Since Patti told me I was being a tease about the next elf video, I thought I’d post a little taste test. The final video has a time-lapse premise.
I wonder how the peeps over at the church marketing labs would like our elf videos? Probably not snobby enough for them.
So I don’t get flamed, let me first say that there are a lot of things I like about my new iMac. It’s pretty and it has loads of power.
OK, that’s out of the way. Now I can complain about the things I’m not thrilled with on my new computer.
I know I sound ungrateful. This is a very pretty machine. My kids love it. Heck, I love it. But my experience is so far is that Mac just proves everything Seth Godin wrote in All Marketers Are Liars. The marketing department created a “lie” (e.g. marketing strategy) that their users believe. And they believe it to the core. Whether or not Mac is better than Windows isn’t even the discussion. The assumption that the user base has is that it is a superior product in every conceivable way.
My point here is that I want people who are switching (as I am) to know that it’s not as easy as you think it’s going to be. Switching platforms is a radical change in how you use a computer. I am not saying “don’t do it” but at the same time I want potential people for the switch to know that it’s not a matter of taking the thing out of the box and plugging it in either. It’s a big change. It’ll take you a long time until it feels natural. All the time I am switching back to my laptop because I can do something easier, faster, and better on Windows than I can on Mac.
Put that in a commercial!
Over the last several months I’ve become a frequent lurker and sometimes participant at the Center for Church Communication Labs. You see, when it comes to serious graphic design I’m a total hack. I’m just learning how to do stuff and occasionally I like to take one of my ideas and throw it into the Lion’s Den to see if anything I do meets their criteria.
This hack gets a lot of great ideas and inspiration from the labs, it’s great!
The problem? Some designers are total jerks!
There is a reason why God made some people to sit behind their desks and play on PhotoShop and Illustrator all day. It’s because they have zero people skills.
Just the other day I posted something I’ve been working on for church. I stated right up front… my idea stunk but then I saw something I really liked here in the labs… I copied it. I gave credit for it then I went to great lengths to say that I harvested the idea from the labs and used it for my own uses. Trust me, I’ve gotten the "copyright" lecture more than one time at the labs and I’ve read the rant a bunch of times from people who must have sat on their Macbooks or something. (Flat out grumps!) My point in putting stuff on the labs is to take something in development and ask for feedback and allow it to genesis to something that is more unique. (Collaboration!)
Know this, when I put this image on the labs I knew full-well it would get attacked. In a way, I just wanted to bring the debate to new light… see more below.
Well, within an hour some professional designer posts this long lecture about how what I did was wrong and I didn’t follow his rule and that I should be ashamed of myself. "Jesus doesn’t like thieves." (REally said that) Yada yada yada. I mean really… art is really the process of taking someone else’s ideas to the next level. I’ve been around the block enough times to see that there is a difference between taking someone’s idea to a different level and just copying it for your own benefit. And clearly I took that persons idea and played with it. What I posted was almost exactly like the original and I got ripped big time! No mercy, no grace, no teaching me a better way. Just flat out blasted!
What’s this got to do with online communities?
One of the things I like to do is be a newbie in online communities. It actually teaches me what it must feel like to be a newbie at YMX. Each time I’m treated like a child or written off like the village idiot at some online community… it makes me never want to go back there again. Further, it pains me to see stuff like that happen on Youth Ministry Exchange. People come to YMX to get encouraged or to blow off steam or to just seek some advice and when someone treats them like crap (even just telling them to search the forums instead of searching the forums for them and linking to it) I wonder if that person will ever come back. This is also the exact reason I have a zero tolerance policy for existing members bullying people with just 1-20 posts… it irks me to know end because I know how it feels to honestly make a mistake but still need help!
I’m a self-declared hack when it comes to creativity. Very rarely can I come up with something from scratch and actually make it work. But generally I’m taking an idea I got from somewhere else and tweaking it. And I think that as the world changes… every job is going to have to deal with a matrix that looks like this.
Job 1.0 = I own the work. My expertise makes me valuable and I have to protect it.
Job 2.0 = No one owns my work. My expertise is made valuable when I let it go and help people make it better.
For as forward thinking and trendy as artists are… there are clearly some who don’t get this idea. Collaboration isn’t a threat to creativity. Collaboration is what takes creativity from an individual and unleashes it. This makes business better. This makes education better. This simple idea is the driving force
all jokes and silliness aside, here is my impression of our first days on the boat.
The first hours aboard catalyst have been incredible for kristen and I. the first things that strike about it are….
1. it is beautiful. I had the pleasure of getting here a smidge early and they allowed me help them move the catalyst from the harbor to its dockside position at friday harbor. eli, bill and shannons son, talked me through how I could help them. but what an indelible impression on me was the other captains who came from their wheel houses onto their decks to watch catalyst move. when captains of larger and newer ships are coming over to say how beautiful the boat is you get the idea how beautiful it is. likewise, while dockside loads of people would slowly walk by, take pictures, and ask questions.
2. it is sturdy. I am the first to admit I was leary about going out on a small, 75 foot boat for a week. I was afraid it would rock a ton and feel unsafe. I could not have been more wrong. it is a very cool ship. bill makes you feel completely safe in his fun way. the simple fact that they don’t have a thing to hide speaks volumes to me.
3. bill and shannon are great people. I love going into peoples lair that so clearly demonstrate the spiritual gift of hospitality. I don’t just feel that as a guest. you see that in how other people regarded them at the docks, how they treated fellow guests, and in one other cool way. as we arrived at our anchorage last night, ben (bill and shannons son) saw the catalyst and called to say hello. mom and dad instantly invited him over for dinner. right in the middle of all that they had to do bill took the smaller boat over and got ben and two of his friends. remarkable hospitality.
of course, we are also here to talk shop about YMX. today I want to lead a discusion about the company’s identity. because if the end result of the conversation is going to be… who and how will we represent ourselves at our biggest marketing opportunity of the year, that needs to flow strategically out of a deep conviction for our identity.
