Hollywood looking for the cluetrain
Friday, August 25, 2006
I just added a link to Robert X Cringley on my links list sidebar. It’s about time. Check out this insightful quote from Friday’s column about what has Hollywood loosing sleep:“Something is wrong with the movie business. Its core market of boys and young men have stopped going to the movies and are, instead, surfing, texting, SMS-ing, gaming, and making and watching these stupid videos [on YouTube, etc.]. Time and money previously spent at the multiplex is being spent at home and online and Hollywood is hurting as a result -- hurting not just because of revenue and profit shortfalls, but because the industry no longer has confidence that it knows for sure what its core market wants to see on-screen.”
You can get the whole article on his PBS column site. For a while there, it seemed as if someone in Hollywood had this figured out with the ostensibly brilliant blogosphere run up to Snakes on a Plane. But then the movie came out and grossed only a $15.2 million opener. Could it be all those coveted 18 to 30 year olds were already downloading it on Bit Torrent?I have my own humble opinion on all this—and I do think maybe a few Hollywood execs get it. Audiences are conversations.
Whether you are talking old-school film production or user-generated Web media, good stories are what really matter. Build your film business by bringing good stories into the conversation. This will make all the difference.
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Windows Vista: the Devil you don't know
Friday, August 25, 2006
I haven’t posted a smug rant about Microsoft Windows for a few months now, so I’m due. I apologize in advance for any offense this may cause.There are three things every devoted Windows user should know about the forthcoming (and oft delayed) Windows Vista upgrade:
Thing Number 1: Every feature in Vista has been available in Mac OS X for more than a year—and in some cases, up to five years, such as the liquid/aqua aesthetic they are calling "Aero." If you think those Vista “gadget” apps are cool, you should see Mac OS X.4 Tiger’s widgets on the Mac. And if you want something like Mac OS X.5 Leopard’s forthcoming Time Machine real-time backup or Spaces feature, you’ll have to wait for Microsoft’s next OS release, scheduled for the twelfth of never.Thing Number 2: Vista is still built atop the same problem core that good-old Windows 95 was built on. That means that security and bugs will continue to be an issue. Top Tech News said in an article Thursday, “Testers and pundits alike say Vista Beta 2…is plagued by bugs and blue screens.” Robert Scoble, former MS blogger advocate and co-author of Naked Conversations, said this of Vista Beta 2 in his Blog this week: “This sucker is just not ready. It feels like it needs a good six more months.”
While Vista should be more secure out of the gate than XP was, there’s some good reasons why Mac OS X has offered better security over any Windows flavor for the past five years running. And, as David Pogue points out in his New York Times column today, it’s not because there are fewer Macs out there.
Thing Number 3 (and this is the biggest one): Vista will likely not run well (or at all) on your existing or aging PC. At this point Windows Vista involves a huge amount of legacy code and some pretty significant minimum processing and RAM requirements. If you bought a good performing machine for XP, NT or 2000 three or four years ago, Vista will likely require another upgrade to make you Vista capable (see this on their own requirements page). And you'll have to fork over more for the really cool premium edition. Say hello to planned obsolescence. Thank you, Windows monopoly.
Since Mac OS X came out, each version (X.0 through X.4) has run on PowerPC G3, G4, G5 and current Intel processor-powered Mac hardware at respective, if not better than previous, system performance (allowing for the suggested RAM requirements). While this won’t be the case in perpetuity, it is a testament to the modern foundation of OS X that my 2002 PowerBook G4 550 MHz is as useful to me now as it was when I bought it—even more so with the additional features of newer Mac OS releases.
Now that you are well informed about the future Windows Vista holds, it may be advisable to keep using Windows XP for a couple more years. The most current build of XP, while annoyingly in your-face at times, is mature. Perhaps it’s better to stick with the devil you know.
Quantum theology
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
In the category of truly sidetracking my one-track mind, I stumbled upon this fascinating information in a news release from an author positing an interesting hypothesis behind the Salem witch trial hysteria. Not to pitch this book or its specific hypothesis, I was more fascinated by the little-known quantum physics experiment that gave rise to it. I did a little more research on it to verify what I was reading. (How did I get sidetracked? A new RSS feed from PR Web's religion category.)
The double slit light and quantum eraser experiments: Photons are fired one at a time. If the researchers does not know which slit each photon passes through, a zebra pattern is formed indicating interference as taken place. If the researcher knows which slit each passes through, the zebra pattern disappears. It makes no difference whether the measurement is taken before or after a photon passes the slits, or if it is taken before and then erased. The result is the same. The researcher’s knowledge or lack of knowledge makes the difference.The release stated that Noble-winning physicist Richard Feynman called this the “central mystery” of quantum mechanics, that something as intangible as knowledge -- in this case, which slit a photon went through -- changes something as concrete as a pattern on a screen.
