algorithms do the moral calculus on their own. Citizens take on the role of information machines that feed the techno-bureaucratic complex with our data. And why wouldn’t we, if we are promised slimmer waistlines, cleaner air, or longer (and safer) lives in return?

This logic of preëmption is not different from that of the NSA in its fight against terror: let’s prevent problems rather than deal with their consequences. Even if we tie the hands of the NSA—by some combination of better oversight, stricter rules on data access, or stronger and friendlier encryption technologies—the data hunger of other state institutions would remain. They will justify it. On issues like obesity or climate change—where the policy makers are quick to add that we are facing a ticking-bomb scenario—they will say a little deficit of democracy can go a long way…

That segment is from an article that’s stayed open in a tab for me for a number of weeks now. The Real Privacy Problem at MIT Technology Review is a must-read, must-bookmark, and must share.

And yet, that’s not the end of things. We understand that its not just what we do which is being exposed, but what others are gathering about our actions which present very real challenges – if not outright defining characteristics – to what it means to have mobile ministry practices.

…The NSA has no reason to suspect that the movements of the overwhelming majority of cellphone users would be relevant to national security. Rather, it collects locations in bulk because its most powerful analytic tools — known collectively as CO-TRAVELER — allow it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.

Still, location data, especially when aggregated over time, are widely regarded among privacy advocates as uniquely sensitive. Sophisticated mathematical tech­niques enable NSA analysts to map cellphone owners’ relationships by correlating their patterns of movement over time with thousands or millions of other phone users who cross their paths. Cellphones broadcast their locations even when they are not being used to place a call or send a text message…

Read the rest of NSA tracking Cellphone Locations Worldwide, Snowden Documents Show at the Washington Post.

The Washington Post and others have been very brazen in publishing items like this. Whether or not one can get around that kind of monitoring is one thing, understanding what that monitoring means is another. And the truth also exposed here has to be understood – if countries are advanced enough to pursue these complicated and powerful means of using data to make connections, countries/governments/organizations/individuals which don’t have that skill, or have the controls in place that might be present legally/ethically here, not only have that ability, but have been working in similar manners.

Don’t just be so naive to dismiss the dangers when running towards the opportunities.
Don’t be so paralyzed by the dangers that you neglect running towards the opportunities.

Advent

Once again, the Church has entered into the Advent season. Many of us take this time to not just prepare for the holiday but to reflect towards how the entrance of Jesus into our own lives has upset the norm and changed things.

If a mobile app helps you get to that point of reflection, this small listing is here for you (found a ton more for Android here). If the traditional Advent calendar is more your speed, there are several for sale still – with candle holders and other peek-a-boo doors – for example, this one for Outlook and similar apps.

May you take the time to reflect on the soon-coming Messiah, and draw your strength in grace of his birth.

Two Sides of Feeling

Was pointed to this piece about two sides of owning a [smartphone] mobile on Twitter by @AdamGraber. Here’s a snippet of the piece:

10. Desired/Disappointed “I love getting new messages and feeling the love, but I check my phone so often that I’m more often disappointed than not.” We’re constantly checking our phones for new notifications. Because we get texts, emails, Facebook messages, tweets, and calls all on our phones, each new notification makes us feel like we matter. We love this. But if there’s nothing new, we have this pinprick of regret. Since 2010, we’ve gone from checking our phones every 10 minutes to checking them every 6. That’s a lot more pinpricks. 9. Accessible/Obligated “I feel good knowing my friends are within reach, but sometimes they text me and I don’t want to text back right away. Am I a jerk?” Texting is perhaps the most complicated communication medium we have. Sometimes the responses are immediate; other times, they can take days to respond. But we never quite know the reason for one versus the other. The expectations around it are a minefield of miscommunication and frustration.

Read the rest of 10 Reasons We Love/Hate Our Smartphones at The Second Eclectic Some of these make a lot of sense. And given some of the counseling bent of some ministries, there might be a window towards ministry opportunities which are mobile in focus, but not ministry done with mobiles.

