While finishing up a Sunday afternoon bike ride with my son through the park trails near our home, a ruckus in the sky above our church parking lot caught our attention.  Much to our amazement, two mockingbirds were squawking and generally harassing a large red-tailed hawk perched atop a light tower.  While the hawk stood at the ready to swoop down on some wayward squirrel or chipmunk, the mockingbirds were swooping around the bird of prey and doing whatever they could do to motivate him to move along from their territory.  If you are not from Texas, mockingbirds may be the size of robins but they have they aren’t intimidated by anything as evidenced by the little guy you see on the left maybe two feet from potential peril.  You’ll have to forgive the quality of the image above that I snapped from my Droid while straddling a bike.  But that hawk was mammoth and intimidating to us 40 feet below.

The image reminded me of how we have to keep our focus when we are on a mission.  Like the hawk, we have an assignment.  While it may not be snatching up rodents for lunch, we have a task in our daily routine for which we must remain diligent to achieve our goals.  Then along come the mockingbirds …

Sure the raptor could have used its impressive talons to bring an end to the noise.  But the hawk recognized the mockingbirds as simply a nuisance.  If we spend all of our time focused on nuisances then we’ll never accomplish our greater goals.

Lately it seems I have had more than my share of mockingbirds cackling around me.  They have swooped around me and sporadically caused me to lose direction.  But the words of Solomon in the book of Proverbs provide sage counsel:

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.  Proverbs 4:25-27 ESV

The expression “hawkeye” refers to the ability to focus and see well into the distance with clarity.  Watching the bird atop the light pole reminded me how hawks can possess such amazing vision.

For the first time since his sex scandal broke, Tiger Woods faced the media without any preconditions for 36 minutes.  Frankly it was 3-to-4 months overdue.  If he had been this forthcoming in the early stages of the scandal it probably would have never spun so far out of control.  But he placed the blame for those poor crisis communications decisions on his legal counsel.

I did everything to the letter of the law.  My lawyers gave me some advice and I followed that advice.  I did talk to my sponsors and the people I was close to at various companies.

In other words, he put a greater emphasis on the court of law over the court of public opinion.  In a scandal of personal nature, that proved to be a disastrous choice.  The legal system could never do the amount of destruction that ensued as the scandal picked up steam.

When you consider that much more of Tiger’s massive wealth has been amassed through corporate sponsorships than actually playing golf, you would think Team Tiger would recognize which should be the priority.  Today the most dominant athlete of his generation understands why so many of his sponsors dropped him.

I don’t blame them for dropping me.  All I know is that I acted terribly.

He had similar understanding for the media … at least those who haven’t been stalking the every move of his wife and children.

In 24 hour news, you are looking for just about any news to get out there.  Of course they should have been critical of me and you should because I did some terrible things.

It was the mea culpa where Tiger performed magnificently at the news conference.  Other than avoiding an admission of why he entered rehab (as if anyone in America didn’t already know) he did not sidestep his moral culpability even once in regard to his infidelity.  He did deny any use of human growth hormone (HGH) or performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).  But it was his personal conduct that Tiger freely admitted had stepped way over the line.

The toughest things was having to look at myself in a light I never I wanted to look at myself.  How far I had strayed from core fundamentals & morals of myself.  The way I was thinking was not correct.  I was rationalizing and denying. I was in total denial sometimes.  I lied to myself and I lied to others.  Just because I was winning golf tournaments didn’t mean a thing.  I didn’t realize that until I entered rehab.

What was most impressive is the wisdom that came from Tiger’s lips that would be hard for many folks to comprehend.  Even though he credits Buddhism for his spiritual turnaround, the words he spoke resound with Christianity as well.

Its not about the championships, it is about how you live your life.  Going forward I need to be a better man.

Immediately after the accident, I hadn’t hit far enough on bottom for me to realize how far I had fallen.  I fooled myself.  I lied to a lot of people and deceived a lot of people.  I kept a lot of people in the dark.  I rationalized and I lied to myself. When I stripped it away and I saw the full maginitude of what I’ve done.

And the relief of having the burden of his hidden sin off his back is already having an impact on Tiger’s life.

Have I been winning & competing?  Yeah I have.  But I wasn’t having a lot of fun.  And that’s because of the life I was engaged in.  Now that’s been stripped away and it feels fun again.

