Beaconhill NW

Here’s a video interview I did this morning with Guy Walker from ARC (Association of Related Churches)

About two years ago Forrester published a report on Social Technographics.

“At the heart of Social Technographics is consumer data that looks at how consumers approach social technologies – not just the adoption of individual technologies. We group consumers into six different categories of participation – and participation at one level may or may not overlap with participation at other levels. We use the metaphor of a ladder to show this, with the rungs at the higher end of the ladder indicating a higher level of participation.”

Forrester has now added a new rung, “Conversationalists”.

Conversationalists reflects two changes. First, it includes not just Twitter members, but also people who update social network status to converse (since this activity in Facebook is actually more prevalent than tweeting). And second, we include only people who update at least weekly, since anything less than this isn’t much of a conversation.

Conversationalists intrigue me. They’re 56% female, more than any other group in the ladder. While they’re among the youngest of the groups, 70% are still 30 and up.

The data from this survey continues the trends from the last two years — Spectators are maxing out at around 70%, Joiners are still growing rapidly, and Creators are still growing slowly.

Forrester suggests three ways you can use this info:

1. Convince your boss this stuff is for real, and that if you haven’t jumped on it, you’re late.

2. Profile your customer base, and see what they’re ready for, before planning a project to reach out to them. (After all, People is the first step in the POST process.)

3. Segment your audience; build different strategies for different segments. (Social is so prevalent now that a single approach for your company is probably too broad.)

How will you use it?

Martin Luther King from goodness on Vimeo.

A Thursday update to Seesmic for BlackBerry fills in some big coverage holes missing from Seesmic’s proficient desktop tweeter for Windows and Mac. It may be time for those heavy Twitter users among you to get Seesmic back on your radar, if not on your BlackBerry.

Retweeting is Seesmic’s main addition in the latest release, where the retweet funtionality pops up into the options menu. Retweeting quickly reposts another user’s 140 characters as is. For more creative control, there’s also Quote, which will let you edit a tweet–even adding geolocation, a short URL, and a photo–to the message before sending. Like Ubertwitter, Seesmic for Blackberry now includes a preview of a picture embedded within an opened tweet. Good. Now you can slake your curiosity without having to leave the app or wait for a full-size image to load in the browser. The same goes for links leading to Google maps.

[ht to cnet]

Here’s a great effort on the part of Healing Place Church to help the survivors who have been devasted by the earthquake in Haiti.

1. Join Churches Across the World on Monday Night in Prayer For Haiti - Together with Pastor Stovall Weems and Awakening (http://awake21.org) we are making a call for churches everywhere to pray this Monday night for Haiti. We encourage you to invite your church to pray. Open the doors of your church and ask your people to come and pray specifically for Haiti.

At Healing Place Church this Monday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m. CST, we’ll host an evening of special prayer for Haiti at our Highland Campus in Baton Rouge, LA. We’ll also stream this event live online at http://healingplacechurch.org/hpclive. We encourage you to help spread the word and join in from wherever you are.

If you’re on twitter, please use the hashtag #pray4Haiti to help spread the word.

2. Engage the Immediate Needs by Giving – There are two main ways you can give to help the relief effort in Haiti.

Give financially.

You can give online at http://healingplacechurch.org/haiti or by giving directly to our partners, Samaritan’s Purse (http://samaritanspurse.org) and Joyce Meyer Ministries (http://joycemeyer.org).

Give relief supplies.

If you’re in the Baton Rouge area, you can bring relief supplies (listed below) to:

Healing Place Church Highland Campus

19202 Highland Road in Baton Rouge.

Items will be collected now through Monday, January 18

6:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.

For those outside the Baton Rouge area, you can send mail your donated items to:

Love A Child

Attn: Mike Essman- Haiti Earthquake Medical Donation

9304 Camden Field Parkway

Riverview, FL 33578-0520

We are blessed to have tremendous relationships with ministries that have a long history on the ground in Haiti as well as a wealth of experience in large-scale crisis response. It is through these partnerships that we are able to engage the need in Haiti. Serving together with these ministries in our own experiences of natural disasters and tragedies, we have learned to value their integrity and wisdom very much in these situations. That gives us great confidence that you can trust that what you give will be stewarded well to help the people of Haiti.

3. Prepare for Future Recovery and Rebuilding – These problems Haiti is facing will not go away in just a couple weeks, so we are committed to serving Haiti long-term. We are already beginning to adjust our missions plans for 2010; working in plans to send teams to Haiti to help with the recovery effort. The immediate emergency situation in Haiti doesn’t present an opportunity for us to put teams on the ground to serve.  But in 60-90 days, there will be tremendous opportunity for teams to serve in Haiti. Please begin praying, and if you feel it is something God wants you to do, begin preparing to serve on a missions team in Haiti sometime in the next few months. Here’s a look at some of projects we intend to send teams for:

Construction and clean-up

Children’s ministry

Pastoral counseling

Medical care

Cooking and feeding

We have some great relationships with people who have friends and connections on the ground in Haiti. We will be connecting with them in planning our missions trips. Pastors, we want to encourage you to do the same as you plan your own missions trips in these coming months.  For example, we’ll be connecting with Celebrate Jesus Haiti a group that cares for 600-1,000 orphans each day. This church is led by the mother of our friend Bill Scheer, pastor of Guts Church in Tulsa, OK (http://gutschurch.com).

