Search results for: “good news”

  • Your Weekly Dose of Adam

    Here’s a round-up of stuff that I’ve appeared in lately. It’s kind of crazy, but of all the stuff I write and do on a regular basis… only about 33% of it is here on my blog. So, here’s the tour de Adam:

    [Commercial] I have to give a special shout-out to Matt Cleaver. His blog has been giving me tons of love lately. I look forward to his posts popping up in my Google reader, if you do youth ministry you should head over there and subscribe to his RSS too. [/commercial]

    – Youth Hacks interview: I spoke to Josh Cook about all sorts of stuff we’re doing at this year’s NYWC. It starts off slow and gets increasingly better. When  I do early morning stuff like this I need to remember to drink 2-3 cps of coffee first.

    – YS Podcast: Each Monday I host the podcast for Youth Specialties. My part is typically pretty small in that what appears on video is just me doing the intro, segway, and closing. It’s just a little dose of Adam McLane with your big meety dose of youth ministry goodness.

    – We’re hosting a rummage sale: We’re downsizing our offices at work, this is a little post I did letting local folks know. If you live in SoCal you won’t want to miss it. (Though, I’m actually missing it! Kristen and I are sneaking off to San Franscisco that weekend.)

    – Cell phone poll: This is my shortest post, but I was very interested in the results. Who would have thought that 20% of youth workers currently have an iPhone?

    – Bagillions of youth ministry links: Part of my role in putting together the 3 newsletters per week at work is to help keep youth workers around the country up on news effecting adolescence. I use Delicious to do that, I’m really thinking I need to start adding blogs to Delicious too. Thoughts?

    – The Trust Business: Each week I write an article for YMX. This week’s one struck a cord (in a good way) with folks.

    – May conference call: One of the smaller changes we’re making to NYWC is trying some new ways to communicate to folks about our conference. Here’s a recording of May’s conference call with Mark Oestreicher. Just like the podcast, I’m the moderator. (June’s conference call will feature Mark Matlock.

    – The best small group ever: This post continues to live on. I was happy to hear that the story was distributed to our church staff. I guess it connected with them, they re-posted it an article in their quarterly newsletter.

    – What Happens to the Coddled?: Rants never cease to amaze me. This one touched a nerve. It continues to float around the internet… forwarded from parent to parent. There’s even a rumor that this may re-surface as a parenting resource. I’m brewing another parenting rant. One that will hopefully continue to wake up the parents who coddle.

    Am I missing something? Probably. Each week I am amazed at how much I write! What’s my secret? Discipline. Things don’t write themselves, you know? What’s my second secret? A journal. Want to write more? Get a journal at Target for $7.

  • The Future of Journalism

    Man, this is good stuff. Arianna Huffington absolutely takes MSNBC to school on how journalism works today. Great, great clip here. This is a clash of “old world” journalism and “new world” journalism.

    I know some were sad when I left Romeo because there wasn’t anyone left to do front row coverage of local school board stuff. Imagine a world with hundreds of thousands of Adam McLane’s? It’s my hope that many more people will take up their notepads and just report the news. I hope/pray the same is true at churches and denominations around the world. I can’t wait to see the whole world change to this new citizen paradigm. We’re smart… let us tell the news.

    Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

    What I’ve learned with the stuff in Romeo is that where there is silence there is unchecked corruption. With the demise of the daily newspaper, we depend on raw news from people like you.

    HT to Peggy

  • Stock Market Rally

    Americans are addicted to bad news. So this may come as a surprise. There are stocks within the market that are on fire! I’ll give you one example from my portfolio.

    ford-rally

    In February, I took dividends from Honda Motor Company (a stock I’ve owned a long time, having a flat year) and invested those dividends in Ford Motor Company. For those who don’t know what that means, investing dividends means that I didn’t put any of my cash in from my accounts, this is money Honda “gave” me as my share in their profits. It wasn’t “real money” but untouchable income, “free money” to me in my IRA.

