Tag Archive - communication

Stay or flee. How do these websites make you feel?

April 27, 2010 in for Churches, Outreach

I’ve been reviewing tools that can be used by churches and ministries to monitor what’s being said about them online. More on that soon.

As I’ve been conducting the reviews, I’ve looked at over 30 websites. I’ve noticed that different websites evoke different feelings in me, and in return, my desires to either continue exploring, or leave as soon as I can.

There’s this site, for the Alterian SM2 product. How do you feel when you visit its website?

I feel stressed. The homepage is busy, the background is novel but confusing, and I don’t know where to look, or where to start. It might be a great product, but the homepage is a real turn-off and I’m not interested in exploring further.

On the other hand, Social Mention evokes an entirely different response. How do you feel when you visit its website?

I feel calm. It’s uncluttered. There’s lot of white space. The messages are clear. The value is obvious.

Alterian could be a superior product. But its website has pushed me away, rather than drawn me in.

How do visitors feel when they visit your church or ministry website? What impact does it have on them? Do they want to stay or flee?

Another set of guidelines for Christians commenting online

April 23, 2010 in Christian Living

The tongue is a fire.

Last year I shared the blog commenting guidelines on the Desiring God blog.

Justin Taylor at the Gospel Coalition has published another list:

  • Is this comment gracious? (Col. 4:6)
  • Is this comment seasoned with salt? (Col. 4:6)
  • Is this comment corrupting? (Eph. 4:29)
  • Is this comment seeking to build up the church for good? (Eph. 4:29)
  • Is this comment intended to give grace to those who read it? (Eph. 4:29)
  • Is this comment fitting and appropriate? (Eph. 4:29)
  • Is this comment true? Is this comment written in love? (Eph. 4:15, 25)

Anything you’d add to this list?

Don’t be afraid to use an apostrophe

April 23, 2010 in for Churches, Outreach

Not sure when to use an apostrophe? Check out this great illustration from The Oatmeal on ‘How to use an apostrophe‘.

It appears that more and more people would benefit from this illustration.

Take for example this advertisement on Google:

Or the author of this Slideshare presentation on ‘15 learnings from the top 50 brands in Facebook‘:

The problem extends to television, with this series of advertisements on Australian television:

And on a related note, check your spacing too! In the same presentation I read this slide over and over again to understand what it meant – until I realised it should be ‘may be’ not ‘maybe’:

Simple stuff that that impacts how you are perceived, and how effective your communication is.

How to ensure you are never contacted again

April 16, 2010 in for Churches, Pastors

Have you ever seen this before? It was the response I received when contacting a company about their worship presentation software:

“Dear Steven,

Thanks for your email, but at this point I have NOT actually received your message because I have implemented a challenge-response anti-spam system.

Before I can receive your message you must respond as outlined below.

Once you have done this once I will receive your ORIGINAL and all FUTURE messages.

Just reply to this email message – just make sure that the subject of your reply contains the subject of this message.

If you do not respond within 7 days, your message will be DELETED and I will not be able to receive messages from you in the future.

I apologize for this one-time inconvenience, but I have been forced to implement this challenge-response anti-spam solution due to the amount of spam I am receiving.

Thank you,

Sales”

If you’re having problems with spam, use Gmail (on its own, or as part of the suite of Google Apps). It’s got a lot of tools to keep spam out of your inbox. This is a much better (i.e. customer-friendly) solution to requiring potential customers to re-send messages.

From where I’m sitting there are two options:

  1. Receive no spam, but stop receiving emails from some potential clients/customers/visitors.
  2. Receive spam, but receive emails from all potential clients/customer/visitors.

Seems like an easy choice to me. Thankfully, this is the first time I’ve come across this ‘anti-spam’ procedure. But if your church or ministry uses this (or something similar), please turn it off!

5 dangers of using technology in the Christian life

March 14, 2010 in Christian Living, for Churches, Outreach, Pastors

Last weekend I presented a seminar at my church’s weekend away on the topic ‘Using technology in your Christian life’. I am tidying up these notes to be included in an upcoming post. In the meantime, I’d like to explore the dangers of technology. Obviously I’m a big fan-boy of technology, but it’s got its dangers. We need to be aware of these to ensure we don’t become a victim, and instead use technology for the glory of God. Here are five dangers that were raised in the seminar or that I’ve thought of. What would you add to this list?

