Posts Tagged ‘stewardship’

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Two Hemispheres of Tech and Memory

Monday, May 14th, 2012

diagram of a brain
Memory is a weird thing. There are some who say you can hack it (and other aspects of your mental/physical capacities), there are others who believe that you are given a brain with only so much capacity, but few who ever make it to the breaking point of using it all. I’ve been asked if I do mental exercises to train my brain (nope), or what it is I do to read, retain, and restate so much (rest/Sabbath is key). And its amazing. We can think that we forget so much, but in a flash – whether its a smell, touch, sound, or sight – we are triggered to memories. I remarked to a friend how one of the stars of The Avengers movie looked so much like someone from the past that it was actually disruptive to enjoying it without employing a memory filter of sorts. Memory… its got a few sides worth considering in our techie age for sure.

One of these hemispheres of memory is just the facility of managing it. As stated so nicely on the post at BigBible that sparked this one:

…Culture and context

How do we learn from this now, in a culture that relies more and more on other mediums to do our remembering for us?  Do we bother re-visiting our memories, or do we just assume they’re stored somewhere?  What happens when we have a dramatic encounter with God?  Do we remember it – consciously recall it – in a way that influences our lives?  How can we harness the power of technology to help us remember, without putting it in the place of memory itself…

This reminded me of one of the ways in which I use Evernote – I use it to store blog posts (archives) and tweets that I which to remember or probably look back at later for reference. And usually I’m just saving a snippet, not the entire article – even though it might be something specific in the article that’s not clipped that I might need later. In a real sense, I’m using Evernote (a storage system with algorthm for search) as an appendage to the brain I already have, sometimes to a deterement of knowing/undestanding/wisly applying whatever was saved there.

The other hemisphere comes from the side of my devices. Over time I’ve steadly acquired more and more portable storage space. These days, my mobile has 48GB inside (16GB internal memory + 32GB microSD card). My iPad has 16GB, but I rarely save anything on it that I’m not concerned with deleting, I use Dropbox and ad-hoc WLAN connections to my mobile to be its backup/appendage. Then there’s also that 1GB USB memory key bracelt that’s an ICE mechanism. But is that steady acquisition of more and more space healthy? I’m already dealing with several layers of backup/redundancy because of it – but why is it even needed (besides my admiditly large photo and music collection)? Is this a silo just waiting for me to be taken out before it can be cashed in (Luke 12:13-21)?

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

Memory. Its a tough subject from both ends. A lot that we do with language is simply the translation of memory to activity and back to memory. Perhaps its ok to have some of this external to our physical facilities (remember how God instructed Israel towards the level of remembering the law, “write it on the tablet of your hearts,” “write it on your foreheads and eyelids,” “inscribe it on the doorposts of your home,” “when you get to that place, build me an altar…”). But, if we spend more time building the case for these external places and channels for memory, do we also miss the point of the life we were meant to live (John 4:21, 23)?

…a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem… But a time is coming- and now is here – when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshippers.

When memory in both of its spheres incites us to live to Him, then is it most valuable?

 

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7 Years Online, 2 Years Full-Time, What It Looks Like Today

Friday, April 27th, 2012

One of the questions that comes not long after giving a description about MMM and its activities is, “how does it enable you to make a living?” I’m not married, and so that’s an easy question (some months are much harder than others). But, seeing that today is one of those days where I’m engaged with a client -this post, as with many others, has been written at least a week in advance of it posting – I thought it good to talk a bit about how MMM exists beyond the articles published, and what could be coming down the pipe to help things further for all interested parties.

Training and Consulting

MMM is a very low-overhead operation. Much of the output that comes from this endeavor comes as a result of using the mental capacities of me (Antoine, the founder). One of the ways this capacity is leveraged is in training and consulting opportunities.

Training usually happens with small and medium-sized businesses whom are looking to implement a technology or series of technologies to a team or several teams. To that end, I work with a few companies and groups local to NC and PA to be an available trainer for software and the occasional mobile implementation. That has been as simple as BlackBerry training, and as complicated as training project managers to use MS Project for their specific brand of project management processes/workflows.

