Month: May 2009

  • Saturday Tunes

    Saturday TunesAh, the weekend. After a fairly stressful start to my week we hit Thursday and coasted. Lots of good stuff happened this week. Lots of stuff accomplished. But it was a front-loaded week and it felt good to have a couple easy days.

    Last night I went with Chris, a staffer at Harbor, over to Rock Church for a thing on the economy and social justice. I don’t know that I really learned anything new about what has happened and what is happening with our nations finances, but it was very good to see a church educating its people about what it all means for them and what they can do.

    Today is a normal Saturday. Kristen is off to climb Cowles Mountain while I hang with the kids. Later, we’ll take Stoney to the beach. Kristen and Paul already have in a request for Chinese food for lunch… so I guess it’s that and then more fun the rest of the weekend. I’m already looking forward to going to the beach Sunday afternoon.

    Here are the next 10 tunes I’m listening to this morning. As usual, these are completely random and my ratings are included.

    #1 Say When by The Fray *****

    #2 Anyone Else But You by The Moldy Peaches ****

    #3 A King a Kingdom by Derek Webb ****

    #4 O Worship The King by Chris Tomlin ***

    #5 Marvelous Light by Kristian Stanfill **

    #6 Quasimodo by Lifehouse ****

    #7 A Kiss to Build a Dream on by Louis Armstrong ****

    #8 Take My Breath Away by Berlin ****

    #9 Stardust by Nat King Cole ****

    #10 Nine in the Afternoon by Panic at the Disco ****

  • Throwing Down the Chicken Gauntlet

    First KFC did this:

    Then Oprah talked about it and it went like this:

    Then, a bunch of folks did this. Bam!


    Part 2

    Then, a chicken chain here in SoCal responded with this. Ole`!

    Where will it end? I can’t be too certain. But I have a feeling that Colonel Sanders and the crazy chicken are going to fight. In the streets of Louisville. Midnight. On Mother’s Day.

  • Review of Star Trek

    star-trek-2009

    After not seeing Star Trek, even refusing to pay attention to the trailer, I have this simple review.

    Don’t see it. It  just encourages them to make more.

    That is all.

    Here are five movies I recommend you watching to truly understand the heart of the human soul.

    – The Godfather, part 2, part 3

    – 50 First Dates

    – Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

  • Fast Wednesday

    Yesterday was a blur.

    I got up early and finally wrote the post about turning Croswell into a charter school. (Actually wanted to do that before the vote, oh well.) Then it was off to the races. Walked to the trolley. Long line at Starbucks caused me to miss my trolley… though a nice mocha and the Car Talk podcast helped me relax and enjoy the wait.

    It was during that wait time that I noticed that Marko activated his new blog theme that I helped create. That was a fun project! His blog is now SEO-friendly, looks a lot cleaner, and helps establish his personal brand a little more. While no work was needed on my part for this, it was just something else to monitor.

    Once I got to the office it was rush around and get ready for the May NYWC conference call. Thankfully, Jonathan helped me out by taking the lead on the Real World Parents newsletter. Traditionally, we each do about 50% of the content and I set it up, test it, and send it out. Taking that off my plate really helped as I worked through the details of the call. Going into it, we were 90% sure what we wanted to do. I wanted Marko to talk in the beginning part about the “why” of what we’re doing at convention this fall, then I wanted to field questions. Despite a massive GotoWebinar fail, the live streaming video portion went really well. Here’s the video from that.

    With that, the first half of my day was done. A co-worker dropped me off at Enterprise and I rented a car (actually, they gave me a sweet Nissan Frontier) and I drove up to Orange County for a quick meeting. I drove up to meet with Dave Gibbons, he’s an author and pastor of Newsong church based out of Irvine, to shoot a quick video about NYWC. The drive went fast as I caught up with some people about other projects… literally, a 90 minute drive felt like 15 minutes. I arrived about 30 minutes early… rare… so I headed into the offices to wait for my 4 PM meeting. (And recharge my batteries!) About 15 minutes later Dave’s assistant asked me to come in and get set-up. Since his office is extremely awesome, setting up only took me about 5 minutes. In the middle of that, Dave came in early from his previous meeting. Literally, I had his shoot ready to go, shot, and I was out the door at 4:01 PM.

    From there, it was off to the races to beat traffic back south to San Diego. I sailed through, making it home at my normal 6:00 on the dot.

    I both love and hate days like this. I love that it is fun, I get a lot done, and the impact is obvious. I hate that there is so much to do that I can’t really enjoy it.

    Nearly a year after starting at YS… I’m still shaking my head at the opportunity.     Yesterday, I spent time moderating a discussion with Marko about the biggest event in my industry. Then I casually drove up and spent time with one of the greatest emerging leaders in evangelicalism. And then I was home by 6. Yeah, I’m not over how much God has hooked me up.

  • Elevator Psychology

  • Leading to the edges

    ruler-edgeEntrepreneurs get this. Start-up businesses get this. New franchises get this. Church planters get this. But no one in an older business, church, franchise, or industry can comprehend this.

