Tag Archive - flickr

Your Kids Online: What Are You Doing to Them?

November 10, 2009 in Marriage-Family, Therapy-Psychology with 10 Comments

3882948443_dd5cbc510a
[image by Zieak]

Something I have been torn over for a while is the question of “How much of my daughter’s life do I share online?”

With blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other services it’s more convenient than ever to post photos, share little blurbs about their day, and our reactions as parents to certain things. And as an excited parent of a 2 year old girl I find lots of stuff I want to share with others. Even though I’ve been hesitant to blog about her, and I rarely do, people could probably find out information about her pretty quickly online. Between my wife, our families and I, there is more than enough out there. Actually, there is more online than I want there to be at this point.

But I think this is a discussion worth having because I think too many people quickly excuse it and say that “it doesn’t matter”, or if “people really want to find them, then they will.” Or some say, well the future is the internet, so we are just helping them jump online early. But maybe that is more about you than your kids.

I have seen some of the discussions going around, but one that caught my eye was Wess Daniels‘ recent post, Limiting Access: Flickr and Archiving Our Children’s Lives. Wess states:

Now, I am no alarmist and I am not about to get all privacy this and that on you, but I appreciated the question my friend Fernando put to me on twitter: “it’s about giving people control over their “digital destiny.” How will the stuff we post hit our kids future relationships?” And this is really it for me. Not only do we not know what it’s like to have our entire lives archived online, we are the ones choosing what to post and what not to post for the public.

Wess concludes with:

I’ll leave the archiving up to my daughters when they’re ready to do it themselves (Lord knows Google’s got a nice archive on me).

One of the articles that seems to have really challenged Wess’ thinking on this topic was the New York Times article Guardians of their Smiles
 from a couple of weeks ago.

This article focuses on the safety of putting so much of our kid’s lives online, but I think Wess hits on something important when he writes, “How will the stuff we post hit our kids future relationships?” As parents we are usually constantly thinking about our kid’s safety, but I do think we fail to realize what affect the online profile we are building them right now could do to them relationally.

I’m currently working with quite a few kids in therapy as well as ministry, and one of the growing conversations that kids are engaging me in is their embarrassment of what their parents are posting about them online, whether it be a picture or some random comment on Twitter. As parents we might think it’s funny to say something like, “my husband just had the birds and the bees talk with our son”, or “sometimes being a parent is exhausting.” As parents we see it as no more than an opportunity to share a piece of our life with others, or to connect with other parents online. But to your kids, it’s more than that. Continue Reading…

Creating Relational Intimacy Through the Sharing of Minor Details in Life

June 29, 2009 in Technology-Social Media with 6 Comments

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[image by Tom Purves]


One of the things about Twitter that I have not quite been able to explain that well is why I think the little details in life that one tweets about (eating cereal, going for a walk, crying after that movie, hanging with friends, etc.) are so fascinating. I can’t tell you how many times various relationships in my life have been enhanced through what sometimes seem like trivial knowledge shared through Twitter. It’s quite extraordinary. So I love coming across this idea of “ambient intimacy” which I think explains it well.

I find this post by Leisa on “ambient intimacy” so right on. Check out her thoughts below from her post on this subject.

I find myself talking about Twitter quite a lot. I’m not the only one. The behaviours that Twitter has made more visible are tremendously interesting.

I’ve been using a term to describe my experience of Twitter (and also Flickr and reading blog posts and Upcoming). I call it Ambient Intimacy.

Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how they’ve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when they’re hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who they’re having drinks with tonight.

Who cares? Who wants this level of detail? Isn’t this all just annoying noise? There are certainly many people who think this, but they tend to be not so noisy themselves. It seems to me that there are lots of people for who being social is very much a ‘real life’ activity and technology is about getting stuff done.

There are a lot of us, though, who find great value in this ongoing noise. It helps us get to know people who would otherwise be just acquaintances. It makes us feel closer to people we care for but in whose lives we’re not able to participate as closely as we’d like.

Knowing these details creates intimacy. (It also saves a lot of time when you finally do get to catchup with these people in real life!) It’s not so much about meaning, it’s just about being in touch.

Have you found that “ambient intimacy” has enhanced your relationships? How?

Leveraging Technology in Your Community

November 10, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 3 Comments

Two of my passions are technology and community–especially, how technology can be used to create and sustain community, and how it can be used to open up communication.

So I’m real excited that Cynthia Ware has a great, great post/presentation on Leveraging Technology to Support Community
.

Please check it out–it is well worth your time–whether this new or old to you, you will learn a lot.

Leveraging Technology to Support Community
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: homefellowships onlinecommunication)




Below is my 9 Post Series on how you can leverage technology in college ministry.

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

Becoming a Heretic on Church Ministry: Church Leadership

November 6, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 3 Comments

The Context
This is Part 2 in the continued series, Becoming a Heretic on Church Ministry.

Last week we looked at Becoming a Heretic on Church Ministry: The Sermon.

When we think about what a heretic on/in Church ministry is, I am taking a cue from Seth Godin’s book Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. See my review for Leadership Network here.

Godin says:

Challenging the status quo requires a committment, both public and private. It involves reaching out to others and putting yourideas on the line. (Or pinning your Ninety-five Theses to the church door). (pp. 49)

and later in the book, Godin says:

Religion and faith are often confused. Someone who opposes faith is called an atheist and widely reviled. But we don’t have a common word for someone who opposes a particular religion.

Heretic will have to do.

If faith is the foundation of a belief system, then religion is the facade and the landscaping. It’s easy to get caught up in the foibles of a corporate culture and the systems that have been built over time, but they have nothing at all to do with the faith that built the system in the first place.

Change is made by people, by leaders who are proud to be called heretics because their faith is never in question. (pp. 84)

Church Leadership
One of the areas that I want to look at is “church leadership” which is such a broad topic and can literally mean anything. As we look at this topic, I want us to remember…I want to remember…that this is really an exploration on looking differently at some areas in Church that we have often taken for granted, or have always performed the function the same way. And I’m wondering, and believing, that we need to re-think, re-imagine some new ways to do things. As we look at this list you will see some of the strong influence I have received from the world of technology and social media, and how the tools they provide are setting the agenda for a new way of leadership…actually, I think it takes us back to a more Biblical form of leadership (minus the internet). So here are just 5 areas that I have been thinking about…that I think need tinkering, re-imagining, etc. What do you think? I would like to hear your thoughts on these ideas that seem heretical in some circles…but may be common sense to you.

How?

  • Participatory: Church leadership canvtake cues from the world of technology and social media and understand the need and desire for participation.  The reason that Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Answers, blogs, etc. are so popular is that it offers individuals the ability to participate.  Not only can they participate in regards to their own content, but they have an opportunity to participate in the larger content…larger narrative of what is happening around them.  They participate in the content they manufacture online, and they participate in causes, both global and local that have their source in origin in the content of others. I think most churches would love for everyone to participate. In fact, they hope they do.  It’s just that church leadership doesn’t structure itself in such a way that communicates or makes it possible for everyone to participate.  Participation is not about a few people telling others how to participate…participation is about opening up the avenues that allow others to participate more fully with the gifts, desires and skills that God has blessed them with.Does your chuch leadership structure itself in such a way that it communicates to the whole church that participation by everyone is important?  How?

    • Continue Reading…

Despite Rumors of It’s Early Demise, Blogging Is Not Dead…It Is Evolving

October 22, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 7 Comments

Is Blogging Dead
Yesterday afternoon I read two Tweets from Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester.

They were as follows:

Wired suggests blogs are old hat –call me old fashioned!

followed by,

What’s interesting is that the Wired opinion doesn’t have a single piece of data in it’s article –go read Sifry’s state of blogosphere.

Apparently this article from Paul Boutin in Wired Magazine has been getting a lot of attention this week, especially from those of us who blog. In the article Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, Boutin states:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

No, But Blogging Is Evolving
Flickr, Facebook and Twitter are amazing tools that I love and use everyday, but they are just but pieces of the package, as is a blog. To use another metaphor, they are just individual members of the body. But so is blogging.

Blogging is not dead, nor does your blog need to be pulled, rather it is an evolving art form in my opinion.

None of the social media tools that seem to arrive on the scene everyday are the complete and perfect individual tools that one needs, rather they are just pieces of the puzzle, but when brought into harmony together, have a powerful effect on one’s social media experience and their contribution to the world.

In fact, Andrew Sullivan wrote an exceptional piece, Why I Blog. He begins:

For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Its truths are provisional, and its ethos collective and messy. Yet the interaction it enables between writer and reader is unprecedented, visceral, and sometimes brutal. And make no mistake: it heralds a golden era for journalism.