Consulting is another area that’s used (not as often as I’d like, but hey, that’s the economy for you) to fund things here. Consulting takes place around two core communication technologies – web design/development and Microsoft’s SharePoint product. That’s my background, and given the scope of work that I’ve done in development, administration, and analysis around web and projects, it makes for a suitable engagement point for fundable activities. What that can look like for you can be any number of things – minus building your mobile app for you – as it is a wide and deep set of skills.

At any given point, there may be zero to four companies that I’m engaged with at a time (not including those just talking to to develop the relationship). The bulk of that work is developing the relationships, and (the slow process of) turning that into compensated work. Much of this work is short term (hours to days), and so there’s no need to be present in a cubicle for months on end – the flexibility allows for the consistency of content that you see on the magazine, and the constant pressing forward of skills and knowledge. It does allow for an office that can be nearly anywhere (#todaysoffice), which is its own source of market visibility.

Presenting and Speaking

Another means of bringing in income to fund living comes from presenting and speaking. I will admit that this has probably been the hardest aspect of things because to be recognized as a speaker you have to (a) be seen speaking and (b) have something unique enough to talk about that people will pay you to do it. There aren’t as many opportunities to do this as I’d like – some say its because there’s been no formal book published (!!) – but as things move forward with not only the magazine, but the subject of mobile ministry, there are those opportunities which present themselves.

Unfortunately, some of the hindrances with the presenting and speaking comes of the very wide geographical, theological, and political applications of mobile ministry. I just can’t afford to travel as much as some do, and working on grants and sponsorship takes as much time as living. Don’t get me wrong, there’s opportunities to leverage the technologies of the moment to get to some places (as done with BibleTech in 2011), but that’s not always the case and you miss those connections that should turn into those training, consulting, and speaking engagements when you do. For a recent example, I missed being in on the Mobile Ministry Forum webinar that happened yesterday, because of ork scheduled that was needed to put food on the table. The folks whom are missionaries and constantly going between raising support and not fainting from their ministry work have taught me a ton because of this.

Other Stuff

Beyond these activities, there are actually some friends and family who have been quite generous for some of the living needs. I know that some have gotten tired of my monthly calls for prayer to make sure that I make the budget for the next month (its honestly hard for some of them to understand why I’d ocntinue with MMM rather than get a “regular” job – that whole “calling” thing is not normal language to some). Perhaps things will improve on over time as mobile and ministry are seen to have a more implicit intersection beyond “let’s get that app done.”. I’m not sure. But, that’s just to say that I’m not resting on just getting the four activites described above as the main pieces of the puzzle. I’m always looking for additional avenues where the knowledge and understanding gained from MMM pushes the Body forward, and keeps compensated work flowing.

Truth is, I never wanted to do this with the intention of making a dollar, I just needed an answer to a question that no one was looking to answer… in 2004. Perhaps the value in that is all that should be gained from this for me… What you and those who have written or visited here over the past have gained is another thing – of which I hope has been very valuable to forwarding your understanding of the faith and the technology lens of mobile alongside it.

There is some rumbling towards partnerships with other ministries and companies with whom this venue is a suitable launching pad towards their audiences. Stay tuned for that, or get in touch if that’s something you/your organization might find suitable.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll continue to push along here until something else happens that means that this shift is no longer needed to be pushed from this person/angle. This magazine has been online 7 years (as of a few days ago), with about 3000 articles/posts published, a methodology finalized, and a number of experiments. If this it continues, that means that these and other avenues will present themselves. If not, and this is how it ends, well, I can’t say that I didn’t do my part in seeing search engines as intended. I just hope that when you leave this site, whether you’ve read one or several pieces, that you’ve come away with a perspective to understanding the implications of mobile and technology that puts your best faith forward.

 

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Could Mobile Also Be A Species to Steward

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

Tamagotchi via WikipediaI will admit that I’ve only thought on this end of things here and there. But, its there. And at least in respect to thinking about these implications of mobile, it makes sense to at least broach the subject: what if we look at mobile the same way we look at animals? What would the ministry implication look like in that respect?