    I bought Ford stock at $1.92 per share on a hunch. (Remember, I was playing with dividends… just cash sitting in my account.) Zooming out on their 3 year history I could see that Ford is traditionally a $10 per share stock. And while they aren’t doing well in the U.S., their European line is doing fine. Since they have a lot less debt and cut deeper, not taking government bail out money, it was reasonable to assume that their sector (American auto maker) had dragged their stock down more than real losses.

    Look at March and to-date in April and you will see a massive rally. As of this moment, shares of Ford are trading at $5,98. That’s $4.06 more than I paid for them. Roughly 200% interest. Of course, looking at the chart you can see that I sold some shares at $4.24. Last week, I locked in some of those profits by selling enough shares to cover my original purchase. That means that I guaranteed that I wouldn’t lose any money on Ford… the balance of those shares becomes more free money. So, I took dividend money, which was free to me, and in less than 90 days was able to double it while still holding on to free shares in Ford.

    My point is not to make myself look like a genius. Though, right now, I’m feeling pretty good about this investment. Certainly, in the last 5-6 years I’ve made the exact opposite mistake. I invested a ton of my portfolio in Sirius Satellite Radio because they started putting free radios in every car being made, never thinking it was an overvalued stock. The iPod hit it big and Satellite radio became the 8 track player. Shares I bought at $7 and $10 in the early 2000’s… I sold at $3 per share. (Currently trades at .43!) So you can see I am not a perfect investor.

    My point is that you can’t base how you feel about yourself on news reports. There’s a lot of talk about our nation being in a recession. Certainly, millions of people are out of work and we are facing a very real housing crisis. But, that doesn’t mean that everything in the world is bad and we should wallow in our depression! There is certainly lots and lots of money to be made. People on Wall Street are making BAGILLIONS of dollars right now while the rest of the nation thinks we are in a borderline depression. (The swine flu is also a great cover for this! Can you say, “distraction?”)

    Think of a recession as a shifting of how money is being spent. It’s not that people aren’t spending money. It’s not that there is less money in the marketplace. It’s that they aren’t spending it in places that we expect them to.

    How do I know what to look for?

    Companies are typically slow to react to that shifting. Ones who jumped the trend, even a little, will do well. Companies that tried to ride out the last few dollars on yesterday’s trend (Just look at every car General Motors had on their line in 2008… another example would be AOL/Time Warner) are going to get punished because they don’t have a product people will buy. You have to be like Warren Buffet. Before you invest in anything, see it. Do your research, read the reports… but that shouldn’t replace walking around a store… or in this case a car lot.

  • Spike that weekend football

    Sometimes good weekends come unexpectedly. This past weekend was one of them.

    Coming into the weekend was cool because I am finally feeling good about my Monday-Friday workload. The first few weeks after YS’s re-organization I just had a hard time relaxing. There was so much to do! (Or so it felt) A lot of that has settled into routine so I can really, truly, chill on weekends.

    Friday afternoon I took advantage of a whole in my schedule and took Kristen on a little mid-afternoon date. We went to a little beach bar for some pub grub and took a walk on the beach. It was the perfect way to kick things off even though we had to cut it short so I could get back to work and Kristen could get the kids from school.

    Saturday morning Kristen got up at the buttcrack of dawn and climbed Cowles Mountain. This is an important part of her weekend routine. When she came back Paul and I took the dog to Ocean Beach for a little chase the ball and Stoney sniff butt time. Dog pack rules are fascinating to me, but that’s for another post. After we had been at the beach for a while I got a call from Mandy, who is new to YS and lives in the Ocean Beach neighborhood. She and her husband, Jon, came over for a while and we caught up while Paul built the Great Wall of China. An amazing feat.

    After the beach trip we came home and I fell asleep watching golf on TV. About an hour and a half later Paul jumped on me and said, “Let’s go to the beach!” Since it was a perfect weather day I couldn’t resist that. Really, we went to the beach and frolicked in the sand to honor our friends who were shovelling snow, sandbagging, or otherwise being tortured by an early Spring blast of cold weather. We splashed around Coronado beach for a few hours. The kids played in the sand while Kristen and I waded up to our ankles in the cold water looking for sand dollars. We came home, got some carry out from a taco shop, and everyone crashed before 9 PM.

    Sunday continued the fun. We did our normal donut routine in the morning, headed to church, and came home for lunch. After lunch we went to the Rolando Village street fair and got a better feel for our neighborhood. When the kids had eaten too much cotton candy and mom/dad had seen all the crafts, we headed home.

    From there, I took off to meet-up with Dave from work. Dave had arranged for us to do a podcast shoot with the guys from Family Force 5 before their San Diego show at the House of Blues. That was a blast, I got some cool footage of the band. What they had to say was a little bit goofy, but a lot important to youth workers. Later, we headed over to the show. I’m used to Christian shows… so this one was a bit wilder than I expected. About 1000 screaming and sweaty high school kids, mostly girls, filled the club for the 5 act show. We got there for the 2nd act, The Maine. They were good… clearly I’m old since I have no clue who they are. But they had a fun sound. It always cracks me up that high school kids can’t remember to do their homework but know every word to every song. If it weren’t for the annoying habit of them walking up to a mic and just saying random cuss words between songs… I probably would have liked them more. “S**t yeah. How are you mother F**kers, tonight?” Again, showing my age.

    Family Force 5After a little swap out of equipment, Family Force 5 took the stage. If you’ve never seen them, they have an incredible energy. I was given a photo badge so I could take some shots for the bands DCLA appearance. As I snapped pictures stageside I could literally “feel the heat” from the crowd who was mashed up against the barriers. I’ve seen them perform before in Christian venues… same songs, same intensity, ten times the energy. Dancing, bouncing, screaming the words. Makes a geek like me wish I had chosen to be a rock star. This band will light up the stage in DC this July.

    After their set, Dave and I headed home. We’re old people… two acts and we’re done! I caught up on some sports news… congrats to Tiger Woods on his comeback victory after knee surgery. Super congrats to Tom Izzo and Michigan State. If ever a state needed something to cheer for, it’s this weekend in Detroit.

    Great weekend. Lots of good stuff cooking for this weekend as well.

  • Re-branding the Recession

    recessionAre you tired of the recession yet? Maybe it comes from living in Detroit and hearing how the economy was slowing down for 3 straight years before the rest of the country went into recession? If you want to play an interesting game, take bets before the nightly news starts on how many news stories wll not mention the economy. They even weave it into the weather and sports! “The left fielder is in an economic slump of his own, he signed a new contract for the league minimum.”

    Talk of the economy tanking has become a self-fulfilling prophesy! Of course it is tanking, we are told there is no hope 100 times per day.

    I see something completely different. I see us on the horizon of a great cultural correction. I think we’re on the verge of a new wave of innovation not seen since the industrial revolution. The days of negative cash flow entrepreneurship are over as a new wave of cottage industry uses new media to compete with corporations… often with little or no capital investment… thus getting these new businesses in the black almost immediately. What I see today is opportunity!

    Don’t believe me? Check out Mark Cuban’s self-created Stimulus Plan. He’s putting his money where his mouth is, too. Propose a good idea and he’ll get you going in a month.

    Don’t believe me? We got YMX off the ground with almost no capital costs and turned a profit on the first day.

    Don’t believe me? My friend Bob Carter created a massive iPod repair business out of his basement and now employs several people. He turned what Apple said was junk into profit! Soon he’ll be franchising his idea across the country.

    Don’t believe me? Thousands of small businesses are being created right now and marketed through Etsy, Ebay, and Craigslist for little or no capital investment.

    Don’t believe me? Smart entrepreneurs are investing in a depressed real estate market. They are buying up neighborhoods to turn single-family homes into investment property. These are the Donald Trump’s of Main Street… they are using real money to make more money tomorrow.

