My Latest Video: Don't Be That Church II: We Need a New Website

For those of you who follow my adventures in and around the world of church communications, here's a copy of a video I recently created. OK, yesterday. I created it yesterday evening using XtraNormal, a fabulous text-to-movie program and then posted it to YouTube.

Also posted it to my #ChSocM (church social media) blog earlier today and have received all sorts of amusing and disturbing responses via the back channel from church folk who don't want to share their angst in public.

I, on the other hand, seem willing and able to do just that . . . share my angst in public. Would this be different if I were still on a parish staff? Perhaps. I guess that would depend on how badly I wanted to stay on the payroll.

Without further ado or boo-hoo:

Contemporary Life Rant: Google It.

People laugh, albeit nervously, during my shtick about how my mother was the tech consultant for the biopic about Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest. Hanger scene? Lived it. And more! I mention this so you don't think I'm exaggerating when I describe another feature of my childhood.

My mother had a Zero Tolerance Policy for questions that began with, "How do you spell...?" or, "Where is...?" These were not inquiries born of intellectual curiosity, but evidence of laziness.

Go. Look. It. Up. 

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence flipping through a dictionary, thesaurus, or volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia. My mother joined the BOMC so we could have dictionaries in every room of the house. Asking for information that could be found in a book we owned guaranteed a swift trip to my room. Eventually, I'd figure out this was the safest place to be and it was stocked with reference materials.

The Internet had not yet been invented and Google didn't exist. Information had to be carefully spelunked. None of this technology was available while I attended college and graduate school. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up, sometimes in specialized libraries if the information I needed was legal or medical.

Now we have Google, which I initially didn't use because I thought it was cheating. I'm over that. Not looking it up online? Now, that really is evidence of lazy.

Technology makes it so easy to find stuff, that I'm routinely shocked when people ask me for information that I can -- and will -- procure for them via Google.  And while I'm not proud of the tone I'm starting to take while saying, "Google it," at least I'm not brandishing hangers to make my point. Yet.

The Pope tweets, sort of . . .

Yesterday's big news: Pope Benedict XVI's first tweet, launching the website where Vatican news will be aggregated and available, News.va. 

Brilliant PR maneuver. Really! Not being snarky!!

By mid-afternoon, I'd already had several public and back
channel conversations about this on Twitter.  Later that evening, I was  in conversation with The Daily reporter, Carl Franzen (@CarlFranzen) whose article, "Tweet Heavens!" rolled out this morning. 

Things move very quickly via social media, which is more than I can generally say for my beloved church. You do know that joke about responsiveness within the Roman Catholic church, right? "We'll get back to you in 400 years."

Franzen nicely captures my view about the trajectory of this "news," so I hope you'll read his article. It's blessedly short. What space did not permit there was my riff about the tension between what is symbolic and what is real, which is this: 

Let's get real, the Holy Father did not and probably will not be crafting tweets. And this is not "cheating" or "lying" or "disingenuous." This is the reality of issuing communications by and from a high ranking church official.


Although my experience in church communications is primarily within and for the Catholic church, I say with all confidence that it's not unusual for leadership in all denominations to rely on the skills and smarts of communications professionals.

Be assured that those of us called upon to (holy) ghost write for archbishops, bishops, and parish-level clergy view this use of our talents as a great privilege.

Our work is generally vetted up the cleric food chain, often with Canon lawyers weighing in. The tweet issued by the Pope was innocuous enough to sail through the process. 

I say that tweet, no matter who wrote it, had great symbolic value. Who knows what will show up next? Should be real interesting.

More Cool Tools & Widgets

At some point I'll write about bouncing from the 1st to the 21st centuries throughout the day. What's with the 1st century? I'm writing about it in my "engaging good humored" way for my next book about the Jewish roots of almost everything Christian. Quite the challenge on many levels, including internally for yours truly. But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about my 21st century adventures. Now that I'm on Twitter and following thought leaders and trend setters in the world of social media, I'm getting access to some very cool stuff. Here are two items you might want to use.