Kent Shaffer of Bombay Creative and Church Relevance
Communication Without Words
We live in a culture where actions speak louder than words. (ala St. Francis of Assisi)
"Let all the brothers preach with deeds."
Every touch point of your organization communicates a message. Physical property. (landscaping, building appearance)
People can hear in 15 seconds what it takes us 2 minutes to say.
So if you want to effectively communicate to an audience, our preaching
and teaching needs to always use multiple channels of communication. –
Lyle Schaller- Church Consultant
Since more than 50% of US households now have high-speed internet…
people are used to "clicking and going." Think about a browser on your
site… you used to have the first paragraph. Now you have .7 seconds.
3 ways to communicate your message without words.
Art & Environment online go together. They are inseparable. The artwork becomes your environment. "If you build it, they will come…. maybe."
3 areas to focus on:
Think of your website as having limited real estate. Each thing you add takes away some of the attention of your users. Narrow, narrow, narrow the focus. Look at the big picture.
7 steps for a community site
A community site can offer tremendous value, and it can also become pointless and dissolve if you don’t constantly evolve… re-casting the vision ala Nehemiah.
Protect the online community and its culture like a pastor protects his flock. Protect your people from wolves… corruption or unintented uses of your community.
I know. It seems almost like an oxymoron to say… but Microsoft has an amazing utility for web developers. I’ll even go this far, it’s better than anything Google has in this category?
What is it?
It’s Microsoft’s adCenter Labs
What is it good for?
If you are an internet marketer or an internet publisher… you need to know who your readers are and what the likelihood is that they’ll use your site for commercial reasons. In other words, are users of your site willing to spend money via ads on your site or not? Interestingly, saying "no" to that question is not saying "no" to advertising on your site. All it means is that you should run ads on your site for informational purposes or non-commercial purposes. (Still plenty of money in that, too.) And if you are an online marketer, you need to know if you are spending your money on sites that are both in your demographic and interested in buying products that you sell.
It’s a powerful, simple tool that is worthy of a bookmark. Even for Microsoft haters. Or Google lovers like me.
I was just listening to a radio broadcast on the way home from church. In it the host and his guest were talking about the many shake-ups in the White House. The host wisely commented after the guest went on and on about how significant these changes are to the various departments cabinet members oversee.
The comment was, "Isn’t this normal?"
To which the guest went on, to great lengths, that it is normal in the 6th-7th year of a two term president to see many cabinet changes. Those are tough jobs with short tenures. The important word is that it’s "normal" through out various two-term presidents his original cabinet members tend to head off into retirement, the academic world, or private enterprise.
Imagine a news story on NBC. "In breaking news, the Attorney General steps down… but it’s pretty normal."
See, news agencies are driven by what’s hot. In order to secure their audience they need to "out-sensationalize" their competitors. It draws an audience, which draws advertisers, which pays the bills. And the American audience could care less about "stable" or "normal."
What is the marketing in your world, you church, your school, you job driven by? Does "normal" go noticed or should you do something that may be perfectly normal but is talked about as being remarkable?
Think about it. Thoughts?
I saw this on an old high school friends Facebook. Sorry Sharna, you aren’t really old… but you are an old friend.
It’s called "Blackle" and it’s a Google alternative that is essentially Google with a different style sheet. The theory is that by making the screen black/gray that the combined monitor energy savings will save 750 megawatts of power in the world each day. I don’t know if that theory is really true. But I do think it’s actually a very cool idea.
Slick marketing!
From a tech geek perspective what I like about Blackle is that it’s really just a super slick way for its developer, Heap Media, to get people to use their custom Google search… which they will make a tidy profit on the ad referrals. That’s right, they’ve rebranded something that is free for their own profit. Gotta love America. Oh wait, Heap is from Australia. With the Google custom search just around the corner expect to see a lot more sites like this one. No judgment one way or the other, just in awe!
After a week at the merchant area of the Armada Fair, I thought I’d share in a couple of merchant lies that I picked up on. Both of them have to do with the contests you enter. Just be aware of these:
See, the thing about a fair is that it only lasts a week. There is no regulation of any kind as to whom is there. If you pay the money, you get a spot. If you pay $100 cash for a craft… do you even know the persons name whom you bought something from? Where would you return it? What would you do if you found out that they sold you a "handmade craft" from India and not Indiana?
A lot of vendors didn’t like us very much by the end of the week. Sure, we drew a lot of traffic. Sure, we made a 1500 kids smile with free balloons. But at the end of the day we frustrated some vendors because our authenticity reflected on their fraud. The booths who sold honest products at an honest price did better because they looked at the long term gain instead of a one-time, 6 day profit.
I just hope we get a chance to go back in 2008. It was a monster win for KidsTown.
I just talked to Rachel and Katie, who closed out Thursday at the Armada Fair.
Over all it has been a fantastic 3 days. Results-wise, about 40 kids have committed to coming to the next MainStreet with their parents. (Have you seen the August one? Here’s the video)
In the past three days I’ve had a lot of amazing conversations and first encounters with non-believers.
I’ve also had a great time getting to know the other vendors in the Merchants barn. And in the quiet moments of the hecticness I’ve had a chance to reflect on the why we are at the fair in the first place.
My mind has been captivated by two primary biblical passages. I think they are the only biblical justification I would ever need to defend our actions. Not that we need to, but still:
Better than just being excited about this event, we have more to come. We’ve got a great plan for the Peach Festival and even something super cool for Halloween.