What Got Me Down This Line
Of those implications to mobility, and evolutions within this space, one of the areas I see coming down the pipe is that of cybernetics and AI. This idea that technologies can be grafted onto the organic/natural facilities that we have, and with some kind of computational nature that goes a bit beyond what we might have realized within ourselves. Its not a prediction of where things are going so much as it is an observation. And as such, insights on the subject have interested me beyond the fictional accounts of future-scapes that I read often as a child:

…Donna Haraway, theorist on our transformation into cyborgs, published ‘The Companion Species Manifesto’ in 2003. It addresses the relationship between domestic dogs and humans, but there is much in there to inspire designers of smartphones, apps and agents.

“Cyborgs and companion species each bring together the human and non-human, the organic and technological, carbon and silicon, freedom and structure, history and myth, the rich and the poor, the state and the subject, diversity and depletion, modernity and postmodernity, and nature and culture in unexpected ways.”

Using inspirations from theory such as Haraway, and fiction – such as Philip Pullman’s ‘Daemons’ from his ‘Dark Materials’ books – we can perhaps imagine a near-future that is richer and weirder than the current share-everything-all-the-time/total-gamified-personal-productivity obsessions of silicon valley.

A future of digital daemons would be one of close relationships with software that learned and acted intuitively – perhaps inscrutably at first, but with a maxim of ‘do no harm, with maximum charm’…

Read the rest of Berg London’s snippet of ‘Companion Species’.

With my mobile, as highlighted in a piece about contextual UIs at my personal website, there’s this interpleay between the context of my environment (day, night, connection of Bluetooth accessories, etc.) which alters the state of my mobile. Even so much that its basically now a matter of “just keeping it fed” with power of cellular connectivity, that makes it just as much a living accessory to my life as it does a tool to enable activities. I can see this perspective that a mobile is very much adapting and adjusting to its environment, and I’m its caretaker. Which leads me to wonder what implications that has when it is a tool for more than just notification of some communication event.

A Perspective
The reading that comes to mind is found in Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

The materials that make up mobiles are found in the earth. The ores and knitting together of them by electrons and other ingenoius methods have made something that was once not “living” into something so attached ot our daily lives that to some degree, it is now given life. We speak to our mobiles and they respond (Apple’s Siri as a recent example). We personalize them custom ringtones, themes, and such. Then we add abilities to them with the applications we install (like that scene in the Matrix where Neo was trained by simply downloading the knowledge into his brain). They aren’t sentient, but there is some aspect of stewardship to these devices that very much mimics how we manage our associations with animals and other entities on this planet.

But, mobiles aren’t like this you say? Aren’t they? Don’t you cradle your’s in a case, maybe even a near-personalized one? Perhaps you went for a lesser case for the mobile, but have that custom ringtone or ring-back tone – you know, that song that’s createed by you, or has some knd of meaning because its like someone or something close to you? Wallpapers, alert settings, even the arrangemetn of the apps that you use, carefully curated and managed on something that doesn’t live… or does it?

I’m not making the argument that at some point devices will be much more llife-like. In some respects, they will be, and they won’t be called mobiles. But, in the methods and behaviors of use that we have, there is this almost lfe-like attention we pay to them as if they were compensated assistants. To that, we must ask the question that goes beyond tools to something more like accountability and stewardship – if your mobile could talk about you, what would it say about how you’ve treated it and what you do with it?

 

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When Do We Count Success

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

At what point in any mobile ministry endeavor do we count it as being a success:

…While the comment has faced criticism from those in technology and education circles, it certainly made a splash. OLPC still makes a laptop (the XO 1.75), but the organization now has its eyes firmly set on its new tablet (the XO 3), a solar-powered device that the group describes as “unbreakable and without holes in it.”

But OLPC’s visions have never quite materialized. Negroponte’s “tablets from helicopters” comment was reminiscent of his earlier announcement at the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, where he proclaimed OLPC would sell a laptop for $100. Then in 2009, OLPC announced that its tablet would also break the $100 barrier, despite the fact that the original laptop project had never reached that price (it still hasn’t; the price remains about $185).