“It’s perhaps even more spectacular,” said author Stephen Hawley Martin, “that a basic tenet of modern science has been proven wrong by this experiment. Yet, no one in science or elsewhere seems to have focused on this. Thought that remains inside a person’s head would be incapable of having an effect on this experiment. Yet thought in the form of knowledge about which slit a proton passed through had a profound effect.”
From wikipedia, “How can this be? It would seem that the 'choice' to observe or erase the which-path information can change the position where the photon is recorded on the detector, even after it should have already been recorded.”
Is choice hard-wired into the nature of the universe? I’m going to have to think about this one for a while, but I can’t help but wonder how this experimental finding fits into the metaphysical and/or spiritual realm transcending the physical. Fascinating theological implications.
Suspicious minds
Monday, August 21, 2006
We're back from our ten day western odyssey through 5 states (Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota). I now need a vacation from my vacation.I happened upon an interview today while combing through the comments on an Out of Ur story, and thought I would share a link and a pertinent quote.
One of the significant differences between modern and post-modern thinkers is how, generally, they understand and respond to consumer marketing tactics. While the established evangelical church has embraced marketing techniques to advance the gospel, the statistics show a marked generational dropoff in younger adults (30s and 20s). My suspicion is that the very thing (cultural relevance through pop media) being used by the older generation to reach the younger one is the very thing that is driving them away.It's hard to prove this hypothesis without some serious new research. Voices like Sarah Cunningham are beginning to draw this into focus:
"Twentysomethings were raised in a media-driven culture and are naturally suspicious of stunts, ploys, and marketing campaigns crafted to get their attention. For good or bad, we carry this suspicion with us into the spiritual arena as well. So when we are confronted with new Christian trends and conferences and books pitched as the end-all-beat-all answers, we can't help but wonder if the movement at hand will have any lasting value or whether it will be one more flash in the pan. Liturgy, on the other hand, speaks to us of a timeless, unchanging God who is not reliant on magic tricks or aces up the sleeve to get people into his congregations. here is something proven, and therefore credible, about practices that extend back to ancient times."
Cunningham is the author of Dear Church: Letters From A Disillusioned Generation, published by Zondervan. You can read the interview this quote came from here.
Lost in transmission
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Something to noodle on while I am out of pocket on TSAWWT blog posts for the next week or so. Read. Chew. Comment. Repeat.Much of the modern evangelical church is a step behind huge sociological and communication shifts. Most notably is the transformation from consumerism to producerism—from cool spectator-driven to warm participation-driven media and communication. In a recent PRSA presentation I downloaded from Andrew Lark, a communications consultant, he describes human communication in terms of major eras we have been moving through over time driven by our communication media.
1) The Transmission Era
2) The Triangulation Era (Web 1.0)
3) The Participatory Era (Web 2.0)
The modern church still fits squarely in the Transmission Era in many ways, whether the media is print, preaching driven, radio, film or TV. But The Church didn’t used to be this way. In the absence of any prevailing communication method aside from verbal (literacy and written communication was quite limited, the impact of epistles notwithstanding), the early church was much more participatory. It had to be.
Today, in the postmodern era, communication media is increasingly characterized by participation. Of all the potential or pitfalls of postmodernism, this is the most exciting and encouraging aspect to me—an opportunity to bring us back to a more of a New Testament church ethos, albeit in new, and even digital, wineskins. And the church communities that will thrive (regardless of old or new, high or low, large or small) will be the ones that emphasize participation rather than passive, one-way transmission of consumerism. And this isn't just about blogs and wikis. It's about how you do everything.
A few of quotes to provoke thought and comment:
“We are entering one era in which the technological infrastructure is creating a different context for how we tell our stories and how we communicate with each other”
- Andrew Nachison, Director, Media Center
“One of my new laws for communicators is 'the more you participate, the more transparent the dialog becomes'"
- Andy Lark
“Whether the existing church likes it or not, we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants. … Our elders, the Baby Boomers, learned how to communicate to consumers, but to find success in the future, a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet. ... Emboldened by this participatory movement and empowered by easy-to-use technology, we are starting to expect different things from our churches, pastors and denominations. We look forward to something more profound from our churches than vision casting, finding our spiritual gifts, mall-like facilities, coffee bars and candles. We expect to participate; we expect to co-create the church. As bloggers, we take an active role in our personal spiritual formation.”