The Blogging Journey
In the Spring of 2004 I had been pondering the idea of blogging because I loved to write and I thought it was the wave of the future. It was through the encouragement of one of my college student’s and good friends Jared Kleier that I made my entry into blogging. I think my first post was in the Summer of 2003 on the Blogger platform. It was a reflection on John 21, of which I erased shortly after because I didn’t quite have the courage to make myself so vulnerable, and my thoughts available for critique.

I eventually worked up the courage to post regularly and after 4 years of blogging I am approaching my 1,000 post (this is post 992). There have been many ups (getting linked by Hugh Hewitt which drove my traffic through the roof), as well as some downpoints (critizing John Piper and receiving a frenzy of comments for it). There have also been many new speaking and job opportunities from those who were exposed to my blog, as well as allowing me to have my first foray into the publishing world with a chapter in The New Media Frontier.

But those things are just icing on the cake. Blogging for me is really about a labor of love, taking risks with exposing and sharing my ideas, and connecting with others that I agree and disagree with through the medium of the internet. Most of all, blogging is about commitment, devotion, and consistency over a period of time. You don’t have to drive thousands of readers a day to your blog to be a successful blogger. Some of the best bloggers are those who share their life with their families and close friends through their writing. And most of all, it’s a record of how you have changed and grown as a person, thinker, etc. I have watched my blogging evolve over time (topics, length, commenters, blogroll, etc.), and it has been an illuminating reflection on my own evolution as a person.

Blogging has changed. In the early days I could break into the top 10,000 on Technorati, but now, I’m lucky if I can crack 70,000. Those were the early days of obsessing over numbers, traffic and ranking. And even though I still hope that people read my blog, I’m more driven by the idea of sharing my thoughts, passions and life with others…and that hopefully in the process we (the blogging community, commenters, etc.) can connect with one another and help change the world. Not as individuals, but as a community who is passionate about the ideas that we share and the convictions we have….all made possible through the medium of blogging.

Twitter is but 140 characters. Flickr is photos, perhaps with comments. And Facebook is hundreds of friends sharing life online together. But there is something powerful about putting words down and publishing them on a blog.

I will end this post with a quote from Andrew Sullivan’s article that I love:

Alone in front of a computer, at any moment, are two people: a blogger and a reader. The proximity is palpable, the moment human—whatever authority a blogger has is derived not from the institution he works for but from the humanness he conveys. This is writing with emotion not just under but always breaking through the surface. It renders a writer and a reader not just connected but linked in a visceral, personal way. The only term that really describes this is friendship. And it is a relatively new thing to write for thousands and thousands of friends.

Resources
Check out Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008. Here is one telling quote, “The numbers vary but agree that blogs are here to stay.”

And check out Kirk Sexton’s new blog. Now that he just started it, he is wondering if he has to kill it already. I say no. Blog on Kirk.

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry: Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming

July 8, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 3 Comments

This is actually the form of social media and online sharing that I am the least familiar with. I have only had a Flickr account for about 6 months, and I just upgraded to Flickr Pro. How many videos have I uploaded to YouTube? Only a couple. So this is new territory, but a territory nonetheless that I think ministries need to explore more often.

Let me start with a couple of reasons for why you should use these tools:

  1. People like watching videos and looking at photos. Period. In my opinion, they are often more likely to do this then read a post or follow a debate on a forum page.


  2. I think ministries need to start creating more of their own content. Why? One, because how many churches use stock photos of people on their websites that don’t even attend church. I usually hear, “Hey, I’ve never seen them at our church.” Or my favorite, “Our church is not that ethnically diverse.” That’s usually the typical Bible study photo that has a representative of every tribe, tongue and nation represented, and is nowhere close to the actual makeup of the church. Two, video and photos give great insight into people’s lives.


  3. Shooting, editing, creating and uploading video and photo content has never been easier.


  4. These tools are so easy to use that anyone in the community can create content and participate. You don’t have to leave it in the hands of professionals or video/photo department people. This does two things. One, allows for community participation. Two, reflects more the reality of a community, than stuff being created by one department. And when communities participate, the content doesn’t have the constant professional look to it, but looks more reality which is nice. Not that professional is bad at all…but raw footage from the community is great also.



What Would This Look Like?

