Six Questions To Ask Before You Tweet

Before social media, a snail mail letter to the editor of your local newspaper was about the only way to make your voice heard. Now Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, WordPress, and Google+ make it easy for anyone to shout out their opinion on any topic, at any time.

In fact, social media might make it too easy for us to let everyone know what we’re thinking at the moment. That may be fine for most folks, but some politicians and celebrities have lived to regret exposing their thoughts, and other things, to public scrutiny. Just ask Anthony Weiner.

Like politicians and celebrities, pastors should exercise some caution with social media, too. Although we’re not running for office, we’re always in the public eye in our own circles of friends, colleagues, and fellow church members.

When I started blogging seven years ago, almost no one in my small town of 1200 people read my blog. For a while I enjoyed my local anonymity because I was able to express opinions on topics I never would have addressed in a Sunday sermon or Wednesday night Bible study.

However, as my local readership increased on my blog, Facebook, and Twitter, I began to rethink my previous reckless “opinionating.” I developed some personal guidelines to regulate my social media posts, tweets, and status updates.

These are six things I consider before I take a public stand on controversial topics:

1. Is this an ethical issue or just a pet peeve?

Like lots of folks, I have an opinion about most things. However, I have discovered I don’t need to weigh in publicly on everything. I now restrict my blog posts to church ministry topics, and my Twitter and Facebook updates to church or ethical topics. Of course, that doesn’t count the times I am just goofing around on social media, but I play that safe, too!

2. Can I influence the situation?

If I can’t have some influence on a situation, I have decided there is not much point in my commenting on it. Therefore, I never write about the latest Federal Reserve Bank efforts to jump start the economy because there is nothing I can say to influence the Fed’s action. You get the point.

3. Have others spoken out who are more credible or qualified than I am?

My example in #2 comes to mind here, too. No one cares what I think about quantitative easing or economic stimulus. Those topics I leave to the experts, the pages of the New York Times, and other esteemed sources. If somebody more credible than I am is addressing the issue, I probably don’t need to add my two cents worth.

4. Do I have something constructive to offer?

When I first started blogging, I quickly fell into what I call “blogger’s syndrome” — posting righteous indignation and scathing opinions eviscerating others who disagreed with me. One day it occurred to me that anyone can rant, but I ought to be offering positive perspectives and solutions. I deleted more than one blog post after coming to that decision. Now I try to offer a positive solution, outlook, or suggestion, and I don’t attack individuals or groups. I know it is a cliche’, but I decided that I would actually be the change I wanted to see. In other words, the way to peace is the way of peace, to paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh.

5. Am I willing to risk my friends, my reputation, and possibly my job by taking this position?

What do you do when there is an issue so compelling that you must take a public stand? I think then you heed the words of Jesus from Luke 14:28b — “Won’t you first sit down and count the cost…?” If you take a public stand, are you ready to risk your friends, your reputation, and possibly your job as pastor? Sometimes the answer to that question has to be “Yes!” However, most of the time, it’s not. I’m not encouraging cowardice, just awareness that public positions also have personal consequences.

6. What am I personally doing now to change the situation?

Finally, before I write about an issue, I reflect on what I am doing to change that situation. Call this hypocrisy-avoidance, but if I am not willing to “put some skin in the game” as the saying goes, maybe I ought not to comment.

Since developing these questions, I am enjoying blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking more than I used to. I notice that I regret fewer posts, delete fewer tweets, and in the process have increased my readership. If the unexamined life isn’t worth living, according to Socrates, then maybe the unexamined opinion isn’t worth tweeting either.

 

What Your Church Can Learn From Google’s New Phone Launch

Okay, I’m going for the cheap search hits with the title, but bear with me because I do have a serious point. Google launched the Nexus One phone today, to no surprise and with little flash. One reviewer said the presentation was “underwhelming.” Of course, that’s exactly what Google intended. Here’s why and here’s what your church can learn:

1.  Google is not interested in a big splash. Back in the fall of 2007, Google announced the Android operating system, an open source system with an Open Handset Alliance to go with it.  Reviews were mixed, prognostications abounded, Google was questioned, etc, etc.  Same with any product launch.  But Google knew where they were headed.

2.  Google has a strategy. The strategy was, “let some other folks play around with this.”  Which is classic postmodern, collaborative thinking.  Let’s see what someone comes up with.  To much fanfare, and not a little disappointment, the first Google phone, the G1, was offered by T-Mobile.  It was widely trashed, but still it was the first.  “It’s no iPhone” was the big complaint.  But Google’s strategy isn’t to be Apple — hardware/software locked up together.  Google’s strategy is to control the entire computing “cloud” experience.  Mobile is the next piece of that.  Here’s a site that agrees with me.

3.  Google is good at iteration. They keep making it better, in other words.  Incrementally, one step at a time, no splash, just good solid improvements one-at-a-time.  No Steve Jobs, no big gathering of fanboys, just “here’s what we did to push Android to the limits.”  So, now the G1 looks really ancient, and even the Droid is looking a little outdated.  One step at a time.

4.  Google is good at disrupting models. But the big thing about the Nexus One is that Google will sell it to you directly, without the mobile phone provider involved.  Of course, you have to have some type of plan, and right now it’s just T-Mobile, but for the first time you can buy a legally unlocked phone in the US.  I bought an unlocked phone in Hong Kong in 1999.  I used three different GSM cards in it as I traveled from Hong Kong, to China, and then to the US.  Google has just poked every mobile phone carrier in the eye with a sharp stick.  But, they are apparently lining up to Google’s door anyway.

5.  Google is in this for the long haul. Google isn’t after the one big splash, or the big event.  They’re building their company on what they believe.  Remember when Google search first started?  No photos, no fancy text, no graphics.  I thought it was completely lame.  But it was fast, and it got faster, and they indexed the web better, and their algorithms delivered better results, all so that they could place ads in front of people.  Oh, they’re still in the advertising business, they said today.  Only now, they’re going to push ads out in a variety of ways to mobile phones, ebook readers, netbooks, and all the other devices that will run Android.  And we thought all the Google stuff was free.

So, the lesson for churches is obvious.  Be more like Google.  Take the long view, go for the next step, disrupt the culture a bit, but keep on plugging.  My money is (figuratively speaking, of course) on Google’s approach.  And, I like the “do no evil” thing, too.

We will all be connected forever

“People today are going to stay connected forever,” says Jeff Jarvis.  Jarvis, journalism professor and author of  What Would Google Do? made that observation in a talk to Google employees recently.

Jarvis’s point is that Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Twitter, Flickr, and a host of other social networking platforms enable people to reconnect with old friends and stay connected forever.  As an example, he talks about reconnecting with his old high school girlfriend — with his wife’s knowledge, of course.  Apparently Jarvis did not break up with her well when he was 17, and reconnecting gave him a way to mend that relationship, and re-establish it on a new basis.

Think of the implications of connected forever for communities of faith — churches, small groups, ministries, mission projects, and so on.  Personal networks that transcend both time and location provide rich opportunities to engage with old friends, make new ones (I don’t know half the people who are my friends on FaceBook), and connect in meaningful ways.

Churches could extend their reach and ministry throughout member networks around the globe.  Projects that need help, resources, people, equipment, and expertise could tap members and their friends worldwide.  Shaun King has a request right now on his blog for help with a high-tech gospel presentation to college students.  We’ll see more and more of that as churches and organizations connect with members’ networks.

Do you know any churches that are tapping into wider networks now?  How are they doing it and what results do they see?  Watch this trend because it will become very important in the future.

What Would Google Do? author quotes me

Jeff Jarvis, journalism guru and author of What Would Google Do? quoted from my post The Future of Churches: A Network of Niches.  Needless to say, I’m honored and thrilled.

Jarvis is one of the prophetic voices who warned of the decline of newspapers when everyone else was in denial.  His book, WWGD?, looks at culture through the best practices of “the google,” as one former president used to say.

Jarvis is primarily interested in how the new economy (read: digital age) is changing journalism, but extends his argument into the business world, and even the church world in this post, What Would God Do? Makes for interesting reading and translation of one concept into the domain of faith, which I think is valid.  After all, churches are part of the culture, too.

The way we relate is changing

Two articles from PSFK, plus one from Kevin Kelly illustrate that how the way we relate to one another is changing, especially the younger you are. 

1. NY City high school students who get good grades will receive a cell phone and free ringtones or minutes, even though cell phones are banned in school.  They can’t use them there, but it proves the  power of the cell phone among teens as a primary communication device. 
2. Heard of Warcraft, the huge online game played by about a zillion kids?  Now there’s Datecraft, which gives a whole new meaning to “playing games.”  Here’s what the article from PSFK says — “However, the site really illustrates how the web is changing 1:1 relationships across the board. In 2005, 12% of American newlyweds met online thanks to the slew of dating sites out there. But recent polls show that the Internet can also be a love substitute = potential social dysfunction. So it’s encouraging that gamers are reaching out past their keyboards to make real-life social connections.”
3. Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine really has the zinger though.  Kelly says that we are headed toward a global machine — OneMachine — of which the current internet is only a component.  We’ll all be plugged into this OneMachine for everything.  Kelly says —
   

   The next stage in human technological evolution is a single thinking/web/computer that is planetary in dimensions. This planetary computer will be the largest, most complex and most dependable machine we have ever built. It will also be the platform that most business and culture will run on. The web is the initial OS of this new global machine, and all the many gadgets we possess are the windows into its core. Future gizmos will be future gateways into the same One Machine. Designing products and services for this new machine require a unique mind-set. 

Kelly goes on to describe the immensity of the One Machine and predicts that sometime between 2020 and 2040, the One Machine will exceed the computational power of all humans combined — over 6-billion human brains.  Imagine that on your DSL connection. Computers will become gateways to the One Machine where all computing will be done online.  Google is already headed there with Google Docs, gmail, google maps, contacts, and about 30 other apps they have designed.  All accessible from anywhere on earth from any computer.  And the Google gPhone will be able to access all of it, anytime, anywhere, on any system, with any handset.  Begin to see the ramifications? 

But lost in the hoopla about the gPhone was the Google announcement that they are developing Open Social which will allow any website to create its own Facebook application.  So, your church could develop it’s own social network.  And those in the network would not be restricted to geographic proximity — they could live anywhere.   And, theoretically, your church Facebook could be linked to other churches of similar flavor, or other ministries, or sold to advertising companies to generate revenue for the church, or have ads pop-up when individuals log on to their church account.  Some pretty wild and scary applications could result. 

This is where we are heading.  This also makes the conversations we have at church about worship styles or other issues pale by comparison.  What do you see implied in this new way we will relate to one another for the future of the church?