It is moments like these that the body of Christ must work together to engage the need. What better way to communicate the love of our Savior than to respond with hope when people are hurting? And together, we can make a huge difference in this tragic situation.

Thank you for caring, and for putting that care into action.  If you would like further information, please feel free to contact Mike Haman at mailto:mike.haman@healingplacechurch.org or 225-753-2273.

–

LIST OF ITEMS NEEDED

IMPORTANT: If you’re sending large quantities of supplies, they need to be palletized and shrink-wrapped for shipping, with an inventory of items included. Personal donations of smaller quantities can be dropped off in person or mailed directly to Love A Child.

Medications:

(These items can be purchased over the counter at any local drug store)

Aspirin

Tylenol

Motrin

Children’s and adult multi-vitamin

Benadryl

Neosporin or triple antibiotic

Oral re-hydration salts

Cough medications

Medical Supplies:

(These items can be purchased over the counter at any local drug store)

Ace bandages

Alcohol pads

Band-aids

Betadine wipes and sticks

Drapes

Gauzes – any size

Gloves – all sizes, sterile/non-sterile

Gowns –surgical and patient (head and shoe covers, goggles, masks)

Pediatric supplies

Tape – all types

Thermometers

Other:

(These items can be purchased through a doctor or physicians’ office)

Zantac

Hypertension medications

Blood pressure medications

Blades – sterile only

Needles – butterfly, angio catheter

Compression stockings

Dressings – sterile and un-sterile (Coban, Tegaderm, Steri-Strip, Surgilast)

IV supplies – tubing in sterile packages only

Scalpels

Sponges – surgical only (includes X-ray detectable)

Surgical towels – cloth/paper

Sutures

Syringes

Tongue depressors

Love A Child

Attn: Mike Essman- Haiti Earthquake Medical Donation

9304 Camden Field Parkway

**UPDATE: Good point from my friend Vin Thomas:

“Another great place to give is http://compassion.com/helphaiti.

One great point made by President Bush today in his plea for support of Haiti was to send cash. While it is noble to want to send water, medical supplies, etc. It is usually best to just send cash.”

We now find the experts (i.e., social media consultants and lawyers) saying, “Businesses Need to Formalize Their Social Media Policies.” According to one study,

Only 1 in 7 companies have formalized a process for adopting and deploying these tools, however. Only 1 in 5 of the interviewed companies have created internal policies that govern the use of these tools by their employees. As the researchers noted, quite a few companies struggle with finding the right balance between ‘the social and personal nature of these tools while maintaining some amount of corporate oversight.’”

According to Michael Hyatt, this is  “hogwash.” This is a solution in search of a problem.

Your company doesn’t need a social media policy and here are five reasons why:

1. Your people can be trusted.
2. Social media are just one more way to communicate.
3. More rules only make your company more bureaucratic.
4. Formal policies only discourage people from participating.
5. You probably already have policies that govern inappropriate behavior. This is the real kicker. You likely already have an employee handbook in place that speaks to what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. At Thomas Nelson, for example, our handbook provides various examples of “Personal Conduct Violations.” We specifically forbid:
   • Insensitivity to customers
   • Spreading false statements about other employees or the company
   • Profanity
   • Abusive language about a supervisor or co-worker
   • Unauthorized release of confidential information
   • Disruptive or inappropriate behavior
   • Discriminating or harassing behavior towards a co-worker
   • Indecent or immoral behavior

   You can commit any of these violations in whatever media you choose: in person, over the phone, via email, and yes, via social media. Why do we need one more policy to regulate this particular technology? The short answer is, “we don’t.”

If you really must have a policy, Mr. Hyatt suggests this one:

Use whatever social media you want. Feel free to use it on company time. Just use common sense and remember that if you publicly identify yourself with the company’s brand then act in a manner consistent with that brand. It’s in all of our best interests to do so.

Yesterday I was nosing around the interwebs and came across Friendster on a social bookmarking tool…According to TechCrunch Founded in 2002, Friendster is one of the web’s older social networking services. Adults, 16 and up can join and connect with friends, family, school, groups, activities and interests. The site currently has over 50 million users.

I found this graph that shows current usage by country

And then this morning I discovered this little jewel

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of ‘Friendster’ Civilization

Let’s create a list in the comments of social sites that we don’t use anymore: