thejakers

This is a great video on the latest numbers behind Social Media. If you’re in any kind of communications or marketing position, the information here is not only valuable but will also change the way you do your job in next five years. The biggest change I see coming: More subversive campaigns that infiltrate your daily online interactions in subtle and subconscious ways. Check it out:

Your thoughts?

Twitter is free, right? Not exactly. As we all know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

When I logged into Twitter this morning, I saw that I’d posted an astounding 5,061 Tweets. That’s a lot of little posts. And I wondered, how much did that cost me in time…and money.

Let’s assume that each Tweet represents a minute of time on average. That’s 5,061 minutes of my life in the last year or so spent on Twitter in one form or another.

That breaks down to 84.25 hours…3.51 days!

That means I’ve spent a little under 1% of the year on Twitter. And given my hourly consulting rate, my time value is around $100 per hour.

In essence Twitter has cost me $8,425.

Or has it?

Here’s where the exercise gets a little fuzzy. I’ve definitely received business both directly and indirectly from Twitter. There are many intangibles that social media affords that are hard to measure. In fact, I can think of one particular contract that came indirectly from my Twitter use that nearly doubles the amount it cost me in time value.

So, besides the immeasurable value of relationships I’ve developed on Twitter, the actual time and “money” spent, has been more than worth it.

Thanks Twitter!

How about you? What’s your Twitter cost? Have you ever thought of it in such a way?

[Photo by Shovelling Son]

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in social media comes Twoddler, an interactive toy that allows your language challenged baby to tweet you via a Fisher Price Activity Set. You think it’s a joke, but sadly it’s not. Check out this video.

INCA Award 2009 WINNER: Twoddler from IBBT on Vimeo.

There is tons of advice out there about how to make sure technology doesn’t get in the way of your responsibilities to your family…specifically to your spouse.

So, I’m going to go ahead and say that this is definitely not the way to start off on the right foot with your new bride.

Apprently this guy didn’t tell his bride that he was going to be so gosh, darn hilarious at the alter. As you can tell, she was thrilled. But the pastor’s face is priceless.

For the record, Tracy changed her Twitter name to @tracymariehanna since this event.

What do you think? Cute or idiotic?

[Photo and scoop from TechCrunch]

Recently Miley Cyrus made a headline splash by declaring that she was quitting Twitter. “I stopped living for moments and started living for people,” she said (Of course a few pics of you in your skivvies might influence your decision to get off the interwebs too). She then lost all possible credibility on the topic by making a hideous rap song and posting it on YouTube.

But let’s not forget that Miley is seventeen years old (I kind of choked on my coffee when I realized she was born my freshman year of high school). So, she’s allowed to make a fool of herself more often than not. That’s what teenagers do – fortunately, and unfortunately for Miley, most teenagers don’t have their lives in the limelight a majority of time. But teenagers also have little moments of wisdom that we’d be wise to heed, and I think Miley might be on to something here. When she says she’s living for people, she of course meant her followers.

I understand where she’s coming from. I’ve found myself more concerned about providing content for others than enjoying life and its moments. I’ve been sucked in to the Real-Time Web, where every moment is an opportunity to be catalogued and disseminated to a waiting audience (kind of like right now).

I came across an excellent article by Paul Carr on this concept of the Real-Time Web. We’d all be wise to ponder the implications of Carr’s words. Here’s a quote I found especially poignant:

“And that’s when the real-time web – for all the attention it’s getting right now – starts to look less like a brave new world, and more like the path to a hideous dystopia. A world where our reaction to any event, no matter how serious, is influenced, not by what’s right, but by how it will play with our micro-audience. An audience that, thanks to Google and Microsoft’s wholehearted support of the real-time web, is about to get even bigger and more tempting.”

You can read the whole article here.

[Picture courtesy of Come Back on The Radar]

The following is a post I made on the Praxischurch.com blog:

Life is Tweet

Last March I was in Raleigh, NC for the Acts 29 Network (A29) Boot Camp with the Praxis Church elders and some of my fellow elder candidates.  It was a great time of worship and teaching, with some world-class speakers and a lot of very practical information.

Everywhere I looked MacBooks were open and people were clicking away little “tweets” about the conference using the #a29 hash tag. If you don’t understand any of what I just wrote, God bless you. They were on Twitter. It piqued my curiosity, and I signed up for an account to follow the goings-on.

Fast-forward seven months or so, and today you’ll find me very active on Twitter (to the point that Pastor Tim unfollows me regularly because I tweet too much!) And as someone who is very active with many social media forms, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, I can attest to the fact that they can be both significant time wasters and narcissistic vehicles that give the appearance of community but lack any true substance. And before you know, if you let them, your social media accounts can take over your real life! Yet, they can also be very valuable and rewarding tools.

Internet Ministry?

When I came onto staff at Praxis as our communications manager, part of my job was to create a comprehensive strategy that used social media.

Early on, the biggest danger I recognized was that our online efforts could create a community that was engaged online with each other and church information, but that had little-to-no engagement with the actual body of Christ outside of that.

So, from the beginning I’ve intentionally not been satisfied with just interacting with people online. Rather, I want our online efforts to result in what I call incarnational interactions. The word incarnation is a theological word that refers to Jesus coming down from heaven, becoming human and taking on a body like ours, and living among us. Paul talks about the incarnation in Philippians 2:5-8:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.”

For me, it’s important that our online interactions as a church result in incarnated moments – times when we come together in person, ditching the computers for a deeper, more fulfilling relationship. At Praxis, we have no interest in building an awesome online community in and of itself. Everything we do online is engineered to bring you into physical (incarnate) community with our church. It’s easy to hide behind a monitor, breaking off relationships with people who challenge you with the click of a mouse. It’s much more messy, difficult, and challenging to walk shoulder to shoulder with the people whom God has called you to be in community with, a community that celebrates with you in the good times and mourns with you in the bad times.  A community that is called to incarnationally live out the gospel, just as Jesus did, to each other and to the world.

The Kentucky Connection

I’d like to share a story that illustrates how approaching social media this way might work. When I first started using Twitter, I naturally spent most of my time finding interesting people to follow and interact with.

My first searches were for people who were connected with the A29 network, since I have a vested interest there. One person I came across was Chris St. John, who is now a good friend online.

Chris lives in Somerset, KY. As we began to interact, I learned that Chris had a brother in Scottsdale, Craig. Later, I learned that Craig went to Praxis on and off, but wasn’t sure he wanted to commit. Chris in Kentucky introduced me to Craig in Arizona. As I got to know Craig better online, we decided to get together and hang out. Today, Craig is now a part of my missional community and a regularly attending Sunday services at Praxis.

In Craig’s words, “He was ready to get off the wall and commit.” All this happened because I met Chris in Kentucky, who introduced me to Craig in Arizona, and because I intentionally moved the relationship from behind the monitor to a handshake. That is the essence of an incarnational interaction.

So I encourage you to put some thought into how you use the Internet and social media. Are there ways that you can better utilize them for the gospel? Are you taking your online interactions and turning them into incarnated moments? If not, please consider doing so. As a body of Christ, we’re called to live life together – both online and offline.

You can follow Praxis Church on Twitter @praxischurch and on Facebook – just don’t make that your only interaction with the church!