- Tim Bednar
Meet an internet celebrity
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Space 150 has gone and done it again. We are the Web unites “internet celebrities” to support ‘net neutrality. Get on the bandwagon and show your support here. Unless, of course, you’re totally against this. In which case, you can just enjoy the goofy new music video featuring gem keeper Leslie Hall, the Tron guy, Peter Pan, the Chinese Backstreet Boys, and more. Check it out.Then, get even deeper into the madness by visiting Leslie Hall’s Gem Sweater Mobile Museum. All your Gem are belong to us.
Making The Church safe for democracy
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Okay, this has got to be my last post about this. Sorry--bear with me for one more round. With The Myth of a Christian Nation gaining quite a bit of attention since the July 31 New York Times article, I thought I’d post a link to a piece recently published by Next Wave, but originally written in 2003. It’s another good take on the issue of politics, patriotism and The Church. It’s unfortunate that some in full-time ministry have been displaced over these issues (as mentioned in this piece), but I pray the growing awareness will make it safer for more people to affirm a view of the Kingdom that places power under people rather than seeking power over them. Not left, nor right, just the Kingdom.Also, Nick Coleman of the Star Tribune did a nice piece on Greg Boyd's NYT odyssey in this week's paper. Since the NYT article, Boyd's book has rocketed from #32,738 to #20 overall on Amazon.com sales charts. Now, do I need to change the diagnosis of BF from Bono Fatigue to Boyd Fatigue?
Get that guy some sun block
Friday, August 04, 2006
The infamous Pat Robertson has now done a 180 on global warming, claiming in a 700 Club broadcast that the recent heat wave is “the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time.” He continues, “We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.” (We’re running out of oil, too, Pat! In case you didn’t notice paying $3.20 a gallon today.)
My recommendation to the rest of us? If you happen to be near a TV set and the 700 Club comes on, walk right up to that TV screen and wipe some SPF 40 sun block right on Pat’s face. Sure, it sounds crazy and will make a mess of your set, but he’s gonna need some for sure.
Three degrees of separation
Friday, August 04, 2006
Club Three Degrees is depending on City of Minneapolis zoning laws to keep a new strip club from opening in close proximity to the club. As this Strib article points out, there is some disagreement (and confusion) over whether the club should be considered a church or a nightclub. To be honest, the wording of law (with its specific reference to alcohol sales equating nightclubs with bars) and C3D’s non profit status (zero profit and mostly volunteer run) should be enough to give it legitimacy as a ministry. (What nightclub in there right minds would be a volunteer-run, no drink, no profit venture?) Although it may sometimes be hard to differentiate it from other aspects of the Christian entertainment industry (yeah, I’m talking about you, Nash-Vegas), Club Three Degrees has always been an out front evangelistic ministry. Sure, it thinks of itself as a nightclub venue. It holds concerts and sells beverages and appetizers. But, it doesn’t do it to make money. It does it to spread the gospel. Knowing Nancy and Steve Aleksuk for several years, I can personally vouch for that overriding mission. They’re obsessed (in a good way) with this purpose.So will the strippers prevail? In an updated article from the Strib today it looks like they did—at least in this round. The full Minneapolis City Council voted 10 to 3 to grant a business license to the strip club owners. C3D is now investigating legal action. The council can vote any way they choose to, but it doesn’t mean decisions are legal. That’s up to the courts. But legal action versus the City could prove too costly.
Even if the Divas club does begin operating, there will still be a burning light at C3D in the dark nightlife of our city.
Really Simple Stupification
Friday, August 04, 2006
Well, for anyone who cares, I finally figured out why my RSS feeds and summaries have been a little loopy. (Does anyone even subscribe to my TSAWWT feed?)MS Word and other programs have long had this great feature called smart quotes and apostrophes, which automatically replace the keyed character (the vertical kind) with a curved or “smart” character—in this case, an apostrophe that curves open to the left for contractions and possessives.
This is great for visual text, but not for code. To an RSS feed, characters of text from my blog (which have real meaning to human beings) are just bits of code. If it doesn’t recognize the code it sees, it either replaces it with something else or drops it altogether. How draconian.Here’s the rub. My habit of writing posts in MS Word and then putting them into Rapidweaver later has created a code-related error I have recently discovered. When I use a curved apostrophe in a story headline, my RSS headline feed (which I use in the sidebar of the site) listing my most recent posts replaces them with question marks. Annoying. I’ve also discovered that when I include a photo in the code for the first line of text, my internet RSS feed omits the lead-in summary text completely from the feed. Infuriating!
Well, knowledge is power. Now that I know about this, I can revert to boring old vertical apostrophes, rearrange my photos and better conform to the legalism of RSS.
The multi megas, coming soon to a theater near you
Thursday, August 03, 2006
I’ve been linking around the ‘net looking at various blogs—especially some that have sprouted more recently dedicated to church marketing. Obviously in the age of the mega church, consumer marketing has become an important endeavor for some of these congregation. It’s quite interesting to see this happen—I feel a little torn. On the one hand marketing can be fun—100 times more interesting than other ecclesial concerns. I’m a creative, so the temptation to make marketing, branding, advertising and PR into tools of The Church appeals to me on a professional and missional level. On the other hand, I have an enormous amount of discomfort with tactics that seek to grow individual churches on the back of the consumer marketing strategies. However noble to goal (reaching the lost), sometimes the means and message just don’t translate well. What can be very successful tactics for selling fashion wear, iPods and dishwashers, just doesn’t do a good job really connecting lost people with Jesus. The “conversions” in this sense can become conversions to a specific brand of church, rather than into a transformative relationship with Jesus as His Bride.Often all this marketing does a much better job of selling one church versus the competition to existing customers (read: Christians). So, who’s the competition? Don’t assume it’s the world or the culture. Usually it’s the 100-year-old church down the street that just plods along doing what it can to serve the Kingdom. Sometimes it’s just another baby church plant without the hip creative resources or big budget. Or it may even be another multi-mega church.
Then I see the most recent business marketing trend to hit The Church codified in a new book (pictured) and something begins to make more sense to me. The latest buzz, the multi-site church, is being advocated with a fairly consistent definition of what “church” is—a definition that needs to change. You pick up on it in the marketing language of this book: on the book jacket, the blurbs and in the reviews on Amazon. It’s inherent in how they define church in very local terms—almost never universally. First, there’s the subtitle: “Being one church in many locations.” The fact is, The Church already is that. Do we really need a single congregation to divide up geographically when parishes and communities of various denominations already have done so? Are we certain they are ineffective? Another quote from the back cover: “Churches are growing beyond the limitations of a single service in one building.” But does everyone need to “go” to your church in order for you to have advanced the Kingdom? Or look at how the language describes the multi-venue church as a better way to “ensure a successful DNA transfer” than traditional church planting. I’ve heard this phrase before, but what does it imply? DNA is unique, like a fingerprint. The DNA metaphor is used in this case to mean that an additional multi-site venue approach better ensures that one church’s personality and characteristics will be replicated. Replicated DNA is known as cloning. To be sure, cloning is easier than giving birth or resuscitation. But with regard to that I simply ask, is this what the Kingdom looks like: a Starbucks on every corner?
In the interest of full disclosure, I have not read this book. So my critique is more directed toward the marketing of the book, than the actual content, although the primary content and viewpoint of the work is pretty clear. If I’m taking this all the wrong way or pushing my emergent agenda a little too far, then let this reinforce the point that the language being used describe the multi-venue movement is very telling. However well intended, it belies the isolation that exists among different churches, denominations, movements. And this isolation is a bad thing—something we should be tearing down rather than finding innovative new ways to reinforce.
This siloed view of The Church leads to larger, more powerful multi-site congregations operating more independent of others rather than more interdependently as the body of Christ. This is neo-denominationalism in an age of large non-denominational churches. Separated kingdoms working in a vacuum. Coordination with other “churches” often amounts to a city wide worship event or prayer breakfast for pastors.
Deuteronomy 6:4 TNIV “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” So is His Church.
I’d be much more willing to consider what proponents of this movement (“revolution” is too generous a way to describe it) have to share if their marketing language more often referred to The Church as a unified whole (all of us), rather than positioned it as varied and competing locations (or even franchises). There are likely some very good reasons for considering a multi-site approach. But we need to consider these new options and the advocacy of them looking through the lens of the “universal” Church (a nod to the Catholic tradition) and in coordination with the outposts of the Kingdom that already exist. I see little of that in operation today or in this movement. Why? Because it is hard and slows the momentum of a rapidly growing customer base. (Remember how I am defining customers in this context.)
I am heartened that a few of the large churches in my neck of the woods are not buying into multi-site trend and have, instead, moved to creating deeper relationships and partnerships with other smaller churches and ministries across the city. Here you have interaction across denominations, congregations, races and cultures that unites the diversity of The Church and ignites a passion to advance the Kingdom. It isn’t a proven business model and mixing up the DNA can be a messy job. But the result can be beautiful. It looks a lot more like The Bride every day.
Busted!
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Looks like Derek and Becky have been outed attending a "liberal" church. Cool!
