Social media and Joseph Kony

The past couple of days, awareness of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army has went viral with a movie made by Invisible Children, an organization focused on stopping Joseph Kony.

Photo by SPangborn

Vimeo stats of the Kony 2012 movie

Although there has been controversy about the whole campaign, the use of social media has been fascinating to watch. In just a few days, views of the centerpiece movie on Kony jumped from 8 views to 58,000 to 2.7 million to 8.2 million views on March 7, 2012.

It is no surprise that social media enabled this strategy to gain so much traction in just a few short days. Smart use of the tools, like empowering readers to participate in speaking to "culturemakers" and policymakers to ask them to do something about Kony via Twitter, helps spread this campaign like wildfire.

What can my and other organizations learn from this?

Canadian Member of Parliament, Tony Clement was influenced

Without an organization embracing social media in the first place, the opportunity to speak into a social media phenomenon is lost. An example like this shows quite clearly that culture is already using social media tools and it will be that much harder if we don't use it.  (An aside thought: What if hundreds of our leaders and volunteers were able to speak into this by offering a different viewpoint by adding the hashtag #stopkony or #kony2012 to their tweets?)  Getting on the bandwagon right now is too late. We must be social media ready.

Clarity of content/cause is key. The Invisible Children's site and content really made this campaign succeed. I was impressed by the professional presentation and the clear message when spending a brief few minutes on the site. I have not watched the movie, but it has been shared to me via Facebook and Twitter over 10+ times with recommendations to watch it.

Is your organization ready to speak into something like Kony2012 or create a cause that can spread like it?  If not, how can you get to the point so that your organization can?  Would love to hear your thoughts.
   

The Other Jeremy Lin Effect

photo by teamstickergiant

If you are a fan of the NBA and of Jeremy Lin, no doubt you would have followed the numerous amount of articles and videos created about Lin.  Two of the more humorous ones are the Fung Brother's The Jeremy Lin Effect and The Jeremy Lin Effect 2 (Linsanity).

However, as I follow this great story, I can't help but speculate of the other Jeremy Lin effect - the effect it can have on world missions.  Lin is a follower of Jesus Christ and is not afraid to say it in front of cameras.  Combine that and basketball's worldwide popularity and Lin's Asian (non-Caucasian) heritage and we have a great opportunity to start gospel themed conversations.

Having gone to two Asian countries for missions, my experience is that sports is a great common topic to start conversations around.  Most countries are sports crazy and basketball is usually near the top of the list.  With Lin's rise to fame, it can be very easy to talk him and bring up his faith in God and Jesus.

Here are some intros to get the discussion going, keeping in mind that some people are in various stages in their journey of discovering Jesus:

• Jeremy Lin thanks God and Jesus in some of his interviews.  What do you think God and Jesus has to do with Lin's success?
• The general population seems to like underdog stories like Lin's.  The Gospels in the Bible seem to paint a picture of Jesus as an underdog.  Do you think Jesus is an underdog?  How would you describe Jesus; who do you think Jesus is?
• Lin so far has stayed humble and focused on being true to himself during all the media attention.  He attributes it to the reality that his identity is found in Christ (1:50) and not in basketball.  What/who do you find your identity in and does it help you stay grounded and focused?  What would your life be like if your identity was found in Jesus? 

Even though some of the questions people may have no clue as to how to answer (ex/ the last question above), I think they would be great conversation starters, even here in North America.

Other suggestions on how to segue into gospel-themed conversations with the Jeremy Lin effect?  

Whether Jeremy knows it or not, I think his play on the court can increase the opportunities to help others discover Jesus. 

Using Calendar Invites to Save Time in Setting Up Appointments Across Time Zones

photo by photosteve101

My wife recently shared to me the difficulty of scheduling meetings over different time zones - especially with people who travel over different time zones and set meetings without specifying which time zone they will be in on the day of the meeting.  After 2 missed meetings, my wife finally was able to connect with this person, but that certainly can be frustrating a time consuming.

How to overcome this confusion?  Send a calendar invite.  I use calendar invites within Google all the time and especially with co-workers to take the advantage of the "Find a Time" feature as it shares their busy/free times on their calendar.

Find a time, create the appointment and send it away and the request goes out with the right time zones.  When the team member receives the request, it will translate to whatever his/her time zone is.  It clears up confusion and gets saves missing appointments and re-scheduling.

How have you overcome the confusion of setting up appointments and meetings cross time zones? 

The Modern Meeting

Photo by thinkpanama

The past 2 days were one of the most productive meetings that I have attended for some time.  Part of it was because some of us have read some principles from the Modern Meeting.  Here are 3 points on why I think it was a successful time.

1) The leader had a decision that we could discuss and implement.  

Modern meetings are more effective when a decision is the starting point to either debate or implement.   Instead of spending hours brainstorming and evaluating different decisions, a decision was made and the team had something to refine, debate, and/or implement.