Negroponte originally hoped his organization would sell “tens of millions” of laptops and could get the price low by requiring each country that wanted the machines to buy a minimum of one million, a figure that never panned out…

Read the rest of Ars Technica’s Look at the OLPC Project and Its Influence on EduTech Initiatives

When I’m asking these questions about mobile minisyry – its viability, its potential, its challenges – I am also asking where success is defined. Generally, the ministry answer is that success equals the salvation and maturity of people who align themselves with Jesus Christ. But, I wonder if such aims are going too far, or if they are too broad to be of any impact.

Instead, I wonder if those whom are able to make plans towards that larger end are able to collect the smaller victories in their methods? If they are in fact able to keep that big picture goal in mind, but see whatever they are working on as being a part of something more than just the usual evangelism and colonization approach?

You’ve got challenges and successes; where do you stop and see what’s affirming your goals, and where do you continue to press forward when you don’t see what’s affirming that mission?

 

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Miles, Smiles and Tiredness – A Look Back at 1yr of MMM Done Full-Time

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Sky from the Plane (Procreate) - Share on OviI’m often asked, “does that make enough to live on,” when the topic of MMM comes up. “Depends on the time of the month,” is my response. It really has been a slice of life that I’ve never seen before and am constantly running between being faithful and faith-little. In the a tough more than one year of doing MMM as a full-time effort, I can totally attest to there being miles, smiles, and a good bit of tiredness as I’m pushing out on this intersection of faith and mobile technology.

Miles Upon Miles

In May of 2010, MMM became the primary occupation of me (Antoine, the Primary Voice in these parts). It started well enough with about three months worth of finances and plenty of roads to travel by car and bike to potential clients. But, right around the time those funds dried up, the faith had to hit the road in a very real way. That’s been… different.

First, there was a miracle of finances that happened two months in a row. There was the project that caused my moving (in part) from Charlotte – that itself is now under some change. There were trips to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Indiana, and a part of Virginia so west that you could stand on a point and point to two mountains 15 min away, one in Tennessee and the other in Kentucky. Then there were trips to San Diego, Las Vegas, San Jose and places around those parts where I was one part around like-minded folks, but in another respect quite lonely. This has been… different.

I’ve had many a reflection on Paul, Peter, Elijah, and several others who’ve walked this out. Can say that I’ve got an inkling of what they went through – minus the price for gas (!!!).

Smiles Begat Smiles

The one thing that I didn’t see, but was always appreciated was the amount of support received from friends, partners, and people whom I’ve plum forgotten about unless I took a picture. The encouragement from those whom are well older than I, and doing similar after they’ve “lived their lives” has probably been the most interesting. The common sentiment there being, “I wish that I had your faith at your age.”

There’s been the smiles and support beams of friends who’ve been in my corner for a long time (long time is variable of course). Many of these people just seemed to call, SMS, email, or even just have a room available when I was traveling and didn’t have lodging secured (more about that in the “Tiredness” section). There’s really been the kind of support that says that anything is possible – especially when the circle of friends and supporters you have cover the same lengthy distances you traverse.

The kids/babies are probably the best part. But, I’ve been blessed to have my travels interspersed with visiting friends or just randomly seeing babies/kids along the way. Kids have a way of making you stop and take inventory, and there were a number of nights where I wept, only to wake to the day ahead and a kid of some kind would cross my path and remind me just how much God really does have our best in mind.

Tiredness Deserves Its Own Rewards

What kind of challenges does doing MMM bear on you? Well, there’s the mental stuff, the spiritual stuff, the social stuff, and the mental stuff.

There’s nothing like the tiredness that comes from having to check all of the boxes mentally each day as you do what you do. I didn’t take it for granted when working in companies, but I do have a much healthier respect than I did before. There’s taxes, mileage, sales, business development, research, writing, analysis, and communications. And that’s just talking about this on a high level, I totally have struggled with keeping all of those items balanced as many of them are just first-time moments for me.

Then there’s the mental tiredness that comes with travel. Those persons involved in missions and travel a ton seem to have the most association with what I mean. When away from “home” and just moving in what God’s called you to, its easy to get distracted or discouraged. I’ve spent a ton of time in my car over the past year (draw a triangle on a map between Philly, Atlanta, and Indiana to get an idea of where I’ve driven) and its hard to keep sane. Beach trips were a necessity, one-stop plane flights also.