This is a screen grab from the video on the New York Times web site, "Politics and the Pulpit," that featured our church and pastor Greg Boyd. As I was watching I caught a glimpse of someone familiar and had to rewind and look again. Sure enough, there was Derek and a partially obstructed view of Becky. So, I guess this means about a million people have seen him in the past couple of days. See my July 30 post for background on this whole deal.
Dot Mac scoring a dot bomb
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
I’ve been a .Mac user for three years or so, using it for web hosting (this Blog), Email, iDisk file sharing and several other useful features. I’ve noticed on occasion that there are minor network outages that affect Email, iDisk or web sites, etc. On the wild Web, this is par for the course.
Recently, however, Apple has been under fire (see article) for a rash of major .Mac outages and a poor response to its customers. I haven’t personally been affected much since I’ve not being using .Mac too heavily (although I did have some issues posting to my blog on Sunday). Being a paid customer I totally sympathize with others that have been frustrated by this. I hope Apple gets on the stick and makes it right with them. I love .Mac, but agree that it is overpriced. The more you can get out of it, the better value it becomes. Something like this makes the price completely unreasonable.My take on this problem has a silver lining. I think Apple’s new iWeb application is getting some serious use by more and more users, which is taxing the .Mac infrastructure more than ever before. iWeb has a pretty memory intensive (inefficient) but beautiful web page creation and file structure framework. So, in the case of this outage, my guess is that popularity coupled with the awkward code of iWeb has been .Mac’s main issue. That’s just conjecture, but It seems plausible. Also, it looks as if they are adding more features and a blog for members, which is good.
Nonetheless, Apple should fix this—and fast.
Free lunch, for a limited time only
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
I recently saw Rupert Murdoch on Charlie Rose discussing the News Corp. purchase of MySpace last year. The discussion with this venerable tycoon of media was fascinating, to say the least. One thing that struck me, however, was how much of a risk this $580 million purchase really is (although a far cheaper price than it would likely fetch today). Murdoch stated that now he had to find a way to “monetize” MySpace—make the endeavor profitable. For all the fun and games people are having with social networking technologies, aside from pure ad plays, not many people know how or if it will make money.
A quote from Robert X Cringley’s latest column about YouTube illustrates just how much uncertainty even the creators of these wildly popular technologies have about profitability:“I met this week with managers for a VERY large Internet property—one that offers variations on all the current social networking fads like MySpace, FaceBook, and video sharing like YouTube. Why did they think people submitted this material that could often be viewed as personally embarrassing or exposing inner thoughts to any wacko with a DSL line? They hadn't a clue. A table full of ultra-smart executives in their early thirties had no idea whatsoever why anyone would be so reckless as to use their service. They were simply too old to make sense of it and knew that. But whether they understand their members' motivation or not, they'll gladly take the tens of millions of advertising dollars such a phenomenon represents.”
The column also mentions the wild success of YouTube—which up to now has resulted in no profits (like MySpace). Advertising is a great way to generate revenue, don’t get me wrong. But I’m starting to believe that one of the primary attractants to sites like YouTube and MySpace—all user-generated content sites—is the free lunch. Once you add more pervasive advertising and look for additional features to “monetize,” you begin to degrade this appeal. The next logical step is to charge for membership and features.
No matter how cool a technology is, the free lunch can only last as long as the venture capital that created it. Once you go IPO, the shareholders want to get paid. In other words, get it while you can.
A new liturgy of repentance, baptism
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
I’ve missed attending services at Woodland Hills for the past four weeks now—chalk it up to travel and family matters. It’s been delightful to catch up via podcast. I listened to the 7/16 message last week, which ended with the recitation of a home grown liturgy on baptism. Being new to liturgy, I’m not sure what those with liturgical backgrounds would make of this. Upon hearing it recited I felt compelled to key it in and share it more widely via blog. The declarations really relate to the topic of my most recent post on The Lost Art of Evangelism (Episode 8)—so this had special relevance to me.Renouncing Satan, His Works and His Pomp
By the grace of God and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we who are called to be part of the Kingdom Revolution pledge our lives wholly to our Lord Jesus Christ
We renounce Satan, all his works and all his pomp.
We pledge to acquire all our life, worth, and security from Jesus Christ alone.
We renounce all idolatrous ways of getting life, worth and security.
We pledge to living in Christ-like love for all people, at all times, in all circumstances, including those who might regard themselves as our “enemies.”
We renounce all tribalism, all racism, all sectarianism, all hatred and all violence.
We pledge to living as a bridge between people and God and between people with one another.
We renounce the sinful walls that separate people from God and divide people along ethnic, national, political, generational and economic lines.
By the grace of God and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we pledge our lives wholly to Jesus Christ,
We renounce Satan, all his works and all his pomp.