2) We had group work sessions

Instead of attacking an issue with the whole team, the leader split the group into group work sessions.  It was not a "meeting" but a time where team members were "making hay" (i.e. getting work done) along side each other.  As a result we had a plan and action points to present and confirm in the next block of meetings.

3) We had a distinct time for brainstorm

Although usually recommended for those who are not directly responsible for the outcomes of suggestions coming out of a brainstorm, it was great to have a time where there was freedom to think through what our team can do.  It involves creativity and dreaming which was a welcome break from the other agenda items.  I think this brainstorm session worked because participants knew that just because they thought of something, it didn't mean that they were going to tasked to do it.  There is freedom when that environment is established for creative and helpful brainstorm.

There are other things that were implemented and other things we could improve on, but I was greatly encouraged by the new approach to meetings.  What are some meeting tips that you recommend that has helped meetings you attend to be highly effective?

Google, Failure and Platforms

Photo from Sixth Lie

After reading an article on Google's inability to be accessible, I started to muse how Google will survive the failures of Wave and now Buzz.

It has been said that failing forward makes way for success down the road, but that means that you need to learn from your failures.  But Google doesn't seem to be doing that with 2 big flops and from the rant, I wonder if the message wasn't getting through to Google.  Perhaps Yegge was what Google needed to right the ship.

In the long run, I think Google will hold its own and succeed, but in the short-term will navigate these failures and move on.  They are too big to consider the latest strings of failures to be fatal.

What I appreciated about Yegge's rant was that it made me and a colleague think through what is our online platform to share Jesus Christ.   Do we have a platform that we use and "eat our own dogfood" as well?  Are we making it accessible so that so called "third-parties" can use it to help share Christ themselves?

It may seem odd to some that we need to think this way, but I think we need to look how we can create a platform to share Jesus to as many people as possible and I do think that means looking at an online platform that can multiply the task of bringing the Good News of Jesus.

My Two Cents on Why the iPad is Game Changer

I remember a while back when Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo fanboys were duking it out on message boards on what system was the best. As the systems evolved into more powerful iterations, the target audience for the systems changed. Nintendo started to target a different type of video game player - the casual gamer and Microsoft and Sony stayed with the "hardcore" gamers who have grown up from their 80s 8-bit systems to be adults who demanded more involved and graphic games.

The result? The Wii system sold over 70 million consoles with the Xbox 360 at 42 million and PS3 at 38 million (figures approximate).

I believe what Wii is to the console video game market is what iPad is to the mobile computing market now. You hear people complain that the iPad can't do this or do that, but I don't think Apple is targeting the person who wants an all-in-one computer. Apple is targeting the "casual" computer user.

Case in point - my friend has a MacBook Pro and recently bought an iPad. When we visited her over the summer, I did not even see the MBP, just the iPad. All her needs were met including reading blogs, checking Facebook and playing games.

When I had the iPad for a few weeks, I found myself picking up the iPad to pass the time instead of powering up my laptop. I believe this is what Steve Jobs was aiming for - a computer for casual computer use - not to replace the working computer.

And that is why I think it is a game changer and make Apple millions of dollars.

What are the implications of this for your organization?

Questions for my team to wrestle with:

• Will students access our sites using the iPad more than traditional laptops and desktops?
• Is the iPad mobile enough for students to carry it everywhere they go? Should it be included as a device to consider in a mobile strategy?

Photo credit: ahhyeah and geehail2

Fearing Complacency

Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth

A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God

In a recent blog, Google, the company, was being compared to Pixar. The comparison came in light of Google transitioning to a mature phase of their core business and strives to expand. Pixar has a string of 11 straight blockbuster hits and shows no sign of slowing down. What can Google learn from Pixar?

It is the fear of complacency that is part of the DNA of the whole company. This results in a continual evaluation process of their work and direction and leadership that identifies new problems to be solved to be discussed openly and in humility. This has great application to all companies and organizations that had some past success. "Success hides problems" and leads to complacency and resting on their laurels.

I believe spiritual organizations having their foundation on God and His Word can learn from Pixar. We are not just organizations, but spiritual movements dealing with spiritual adversity. If complacency is allowed to happen in our personal relationship with Jesus, our spiritual growth is flat-lined, and in some cases even becomes a decline. Tozer argues that we have lost our acute desire for Christ - the worshiping, seeking and longing for Christ and is due to the present state of the church expecting that the leaders do the worshiping, seeking and longing for us.

This directly relates to the effectiveness of the organization or church we work for. If we are complacent in our relationship with God, our organization/church that is founded in God will be complacent as well.

Are we complacent? Do we fear complacency in our relationship with God like how Pixar fears complacency in making animated movies? What do you need to do to guard against complacency?

I need to:

• Make sure I am continually seeking, longing and worshiping God (John 15)
• Continually evaluating, in God's grace, how I am doing in obeying and applying God's word
• Keeping the organization's vision fresh in my memory and actively communicating the vision to all stakeholders
  

Photo credit: VerismoVita