Geolocation has been a buzz word in communication circles for some time now.  GPS-enabled devices are commonplace today among even the least tech-savvy consumers.  But it is the potential of geolocation apps that has those of us in the communications world drooling.  The ability to reach those that sit closest to our exact location presents exciting new possibilities that until this wave of technology were limited to direct mail.  And if you’ve been to your mailbox lately, you realize how saturated that medium has become.  Right now there is still time to get out front of geo-location as it primarily remains in the “early adopters” phase.  For those in church communications, now is the time to punch your ticket to the geolocation train before it leaves you behind as a runaway locomotive.

First up, a look at the major players in the app field.  Some of the first on the scene were Loopt, Brightkite & Google Latitude.  But the two biggest names launched a year ago at SXSW in Austin and have attracted the greatest following thus far:  Foursquare & Gowalla.  Both are social media apps that reward users for checking in at places.  I’ve used both and despite their core differences they essentially operate the same way.  I’ve been checking in using both for some time now.

If I had to pick an early frontrunner in this race it would be Foursquare.  Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore closed out 2009 by dubbing Foursquare as “Next Year’s Twitter”:

“Among the Web’s early adopter set, the answer is nearly unanimous: Foursquare.  While the technology landscape is ever-changing, I’d argue that Foursquare already has aligned itself to become next year’s mainstream hit.”

Tech guru Robert Scoble is also on the Foursquare bandwagon following the path of Twitter.  “Go back three years ago. Twitter was being used by the same crowd that is playing with Foursquare today.”  And he adds this nugget that sums up where many of us are right now on geolocation.  “It sounds really lame, doesn’t it? But didn’t Twitter sound really lame to you when someone first told you about it?  It’s not lame.”

Unfortunately since I carry a Motorola Droid, I have been limited to Gowalla’s mobile site until this past week  when the guys in Austin released an Android beta app.  The latter is still a tad buggy but a completed version is promised soon.  The Foursquare app is smooth but makes you dig a bit to check leaderboards.

Yelp has recently stepped into the game by adding the capability to check into locations on their geolocation-based review app.  I’ve used Yelp when I am on the road and it offers some cool features like the ability to upload pics.  Frankly I am surprised pics aren’t available on the other guys’ apps yet.  It seems inevitable.  Yelp has primarily become the next generation TripAdvisor (a site that is paying the price for being slow to the geolocation game).  If your church or business is not fully updated on Yelp yet, do it now.  Yelp offers the ability to place your own info and match up to your overall branding.  And for the record, Yelp remains a much better option than ChurchRater.com.

Another app developer that was quick to to take advantage of geolocation was lifechurch.tv‘s YouVersion.  The YouVersion Live feature of their Bible app allows users to locate churches and find out what is happening and being studied without ever stepping foot on a campus.

It should also be noted that the much-maligned and yet still wildly successful Google Buzz has become the first (but certainly not last) of the more traditional social media such as Facebook/MySpace/Twitter to fully utilize geolocation.  Frankly it is the primary reason why it is still picking up users after the disastrous privacy issues at its launch.

Many churches have begun looking at how to best utilize geolocation as they develop their own iPhone/BlackBerry/Android apps.  As technology improves, the more exciting the possibilities arise for helping folks find their way around your campus and to be alerted to events as they occur.  Locally, I love what the Houston Zoo has done with their iPhone app (although I’m still waiting for them to step up with Android for my phone).  They have created an entirely new experience for me taking my kids to see the animals by helping me locate other family members in the park and alerting me to feedings and special events.  This is where churches need to be heading as we push further into 2010.  Particularly megachurches like the one I attend that have sprawling campuses and an overwhelming schedule of programs & events.

Consider this the “All aboard!” for geolocation.   Don’t get left at the station.

Now that the world has enjoyed a day or so test drive, it is time to start determining if Google Buzz has what it takes to become a major player in social media.  Let’s face it, Google’s track record in social media has been less than stellar.  So there was a great deal of skepticism when the suits in Mountain View announced the new service Tuesday.

My initial reaction was one of surprise that Buzz was being launched inside the Gmail architecture.  While it is a brilliant move to essentially launch with millions of preloaded users, it also left a bad first taste in the mouths of many of their most loyal users.

I’ve used Google Buzz both at home and on my Motorola Droid.  Both are relatively easy to access and operate.  The geolocation functionality of the app brings together cool aspects of Twitter along with some of the fun elements of Foursquare & Gowalla.  I find myself interacting with neighbors whom I would normally not have a connection through Twitter or Facebook.  This opens up a wide array of possibilities for businesses & organizations like churches to connect with more of their neighbors than ever before outside of mailers & broadcast advertising.

After the disappointment of Google Wave, I feel a little gun-shy about buying into all of the hype of what Google plans to do with Buzz.  And yet we have seen how strong Gmail has proven to be over the long haul for users.