    You have grown your audience as much within what you are doing today as you will ever grow it. You primary demographic already knows about you and has decided whether to be a customer or not. They have decided whether to become a student in your college or not. They have decided whether or not your to attend your church.

    People largely make decisions on your project, widget, consumable, or institution in an instant. Five seconds or less. (Test it yourself, watch TV commercials. How soon until you decide if you are buying that product? I thought so.) Spending more money to advertise the same thing over and over again is just a waste of money. This is why Super Bowl commercials can be deal makers or deal breakers for companies you’ve never heard of.

    This is why marketers dump millions of dollars onto the airwaves and see little return on their investment. This is why church marketing sucks. Once you can identify who your audience is… your best possibility for growth then shifts to customer service and care. Can I keep the customers I have? Can I provide them such an amazing service that they tell their friends that they have to go there, be there, or be your customer?

    Growth comes as you lead your organization towards the edges. When you help your church or college find a new demographic, there is growth. When you design a new product that changes the game for an old industry, there is growth. When you serve a need that everyone wants but no one offers, there is growth.

    What’s the first step in determining how to find my edge?

    Spend time and discover where you are failing. Spend time finding out where everyone in your industry fails. Spend time finding out what churches in your area aren’t doing.

    Hint: Studying successful companies, institutions, churches, or whatever will only lead you away from growth and into their market. Learn from their best practices, for sure, but don’t study them to copy them. Their edge won’t ever be your edge.

  • Get a Mystery Box, Will Ya?



    Go here to learn more about the project.

    Here’s a fun back story that I didn’t share on the blog or the video. Ian [YS’s media guru] and I went down to City Heights to shoot this piece last Tuesday night. I hadn’t met Christopher before, but Ian knew him from the shoot he did for the NYWC story last year. Reality Changers meets in this very cool office building, a gem of a building in a transforming neighborhood. We were welcomed with a surprise. Each time they meet parents from the group provide a meal to students and they invited us to join in. Let me just say… it was some good eats! But that’s not the cool part of the story.

    Ian and I had an opportunity to sit in on part of their big group program. We were in for a treat as one of the students was sharing about his recent trip to the east coast. See, Reality Changers had helped him change his reality big time. Not only was this young man going to get to go to college, he got to chose between attending Harvard or Columbia. He told us every painstaking detail about his flight, the subway, what he ate, who he met, on and on.

    You know, I knew Reality Changers was doing amazing things. But to hear just how amazing… shocking!

    So, help YS and Reality Changers. Make a donation of $20 or more and YS will send you a box full of goodies.

  • Nuke Your Phone

    HT to Cory

  • Stoney swims!

    We adopted Stoney, a yellow lab, three and a half years ago. As I have well documented he is part of our family.

    Yet Stoney had one weird flaw. (beyond his love of humping middle school girls legs.) He hates the water. Most lab owners can’t keep their dogs out of the water and I couldn’t get mine in.

    Since we now lives just 15 minutes from the ocean I have gotten used to taking him to Ocean Beach dog beach every week for something I call, Beach Therapy.

    I did some reading this winter and learned the trick to getting reluctant dogs to swim. It involves lots of praise and play.. Two things Stoney really likes!

    About 4 weeks ago I got him to play in very shallow water. He came home wet and I knew he had a good time. Today, the water was a lot warmer and the tide was way, way out. Long story short, I was able to throw the ball into the water and he would go get it.

    He is still reluctant about bigger waves and doing more than wading up to his chest… but you could see instinct begin to take over. He even did that characteristic hop labs do to hurdle through water.

    Congrats Stoney, you did it.

    Now if only he could read.

  • Saturday Tunes

    Saturday Tunes

    A quiet weekend here in San Diego for us. Yesterday was a big day for YS as we launched this year’s NYWC website. With just 145 days until the first convention… it’s fun to see things coming together! We also kicked off a little fundraiser via the YS Blog yesterday. I’m stoked to see the response so far. I have  yet another project going live Sunday, I’ll share more about that on Monday.

    Last night, Kristen and I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire. What a powerful movie. I can’t imagine how hard it was to shoot that thing.

    This morning Kristen is off jogging while I’m home with the family. Later Paul and I will be taking the dog to the beach and from there, who knows? Here are the next 10 tunes I’m listening to. As always, totally random and my ratings included.

    #1 Portadown Station by Sandra McCracken *****

    #2 Believe by The Bravery ****

    #3 Realize by Colbie Cailat ****

    #4 Supersonic by Family Force 5 ****

    #5 There’s Only One by Caedmon’s Call ****

    #6 Falling by the Wayside by People in Planes ****

    #7 Yours is the Kingdom by Hillsong ***

    #8 Belonging by Kendall Payne *****

    #9 I’m Sticking With You by The Velvet Underground ****

    #10 Free Fallin’ by John Mayer