The God Stamp

Have had the Halloween/Harvest Celebration comic from Wes Molebash (Insert [IMG]) opened in my browser for a few weeks now (it seems). Part of it is because Wes is the kind of artist-with-faith that its easy to support. But, there’s also the aspect of the community that he’s created which occasionally offers the kind of mature comments which shows there’s more to this life than the wonton opinions that many times fills the web.

Of note, in this comic there was a comment that made me stop – hence the reason for it being open for so long – and consider that there just might be other motivations at stake in this space that I’m watering – an unintended consequence of seeing an intersection of faith and mobile tech:

Where I do have a problem though is when we try to put a God stamp on something to make feel ok to participate. I think that this is what God is getting at when the Bible says, “do not to take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The heart of the principle is that We shouldn’t put His name on something to curse or bless it for our purposes.

I feel like our attempts to create Christian adaptations of cultural practices do more harm than good.

Ouch.

There’s only so many ways to say it – and thankfully, Wes actually said it another way in another comic soon after – we can’t go about mobile ministry, doing mobile and then putting the God stamp on it, expecting that others will respect or honor those efforts, or even that God will. Just like we’ve said before that digital has to be native to your ministry, ministry has to be native to those things you do digitally. If not, its nothing more than a fish on a car as it cuts in front of you on the road. It gets there first, trumpets something about Christ is known in there that’s being ignored to get there first.

If you are like me and enjoy Wes’s work, support his efforts by donating or commissioning a work for your organization.

CLA Mobile Ministry Course Registration Open

The Christian Leadership Alliance (CLA) has again opened the door to their winter session and the course we designed and will facilitate – Creating a Mobile Ministry: Mobile Ministry Introduction and Relevance – is going to be offered.

Learning Objectives

This course is designed to provide participants a better understanding of mobile technologies used in ministry practices. Upon completion, the participant should have a better understanding of the current information that is known in this space, be able to ask/answer questions of that information, and then generate new questions that will lead to sound research and applications of mobile technologies in ministry applications.

Module Overview

This course intends to lead the participant into an understanding of mobile technologies and behaviors which influence faith practices within Christian and other religious spaces, with the goal of creating a theological and sociological framework for analyzing, discussing, and leading local/global communities in mobile interactions. The participant will have the knowledge and foundational skills to supplement existing ministry activities, or start new ones which utilize mobile technologies, communications, and/or behaviors.

You can register for Creating a Mobile Ministry: Mobile Ministry Introduction and Relevance at the CLA website.

As with the previous offerings, if you have specific questions which are not answered on the course website, do ask.

[Infographic] Opera Notes Mobile Consumption

Opera, one of the pioneers of the web browser, and definitely one of the leaders for mobile browsing, has recently released a set of graphics noting some mobile consumption trends in the USA. Here’s one of those graphics:

Mobile Consumption Guide

 

One might wonder why we don’t see more information like this, or even how Opera is able to get this kind of info. In Opera’s case, they can pull this information using the analytics gained from the use of their mobile browser products. From that information – including the sites that are being browsed, and the times of day, they can point to trends like this. Its one of many examples of using a common access point to determine how people use your product, and how to position your product development cycle.

Many churches and organizations have a similar data collection point when they offer the Internet through WiFi hotspots in their facilities. Through the data access logs, you can see what it is what people are accessing and when they are accessing it. You’ll want to scrub this information of data that directly identifies who might be browsing – but getting information such as the type of browser, the type of device, the sites being accessed, etc. are enough to understand a bit better what folks are looking at. And if you notice that your web properties aren’t being accessed, that’s not a time to force people to your site, but it does mean that you should look at designing accessible areas on your website which speaks to what people are genuinely interested in.

Infograhpics like this and the one posted a few days ago give those kinds of avenues forward in mobile ministry (#mobmin). Now, its up to you to design and implement a mobile strategy that makes the most of that data.

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.

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.