Unfortunately for Google, most of the buzz about Buzz has been negative in regard to privacy concerns.  I admit my wife freaked out yesterday when she stumbled into Gmail and saw people “following her”.  Even though she is on both Facebook & Twitter, she still is extremely concerned about privacy issues on both of those services as well.  So when she is in her words “forced” into Buzz it fed into her fears.  She obviously is not alone.

Jennifer Leggio of ZDnet doesn’t mince words:

“But the whole experience makes me feel somewhat violated and out of control. And, unlike other social networks that I can hide while I try to do work or catch up with communications, Buzz is in my face every time I go to Gmail.”

The blogosphere is overloaded today with tips on how to disable all or portions of Buzz.  That’s not exactly what Schmidt, Brin & Page likely had in mind following the launch.  Frankly, there were similar privacy concerns expressed when Gmail was launched and those have been faint at best as the years have passed by.  But this launch seems to have gotten under the skin of more folks than anticipated and frankly there are valid concerns.  The most grievous breach of privacy is that Buzz automatically displays your most frequent email contacts.  As a former journalist who relied heavily on undisclosed sources, I can appreciate how catastrophic those types of revelations might be.

Using Buzz off your mobile phone presents even more privacy concerns as noted by Barbara Krasnoff of Computerworld:

“I’d be interested to know if the people who left their first completely public messages using their spanking new Buzz accounts were aware that their exact locations were being broadcast to anyone who happened to look in. Or whether they cared.

I certainly do.”

It should be noted that you do not have to give your location when posting buzzes.  But it certainly is encouraged in order to maximize the geolocation capabilities.  Frankly letting people know where I am is appealing many times as verification.  But you can certainly see how it might be an issue.

An interesting side note is that while Google was continuing to diversify their portfolio of services, the January search engine results showed Bing slowly making up ground on the leader in light of their partnership with Yahoo.  Andy Atkins-Krüger of Multilingual Search took note of the timing as well:

“Whilst Wall Street was rubbing its hands in glee at the prospect of a ComScore announcement showing that Bing had gained market share, Google was launching ‘Buzz’ – but not exactly in a fully polished and finished state. If Google hoped to upstage the Bing advance – they did it with a certain apparent lack of preparation.”

Prepared or not, the Buzz product will have every opportunity to give Google a much stronger foothold in the burgeoning social media landscape.  And it likely will raise the standards for what can be achieved by a social media app over the course of the next year.  Frankly, it could just be the first in a number of major steps forward for the industry.  But it could also force everyone to further examine our own privacy concerns.

Recently, Tony Morgan brought his Killing Cockroaches Road Tour to Houston and it happened to be right around the corner from my house.  I met up with a bunch of my former colleagues at my church and took in the morning event.  Tony has posted his notes from the day on his blog.  It was a great morning to pull back out of the granular monotony and look at the big picture from 30-thousand feet.

While Tony didn’t provide anything earth-shattering that wasn’t previously revealed in his excellent book, the second half of the day provided some great support for some of the communications principles I have long championed.  Here are some of the quotes I collected that stood out to me to ponder as we face new communication & leadership challenges everyday:

• “In church in America, we think more options leads to more devoted followers of Christ. But more options simply confuse.  Where there are fewer options the easier it is to make decisions.”
• “Fewer programs means less competition for dollars, energy, and volunteers.”
• “We see all the people sitting in our pews and blame them for not getting involved.  Finger should be pointed at ourselves.”
• “When analyzing what communication should be presented, we need to determine what event or announcement requires the entire church to hear it? What would you do if we were not on staff? Does the program reach outside the church walls?”
• “What would happen if resources were poured into ministries that were most effective?”
• “The church spams people with all of our messaging.  And what happens to the spam you receive?”
• “The Giant Inflatable Monkey Syndrome is a fascinating but lousy concept that churches seem to be following.  Instead of Giant Inflatable Monkey for visitors we should worry about engaging relationships.”
• “What is the clear vision that God is calling us to & what is it going to take be intentional about that?”
• “If there is going to be a change it has to be purposeful based on agreed up vision. Otherwise it will be cause for alarm.”
• “Sometimes we have to make tough decisions for common good. Leaders should be satisfied with that.”
• “Without right leaders its not possible to make hard decisions.”

Even if you are not an American Idol fan, it would be tough for you to not have heard references to “Pants on the Ground” by General Larry Platt.  He closed out the Atlanta section of auditions in grand style by wowing America with his ode to young folks pulling their pants up so they won’t be “looking like a fool”.