    Don’t believe me? Community colleges across the country are jam packed as laid off workers learn new skills. And many of them will create their own small businesses.With no money to borrow almost all of them will be positive cash flow businesses from the start.

    I’m going to keep preaching this truth until people get it. Out of desperation comes innovation. Big companies depends on expensive research and development departments to come up with new products. How many billions of dollars were invested in concept cars in the last 10 years? And how many of them were profitable? See what I mean?

    But anyone who has a hungry family to feed can create a product the market wants. Tommorow’s poor are waiting for the government to bail the out. But just like in any industrial revolution… the ones who get started early and estrablish themselves early will have the advantage.

    This recession is a needed correction. Smart companies will learn to depend less on borrowing from a broken banking system and get in the black faster.

    There are millions of new ideas out there just waiting to be taken to market. Chances are you have one already. So what are you waiting for?

  • 5 Reasons I Love Social Networking

    The last 12 months has seen a major shift in how people view social networking. A year ago most adults (who weren’t in youth ministry) said the word “Myspace” with a suspicious scowl. If they used it they kept it on the downlow.

    Now everyone has Facebook. (150 million users and growing every second; it would be one of the largest countries in the world by population.) Now, most everyone is jumping on Twitter and getting completely addicted to that. The swarm of humanity has taken what was done in the margins and brought it to the mainstream. It’s a beautiful thing!

    As a person who “lives online” through my work, I thought I would share 5 things I love about social networking.

    1. Meeting new people. I’m pretty brave so I’ve taken to joining meet-up groups and showing up to meet people who share a special interest. It’s really not as creepy or as weird as I thought it’d be.

    2. Learning stuff about people I already know. The “25 random things” meme on Facebook has reached legend status. I’ve been tagged on that thing probably 50 times and I don’t mind reading them all.

    3. Reconnecting with long lost friends. Sure, there is the occasional misfire as a person who was a jerk to you in 8th grade friend requests you or wants to follow you on Twitter. But over all, I’ve had amazing reconnections.

    4. Getting exposed to the good stuff. This is especially true on Twitter! If there is anything new and noteworthy, social networking sites are all over it way, way before it hits the mainstream media. I suppose that’s both good and bad as there is such a thing as being too current on stuff. Also, a danger to this is that it’s hard sometimes to distinguish right away what is actually newsworthy.

    5. Instant feedback. Who needs focus groups anymore? I can pop an idea on Twitter of my Facebook status and get 25-50 responses right away.

    What about you? What are things you love about social networking?

  • When your leader won’t leave…

    The impeachment of Rod Blagojevich is an interesting case for church leaders. What do you do if a former leader refuses to leave?

    In Rod’s case, the facts of the matter don’t matter nearly as much as the soundbyte. Whether or not he was really selling Obama’s senate spot is unclear. But what was clear was the vote to impeach him. (And probably remove him from office.)

    I’ve been around church life enough to know that most people fired from a church job feel the way Rod does. The politics shifted on them and the next thing they know they’re in a witch hunt. In all too many cases, the witch hunt is over by the time they find out they are on trial. From the 50 member country church to the 16,000 member megachurch the reality is that all of the politics in church is conducted the same way. Closed door meetings. Coffee shop decisions. Fairness and justice take a backseat to pragmatism.

    Watching Rod on Good Morning America was like talking to a freshly fired youth pastor. He didn’t think the procedure was fair. He didn’t have the opportunity to call witnesses and tell them his side of the story. You can see him, wounded and fighting for life, in complete denial that there was no chance getting it all back.

    Watching Rod on Good Morning America reminds me of the advice I’ve given to friends in his situation. The best thing you can do is quietly leave. Fighting is just embarassing for everyone and rubs salt in the wounds daily. Working at a church is a political position. Keep the powers that be happy and it’s a great life. Everything you do is appreciate and your family is adored. Get on the wrong side of the politics and your life will become a living hell.