  1. Alienation. Someone shared that they had been excluded from social events because they didn’t have a Facebook account. That’s not very nice. If lack of access to technology excludes people from community, this should raise warning bells. At the very least, there should be more than one way for people to access information – limiting communication about an event to one channel (e.g. Facebook) is exclusive as it assumes that people a) have access to technology (e.g. Facebook), and b) want to use it. We should assume neither.
  2. Addiction. This example of a South Korean couple starving their child to death while caring for a virtual child is at the extreme end of the spectrum. But the need to be plugged-in, to know what’s happening, to read updates, to share updates is a modern and unhelpful phenomenon that has the Center for Internet Addiction. If only we felt the same eagerness to read God’s word and pursue our relationship with Him. On a more light-hearted note, wondering if you’re addicted to Twitter? Try this fun quiz. Apparently I’m 45% addicted to Twitter. It’s a fine line between engagement and addiction. Other posts I’d recommend include: ‘Addicted to tweets‘, ‘Excessive internet use linked to depression‘, and ‘Enabled or enslaved by technology?‘.
  3. Laziness. Some things are best communicated face-to-face, or at least over the phone. Technology allows us to be lazy and laziness is never good. For example, sending your Bible study leader a text message to let them know that you won’t be coming tonight. That’s lazy – if you are not going to be there, it’s courteous to pick up the phone and apologise and explain. It’s easier to send a text, but for the benefit of your leader who has spent hours preparing and who is responsible for caring for you, it’s not a good option.
  4. Potential to sin. I’m not sure if our opportunities to sin have increased with technology, or if we’re simply more aware of them. But take for example Facebook – it can prompt jealousy and envy (I wish I had what she has), pride (posting status updates to promote ourselves), lust (looking at unhelpful photos of people), gossip (sharing news on Facebook, or that we heard on Facebook) about others. The list goes on. Sure, Facebook didn’t invent jealousy, envy, pride, lust and gossip – but it sure makes these sins easy to fall into!
  5. Wasting time. Nielsen recently revealed the extent of time spent on Facebook, and how this is increasing. On this site I shared how Australians spend 29% of all time online, on Facebook. I know I seem to be picking on Facebook – I’m not, it just provides lots of good examples! Technology can make us more efficient and productive, but it can also just help us to waste time. And we waste a lot. When the Master returns, I want to be busy doing his business, not procrastinating on Facebook.

What would you add to this list?

(Feature image attribution – it’s a light-hearted image for a more serious topic! http://www.flickr.com/photos/paloetic/ / CC BY-NC 2.0)

Review: The Social Media Marketing Book

March 5, 2010 in for Churches, Outreach, Pastors

Trying define social media is a challenge, as this post from Web Worker Daily explains.

Trying to keep abreast of the latest developments and possibilities of social media is also a challenge (but subscribing to Mashable’s social media channel can help with this).

However, for many churches, getting a grasp of the basics of social media is the first step that they haven’t taken. And ‘The Social Media Marketing Book‘ is the perfect introduction if this describes your situation (or perhaps you’d like to pass it on to your pastor!).

In an easy to read format with lots of screenshots, you’ll feel like you’re making great progress through the book (when in reality, every second page has a screenshot!) The book explores the different categories of social media – blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, media sharing, social news, social bookmarking, ratings and reviews, forums and virtual worlds.

For each category an entry-level description is provided, along with a history of the category, and some tips to engaging in the particular channel (e.g. how to use Twitter – which is perhaps not as easy as it might appear to someone who is new to Twitter).

Chapter 10 includes details on strategy – how to harness social media for marketing, and chapter 11 gives tips on measuring your success.

Don’t be put off by the use of the term marketing in the previous sentence, or in the title of the book. Social media has some very exciting possibilities for churches and ministries to engage with our communities, to promote discussion and get people thinking and talking about Jesus. This book lays the foundation that will help your church or ministry brainstorm how you might use social media for the glory of God.

And speaking of social media, here’s an interesting article from Tim Challies on ‘Christians and Social Media‘.

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