The performance has spawned hundreds of covers on YouTube and even Jimmy Fallon did his own rendition on NBC as Neil Young.  Sure it is a catchy tune but there has to be deeper reason for why the nation is responding.  It could in part be the eccentric personality of the 62-year-old Platt.  Seeing a geriatric hip hop artist with some comedic dance moves is certainly engaging television.

But I believe the public’s general consensus that the style of droopy pants has played itself out is driving the phenomenon.  Even inside the hip hop subculture there is a growing disdain at the fashion statement.  It has lost its edge and has become its own comedic fodder.

So what can we learn from the “Pants” phenomenon?  If we have a message that can be tied to the cultural compass which is both entertaining and well-positioned (and let’s be honest, right now you cannot be any better positioned than on the #1 show in America) then you have the opportunity to connect with a wider audience than you likely can imagine.  Do you think Platt’s friends & family ever dreamed he would become a cultural icon overnight?

Right place .. right time … right message.

]]> http://www.wordtotheword.com/2010/01/15/pants-on-the-ground-all-around/feed/ 3 http://www.wordtotheword.com/2010/01/11/raising_our_voice/ http://www.wordtotheword.com/2010/01/11/raising_our_voice/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:50:52 +0000 randy http://www.wordtotheword.com/?p=52

As I write this post, I am preparing to speak on behalf of a group of neighborhoods at a school board meeting.   I’ve spent the past few years training others how to present their cases to often hostile audiences.  Now is the time for the teacher to practice what he preaches.

In the board meeting, we expect a large & noisy crowd of folks fighting to keep the district from moving ahead with an unpopular plan to tear down and not rebuild the high school where my wife graduated.  The “Save Klein High School” is well organized and appears to have forced the administrators to reconsider their decision.  It is a turn of events my group fully supports.

Unfortunately I represent a smaller & less vocal contingency that will be trying to sway the board in a completely unrelated manner.  The challenge will be to make a strong statement based solely on school data and common sense in an emotionally charged and perhaps raucous setting.

The advice we give clients in such situations may surprise you.  We counsel some of the largest corporations on the planet that sometimes a whisper can be more effective than a shout.  In our society where most folks have a television on while listening to an iPod while texting a friend on their phone and surfing Facebook on their laptop, we have become accustomed to white noise surrounding us.  So when we have silence introduced into the discussion …. it can stop us cold in our tracks.

The next time you are having trouble yelling over the top of your student’s stereo or being heard by a hostile customer, try rocking their world by pausing with a smile and then whispering a statement.  You may be amazed at the results.

There are battle lines being drawn and heavy artillery being mobilized as broadcasters prepare to go to war with the wireless industry over control of the spectrum.

What’s that?  The idea of spectrum allocation makes your eyes glaze over quicker than a PBS documentary on the fascinating life of slugs?  You are certainly not alone.  In fact, most Americans do not even know what a spectrum is.  Simply put, it is defined area on which transmission waves ride for television, radio, satellite, wireless devices and countless other uses.  Unfortunately there is not an infinite supply for the FCC to manage.

For years, television and radio stations gobbled up most of it with their analog signals.  Conversion to digital technology helped broadcasters be more efficient with the spectrum and it was a good thing since mobile phone usage was exploding.  As more & more technologies emerge there is an even greater demand for the precious commodity.

Enter FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and his decision appoint a special advisor to look into slicing up the television spectrum allotment even more to create new wireless opportunities.  As you might suspect, this has not gone over well among the handful of media conglomerates than own the vast majority of all American stations.  Mark Aitken of Sinclair Broadcasting immediately ranted to TV Technology magazine that “it’s clear that they (the FCC) are gunning to shut down broadcasting.” Obviously that is an exaggeration but it exemplifies the feeling of many broadcasters.

On the other side of the argument, you have wireless providers drooling and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division calling for the changes to help create new options for broadband providers to handle the skyrocketing demands of smartphone users.  The DOJ’s Christine Varney tells Information Week:

“Given the potential of wireless services to reach underserved areas and to provide an alternative to wireline broadband providers in other areas, the (FCC’s) primary tool for promoting broadband competition should be freeing up spectrum.”

So what are the implications for those of us who don’t live and die by frequencies on a daily basis?  Whichever decision the FCC makes it will either have a strong impact on the services that TV stations can offer or it may curtail technological developments and overcrowd our existing wireless infrastructure.  There are no win-win scenarios in this battle.