    It’s doubtful that Rod will get his fair trial. But I do know that, in church life, the best thing you can do is just move on with your life. Sticking around and trying to fight it out is bad for you and bad for a church. Fighting the politics in a church when the tide has turned against you will merely grind your faith on the hard rocks of others sin.

    I just hope Rod figures that out soon enough.

  • A Few Ways to Connect with Me

    Maybe you’re ready to take this relationship to the next level? Let’s say you come to Adam McLane’s site every day. And you’re thinking to yourself… “Adam, I dig what you have to say. What are some ways you can check out what else I do online?” Here are a few ways I suggest you do that.

    #1 Subscribe to my RSS feed. This will make sure you get every post delivered to your RSS reader, iGoogle homepage, or even by email.

    #2 Subscribe to the YS Podcast. You’ll see my pretty face each week on the weekly show that I host. Sure, it isn’t much… but it’s just enough Adam McLane to not feel like a total stalker. Don’t use iTunes? Subscribe via YouTube.

    #3 Join my delicious network. Now we’re getting serious. (Rounding 2nd base!) Each day I bookmark all sorts of things. Blog posts, news stories, adolescent research studies, new websites, and all manner of web goodness. Like the links in the YS newsletters? This is like the full monty of that.

    #4 Check out my shared items on Google Reader. These are blogs that I read on a daily basis and posts that I think are worth sharing. In other words, let me filter through the lame stuff for you.

    #5 Follow me on Twitter. If you’re curious what I’m up to 10-20 times per day, I post to this micro-blogging site in 140 characters or less.

    #6 Be my friend on Facebook. You won’t find me on Myspace anymore. I haven’t deleted my account, but I never ever go there. You will find me a lot on Facebook. Me likey Facebook.

    #7 Of course you can get to know Kristen too. It’s like getting to know our family 360 degrees. Kristen blogs a lot about family life, recipes, contests, and kids books.

    #8 Check out some of our new projects. Kristen and I have started some projects under the umbrella of McLane Creative. Our first project is a collaborative site giving real-world reviews of things to do in San Diego, called Beyond the Zoo.

    #9 Meet me in person. I know, that’s not a Web 2.0 way to get to know me. (What is wrong with me?) But it’s completely practical. If you’re ever in the San Diego area I’d love to get together for a cup of coffee and meet face-to-face. Drop me an email.

  • Quick check-in

    I’m always amazed at my inability to blog from NYWC. I think it’s a combination of my insane schedule and a lack of good internet connectivity. More importantly, I feel like I don’t have much to share while in the midst of NYWC since I’m soaking it in so deeply.

    So here are some random thoughts in no particular order.

    – I’m looking forward to getting season one of “NYWC as a YS staffer” out of the way. 2008 has been a major learning curve for me. I feel like I admit ignorance way too much. I look forward to 2009 because I’ll be more useful beyond what I was able to handle here. I know that is gray and fuzzy, I don’t want to bore anyone with details.

    – I’ve said this before but I want to say it again, people are people no matter what they do. I’ve had some stirring conversations with speakers and authors… but I’ve also had very similar conversations with people who don’t write or speak for a living.

    – Nashville is a great convention location. I love the arena environment!

    – A ton of people asked me if the convention gets boring having gone to all 3. No, not boring. Not really repetitive. If it were boring I would need to find a new job.

    – I have huge respect for convention volunteers. My only frame of reference is a PGA Tour event. I think it’s a lot like that. Simply put, if we didn’t have the volunteer we couldn’t do it. Thanks to our volunteers!

    – I’ve gotten more sleep than in Pittsburgh. The reality is that my body is just waking up at 5:30 AM Pacific time. My roommate, Andy Thompson, thought I was kidding. With no alarm I woke up at exactly 5:30 on Friday morning. Today I woke up at 5:27.

    – Security at the Sommet Center is a little crazy. They are diligent, to say the least.

    – Is it really Christmas shopping season?

    – It’s true. I’m staying over on Monday night so I can get a good nights sleep before going home. I felt like my recovery process after Pittsburgh was elongated by my lack of chillaxing.