Stop watch: A fabulous and very cute but not cutesy count up and count down meter. I have it on my desktop screen, sized down to nearly unobtrusive, and set to manage my time at the computer. A bell rings when the time runs out. I reset it and keep going. Since I write/break in 45/15 minute rotations, this is very handy and keeps me on task.

Random Bible Verse: Take a look at my blog's sidebar. See the Scripture snippet? This widget was developed by Jason DelGuidice as SacredMint.com. Hit the "refresh" a bunch of times to see how it rotates verses. Now, go get the code and put it on your blog or website.

Not only may you choose among designs, but also from among 16 translations. As you can see, I've chosen the NIV translation. I have my reasons. In fact, I devote an entire chapter of my new book to explaining ways of reading Scripture as well as wassup with different translations. (I do this without using the word, "hermeneutic.")

5 Days of Tweets and Still All A-Twitter

Five days into trying twitter and I'm even more smitten.

It abounds with possibilities for business, although an entire generation of sales and marketing folks may have to retire before twittering becomes standard operating procedure in that sector. But perhaps with smarties like Chris Brogan and his colleagues at CrossTech Media championing new media tools for business development, change will happen sooner rather than later. That's my hope.

Moving right along.

On Wednesday, I twittered with a group watching the presidential debate. Very handy to be a sociologist! I was able to read, analyze, and sort the flow into categories pretty quickly. Quickly? Understatement. This is a very fast medium. That experience got me thinking about how conference or meeting-based twittering would need to include training about how to get and stay focused.

What does this have to do with church and building community? I'll get to that in another post.

Here, I'll note that I installed TweetDeck to organize my tweeps into categories. Tweeps = people using twitter. I'm following 49 folks involved with new media, or church communications, or ministry. I also added to my list folks who self-identify as sociologists.

How many people are following me? By today: 20. Ruth, who started twittering within 12 hours of me, has 33 tweeps following her. "It's because I'm a gimp," she says. She thinks her disabilities rights knowledge and activism is generating a following for her micro-blogging. Her aide wants to see if it generates any hands-on assistance.

All a-Twitter about Technology

Picture this: I'm speeding up the learning curve while sliding down the slippery slope of new media. First, blogging. Next, LinkedIn, the business networking site. What could possibly be next?

What's next for me is twitter. Up until ~ 36 hours ago, I would've rolled my eyes and groaned if you asked me about Twitter. I would've said, "The kids today have way too much time on their thumbs."

Now, I'm seeing amazing possibilities and uses for this social media tool that provides 140 characters to answer the simple question, "What are you doing?" The answer is posted and then a universe of possibility opens up. While my brain is looking at the value of twitter for marketing and promotion, my heart is seeing the possibilities for building a virtual community for people of faith.

For one thing, all that unpleasant whining by church leadership about not being able to reach youth? It could all disappear "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" before the last trumpet sounds and the dead are "raised imperishable" (1 Co 15:52).

I have friends who leave what we call "Holy Spirit Moment" messages on my various phone answering devices. I'd certainly love to see one of these notes pop up on my computer screen as a tweet, especially during a stressful day.

Lots of possibilities and I'm sure more will become manifest as I become more conversant with this technology. Check it out, let me know when you sign up and perhaps we can tweet one another into greater consciousness about being here to love and serve You Know Who and one another.

I'm twittering at: http://www.twitter.com/MeredithGould


h/t to Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart for a great teleseminar featuring Warren Whitlock, co-author of The Twitter Handbook.

Accused of Cheating

She made the accusation after I had finished scooping cat poop, bagging trash, and making dinner. I had not yet gotten around to making lunch. In fact, I think I was in the mid-tuna sandwich when Ruth accused me of cheating.

What you need to understand is that Ruth is a killer attorney. (Actually, as a public defender, she's an attorney for [alleged] killers but hey, we believe in constitutional rights.) Thus, our conversations occasionally resemble an episode of "People's Court." I'm used to this and even enjoy these colloquies. Reminds me of law school, which I punted shortly after losing the struggle to understand Pennoyer v. Neff. I digress.

It's the morning after, so I don't remember what precisely led up to this:

"Do you like LinkedIn more than blogging?"

I hesitated for maybe three seconds, but in my own defense I must point that I was dealing with mayonnaise. Since we're all on diets, I needed to pay attention to the tuna situation. (All = Ruth, me, and her cat, Buddy.)

"So you do like LinkedIn more than blogging."

"I wouldn't say that."

"More than blogging, you like spending time on LinkedIn."

Note her exquisite technique.

Let the jury and readers note, I do not "like" LinkedIn more than blogging. They're totally different arenas for highly productive slacking.

I am not cheating on More Meredith Gould with Meredith Gould. There are limits to my self-absorption.

JOTTing right along...

Using voice activation technology, JOTT transforms spoken content into emails and text messages, will generate a list and organize appointments. It's free and does indeed "get simple back" as promised by the company's tag line. I've been using Jott for several weeks and love its convenience and ease-of-use.

But I did not anticipate how getting email from me to me would tap into memories of years in the personal growth and self-discovery industry. Specifically, I've been reminded of the quasi-spiritual practice that involved writing affirming love letters -- to self.

This exercise was usually assigned to participants of self-esteem programs -- after they'd learned the difference between kombu and wakame as well as negative and positive self-talk. The handwritten letter was supposed to be from Self to self. It was usually composed in a mediative state induced by the scent of Nag Champa and the taped sounds of distant wind chimes and pan-flutes.

At the end of the session, letters would be stamped with reverence and sent on a journey through the U.S. postal system. As a result, they'd arrive long after participants had returned to their esteem-depleting and soul-sucking lives. Theoretically, receiving a letter from Self would remind recipients of lessons learned, at least more tenderly than the retreat center's Visa charges. I both wrote and, as a program assistant, handed out hankies and postage for these things.

My last such letter was written and posted on November 15, 1995 while I was working my way through The Artist's Way. I found it tucked in my well worn copy of that book. (Looks like first class postage was once 32 cents.) And having reread the thing, I see that many of my hopes and dreams have come to pass. Very affirming. Thanks be to God.

So now it's the 21st century and I spend most of my time online. I use Jott. Get where I'm going with this?

In my toolkit...

I've already mentioned SugarSync which I'm now using on my laptop computer to circumvent an Adobe Acrobat glitch on my desktop computer. Here are some more tools I love:

Aardvark is a Firefox extension I use to delete unwanted content from web pages before printing them out. Yes, I print out web pages. Want to make something of it?

I'm a visual-kinesthetic learner whose comprehension is enhanced by seeing and touching. This explains why I must doodle during live meetings and have been known to clean my kitchen during conference calls. Aardvark also reveals source codes and how pages have been constructed.

While I think jump/thumb/flash drives are just so cute, I prefer backing everything up with Mozy, which offers a 2 GB for free option for its automatic, secure online services. Several months ago I used Mozy to find something I thought I'd deleted and found it safely intact, thus sparing me hours of panic-induced vomiting.

I don't know what I was thinking when I thought I could write without outlining first. I think I thought outlining was for wimps and that real writers just let it flow. I was delusional. And the next writing-related delusion to be decimated? Using writing software.

Over the years, I've tried and rejected a slew of software programs before stumbling upon Writer's Blocks3. I futzed around with the free trial and didn't even wait for the 30 days to run out before ordering my own copy.

It works for me because it works the way my mind works. It also allows me to import content from other sources, shove it all around on the screen, and have that activity reflected in manuscript output without having to open a pile of programs and scores of screens. So far it seems to work well for articles and I hope it makes writing the next book easier.

The next book? Like I noted in an earlier post, thank God for the human capacity to forget pain.







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