Spiritually, I’ve not been attached to a formal church (and this was true many months before doing MMM full-time). I’ve been much more adamant towards plugging into brothers/pastors whom are able to meet with me face-to-face or virtually/voice at various points in my travels. That small group of brothers/sisters have been amazing towards challenging and calling me out. A slightly wider group of co-laborers and mentees have also helped to keep ego and tiredness at the door. As one brother often tells me, “don’t get weary in well doing. You’re not done here yet.” I need that more often than not.

Socially, I’ve been purposeful towards making sure that every trip has something social included. Whether that’s my Saturday away from everyone, biking in various cities, or connecting for spoken word/worship sessions, its a behavior to keep non-tech/mobile ministry aspects as a part of life. I’d rather not be stuck in the bubble.

Overall Assessment of Sorts

Its taken me the better part of the past two months to sit down and write this. When I wanted to in May, the schedule got thick with conferences, conversations, and clients. I’m not entirely happy with that, but I had to attend to those matters as it truly meant keeping food in my belly or some ability to travel.

I would like to improve over this next year in terms of the administrative organization. That’s something that I was just getting the hang of personally, but as a near-business entity, it needs some more help. I’ve got some leads there, but am always open to wisdom there. I’d also like to increase the number of paid clients/client work. Not because I’m looking for more funds, but because I’m having to foot the bill for travel and some conferences, and if that’s the case, I don’t want a situation like BibleTech where I have to pull out of a speaking engagement because I ran numbers too low to make a trip.

In terms of a settled destination, sorry. I don’t see it anytime soon. I’ve been invited to take a look at several areas around the USA and Europe. And I plan to. I just don’t see things stopping in terms of this travel schedule anytime soon. I own just a little bit more than what fits into my 4-door Honda Civic. I’m not exactly trying to add to that, but it would be nice to have my own place again – its was refreshingly quiet.

As for MMM, I honestly think that its doing well. Being able to devote all of my time to it has brought forth the writing and attention that its needed since its inception. There are more voices needed here on a consistent basis. And probably someone to hack a better design for this site. But really, I’m good with our approach, our focus, and the in-roads we have with both faith-based and secular audiences (we’re quite rare in that respect).

Better can be done. It will be. It might take a few more miles, a dozen more smiles per mile, and more moments of tiredness. Better will happen, and the goals of this initiative will be met to benefit a whole slew of folks. Can’t complain about that, but I can take a nap now that this much is finally written :p

 

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Health and Wellness by Mobile

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

We’ve piggybacked on the discussions happening around the web in respect to mobile health. And certainly, there’s a lot that’s being discussed in respect to using mobile devices and services at the point of diagnosis and prevention. However, one of the aspects of mobile health that we’ve rarely talked about is the idea of wellness.

Wellness, or your state of physical, mental, and spiritual health is sometimes passed off as an area that only “new age spiritualists” think about, but I think that we’d be missing a bit about “carrying for this temple” if we didn’t highlight it in part.

This hits home a good bit for me because as I love to get out on my bicycle, I find that I’ve not nearly ridden as much in my time in a rural area as I have in urban areas, despite the lack of traffic. To wit, I’ve not felt as good physically and mentally as I know that I can be. To the point, right before sitting to pen this, I logged (on my mobile using Sports Tracker) a ride where I wen’t 13.5 miles in about 1hr 5min. Last fall, I was doing 17 miles in that same amount of time. Physically, that’s a problem, and I know its effected me mentally and spiritually.

There are applications like Nokia’s Wellness Diary that go beyond looking at a workout regime, but will also help you recognize sleeping and eating patterns so that you can make adjustments to your lifestyle to improve not just your quality of life, but also how you are able to respond to change all around you.

So, let’s open the discussion on mobile wellness by looking at what you do to keep yourself on track whether with specific mobile software to guide you or a service that helps you track. Let’s spur one another not just towards preaching the Gospel with words, but having the wholeness of life that lives it as well.

 

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