On one hand, my twenty years in television has me very sympathetic to their plight on the heels of their forced upgrade to digital that cost them millions upon millions of dollars.  But on the other hand, we have to face the fact that only an increasingly smaller group of Americans get their television signal from over the airwaves.  Most either use cable or satellite to receive their programming.  And as smartphones and the next wave of wireless devices grow more common by the day, we are reaching a point where something has to give.  Is the best use of our spectrum into the future tied to the aging television industry or to wireless?  I think the answer is obvious.  But it is essential that as we make room for new technology that we don’t cripple broadcasting in the process.

The beginning of a new decade tends to inspire thoughts in me of where we might be headed technologically and how that will affect communications.  I am anxious to see what is revealed at CES 2010 in Las Vegas.  But I am thinking even further into the distant horizon.

I was one of the early adopters of both Facebook & Twitter (especially for someone my age).  I admit I found both intriguing early on but grew tired of both well before they exploded in popularity in the mainstream.  Once they both finally became a part of the daily routine for most Americans many new uses for the technology emerged and I found myself reinvigorated.  This has led to question whether I am dismissing some new web apps and devices too early.

Perhaps the next Twitter will actually be a refinement of an existing technology.  Apple has established itself as the premier tech company in the world not so much on the new concepts it develops, but for how they greatly improve existing technology (i.e. iPods, iPhones, Final Cut Pro).

Jenna Wortham of the New York Times recently served up “Five Tech Themes for 2010″ that focused on things like the death of the traditional home phone line and saving notes on the web.  But three of her choices have the potential to have a direct impact on how we communicate to each other and the world:

Mobile app stores continue to evolve from kitschy collections of games and novelty programs into robust catalogs of applications that push the limits of what a cellphone can do. So where can we expect to see the next big innovation? External attachments. So far, Square, a device that plugs into the audio jack of a mobile phone, turning it into a credit card machine, has made the splashiest entrance into the market, but that is just the beginning.

I find this area of special interest since we are reaching the point where we have a fairly standard size of handheld devices.  To truly take advantage of chip technology inside there is limited space for attachments.  Biotechnology and healthcare devices seem to be getting the majority of attention right now.  But I could see real potential for churches & businesses as well.

Location, location, location: Start-ups like Hot Potato, Foursquare, Grindr and UrbanSpoon have generated a lot of buzz for their forays into the mobile location-based arena, but it’s only the beginning — particularly in light of the new geo-location features made available to developers and users on Twitter. It’s likely we will begin seeing many more useful location-based applications.

OK, I’ll admit that I am seriously down with location-based apps.  I love being able to put my daily experience in context to my immediate environment and sharing experiences with those who drive the same roads and buy groceries at the same place as me.  Taking the GPS technology and using it to reach your most prized demographics has a potential to be huge as devices become more prevalent.  I have a feeling by the start 2011 that location-based apps will become a major part of our handheld experience.

Web TV: As my colleague Nick Bilton pointed out a few weeks ago, ditching the set-top box and watching TV online is little more than a few clicks away. But while his set-up was admittedly more complicated than simply connecting your laptop to a big screen, it will get easier in 2010. In addition to start-ups like Clicker and SetJam aiming to make it easier to find what you want to watch online, Apple may even start peddling a monthly subscription service that would allow television companies to deliver TV programs via its multimedia software. Companies are getting into the game with services like Comcast on Demand Online that allow customers to watch thousands of TV episodes and some movies via their Web browsers.

As a broadcasting veteran, I can tell you that the TV industry has been anticipating the day when our online experience renders traditional broadcasting pointless.  Frankly I was expecting that day to arrive years ago.  The proliferation of broadband has helped inch us closer but the experience of watching the web on a 5o” LCD in your living room still  hasn’t eclipsed cable or satellite … yet.  Many industry insiders thought Apple TV would be the tipping point.  But it remains nothing more than a novelty.  The growing popularity of Hulu has proven we are much closer.

The collapse of the traditional broadcasting will be devastating for my former colleagues much the way the web is close to rendering newspapers extinct.   But it will bring the cost of distribution for churches and other businesses down to a level where anyone can get into the game.  That it is both exciting and daunting at the same time.  The high cost of broadcast air time has kept the choices limited to those who could at least do a decent job of producing content.  But this will change the paradigm completely even more than YouTube or Vimeo.

The key to each of these successes will be finding a standard that is comfortable to everyday users who have become accustomed to simple but powerful.  The key to success as the transition to online video content continues is to be prepared to produce compelling programming that will stand out in the midst of a sea of mediocrity.  That requires forward thinking and planning.  And the start of a new year offers a perfect time for such forward thinking.