    – I’m looking forward to checking out the details of Obama’s transition team when I get home.

    – Mark Yaconelli, pictured above, brought the funk today.

    – I am thankful for Ian [Dude] Robertson. Every time I do an interview I am praying I don’t ruin it. It’s happened, it’s embarassing and every shoot makes me wish I knew more about the camera.

    – Just heard this on the Nashville news, “NASA astronaughts are working on their hardest project ever, they are installing a device that will make drinking water out of urine.“

  • Hump Day!

    It’s Wednesday already. I was in 6th grade at camp and first heard the term, Hump Day, I’ve always giggled at that expression. I’m 32 years old and it still makes me snort a little.

    Here are some random tidbits going on in my life, none big enough for a whole thought.

    #1 We’re entering into the 21st century of television soon. When we moved to San Diego I cut back on our cable costs for a while until I could grasp all our bills. To say the least, housing in Southern California is a lot different than in Michigan and I feared there were other hidden costs I wasn’t seeing. With all that settled and a normal monthly budget in play, we upgraded. I know this surprises some people to know that we did analog cable, being that I’m such a total tech dork. So we will soon have a bazillion channels, including tons of HD choices, and a DVR. You mean I won’t need my VCR anymore?

    #2 Social networking tools and the church. Kristen and I are getting more and more engaged in the church in an awesome way. One thing I’ve agreed to help out with is getting their website in order. Now, in addition to that, we have a Facebook group and I’m asking the staff (no office, decentralized staff) to play with Google Groups for their collaborations instead of emailing everything all over the place. Next step for them, they want a team blog to help tell their story. The biggest challenge for me is that we truly are a multi-cultural church. Yet, I’ve never done a website in multiple languages. I have to figure this one out!

    #3 Proud of YS this week. There’s been quite a stir about our publication of the book, Barack Obama: An American Story. It’s a team that rallies together, prays for one another, and genuinely loves one another. We knew this release would cause some people to question our sanity so we weren’t taken by surprise by the response. But it’s really cool to see Marko (the president of YS) be transparent about it on his blog. I love the values of YS, always have, and am proud to be a part of what God is doing through them.

    #4 Speaking of politics. It’s been a slow news week. I’m pretty sure by the end of the week Katie Couric will have a story, “A Retrospective of My Time on The Today Show.” With gas prices diving, a peaceful presidential transition, all of my sports teams sucking, and even murders and teen pregnancy on the decline… there really isn’t much to report on.

    #5 One more week until NYWC Nashville. Half of me says, “I’m still tired from the first two!” The other half of me says, “Bring it on!” Someone in the YS office loves me. After being in the adjoining room to Marko’s suite in Pittsburgh, I got moved down to the adjoining room to our VP of Marketing’s suite in Nashville. I think Dave knows every person in Nashville! Sleep? Who needs sleep? Not going to lie, I’m a social butterfly so I’m looking forwad to it.

    #6 Our kids rock! Don’t take my word for it, read Megan’s guest blog post on Kristen’s blog yesterday. I think Megan will have a guest post here soon. Turns out mommy is paying Megan to be her editor now, $1 per piece. She’s going to need an agent soon.

    #7 The Wii is back. After a summer’s long hiatus, the kids noticed we had a Wii again. In fact, Paul told me… “Your friend Ian has a Wii, so I want to play.” Kid’s brains work in the weirdest ways. It is true, Ian has a Wii… Paul saw that when we dropped off a stray turtle at his house over the weekend.

    #8 Reading again. Glance over at my sidebar and you’ll see what’s currently on my nightstand. I really am reading all of those books at the same time. Perhaps that’s why I rarely finish books?

    #9 Kristen’s new job. It’s been a fun challenge as we’re figuring out life with both of us working. She’s doing customer service for Calorie King in nearby La Mesa. We now have an ongoing joke that while she is the Calorie Queen, I am the King of Calories.

    #10 I don’t really have a tenth one. It just sounded like a good idea since I had nine.

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