For example in the college ministry that I used to pastor, The Quest, here is what I think would have been helpful if I had done it. Obviously Facebook is one place where people share photo and video content with each other, but who is going to go look at each profile?

So I think what would be helpful is to have a “central hub” webpage, as I discussed in The Purpose of Your Website. And on this page you would embed the code from Flickr, YouTube, etc. that would automatically stream the content from your community to the page so that everyone could see it. You wouldn’t need to go look at multiple locations, but go to this one home page and share video and photos. This can be done by creating accounts that everyone can upload to.

Then you can develop some creative team to use those photos and videos that are uploaded to the site and post them at various sites in your community, like Facebook, a blog, etc. So you have one site where all the content is uploaded to, and a team that sifts through the material and places it in different ministry locations online.

Some Good Tools

Like I mentioned at the top. I’m a rookie to this, so please chime in with some suggestions. But here is some tools that I have found helpful and have used.

  1. Flickr: Great photo management site. You can get quite a bit of space and ability with a free account. But a Pro account is fairly cheap and gives you lots to work with. I mainly migrated to Flickr based on what I have read in various books on this topic and by the many praises from other such as Wess Daniels and Terry Storch. Flickr is great for photo management, but also you can upload video as well. They have a 90 second limit for video which I think is great. It really helps when determining what you want to shoot and share. I use Flickr video for my blog intro., but I don’t use it for a longer retreat video, etc.


  2. Vimeo: I love this video site. I have migrated from YouTube over to this site. I like the look of the site better. I like that my videos upload faster, etc. Check it out. You can create communities around your videos and create your own channels.


  3. YouTube: This is obviously the standard. Some people love it and it’s fun to go to their YouTube channels to see what they have done.


These are the only three I’m sharing.

So what photo/video management/sharing sites do you use and like?

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Responses to a Commenter

May 23, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 2 Comments

Ryan at Tilling the Soil asked me a couple of good questions related to my post below, so I want to give them proper attention in a post, and not just leave a comment for him.

I had the chance to talk with Ryan by phone last week and I enjoyed our conversation, and I’m looking forward to connecting with him when we move to Dallas this summer.


1. Ryan Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 am e

Rhett,
Hey man, I’m really enjoying this series.
I have two concerns:
1) With all of the networking that is going on, is it realistic to ask people to go to another site (your church’s site), even if you are farming out all of the content to facebook, flickr, etc.? In my world if I can’t RSS it, then I probably won’t see it.
2) How do you deal with students who want this before the church authorizes it, and so they create their own facebook groups, mychurch.org pages, etc? (i.e. how do you maintain control in such an environment?)

-ryan

Response to Question 1

Ryan, I don’t think it really is realistic. In fact, I know for certain based on traffic, that our college webpage’s traffic decreased dramatically after our Facebook group was launched, and it has pretty much decreased to no traffic. I think most church’s will have this problem and may not realize it. They design sites that have forums, videos, photos, links, etc., but people aren’t going to leave their networks to do those activities on a church’s website. One, people already have enough committment to a site like Facebook, and to ask them to commit to your church’s website in the same way is unrealistic. Second, church website’s just can’t compete with the social tools out there.

Continue Reading…

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry: Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website

May 22, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 15 Comments

I think it’s important for college ministries to be forumlating a plan, and developing some ideas about how they can strategically use the internet to best serve their ministry.

There are a lot of topics that I could cover, and maybe 9 posts is too much, so I will try and keep them shorter than my last post.

Last week I posted Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed. Bottom line: You need to have a design and plan that is simple (easy to navigate/aesthetically clean from a design point of view. You also should keep the costs low which is easy to do with all the free and inexpensive tools out there. And speed should be taken into consideration, mainly from the perspective of how fast can you integrate new technology to meet the needs and wants of your ministry. Way too many ministries plunge lots of cost and time into a site, that they no longer can adapt to changes, but are stuck with it for years to come.

Today I want to post about The Purpose of Your Website.

What is the purpose of your website?

This is an important question to begin with. What do you want it to do? What do you want people to come to the site and see and use? What should they walk away with? Sometimes ministries just build websites because they feel like they should have one, but never stop to consider its purpose.

Is it for college students to retrieve information? Is it for them to sign up for Bible studies? Is it for them to be able to visit forums and dialogue?

With these questions in mind we also need to keep in mind that with all the tools out there (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) a website shouldn’t have to do everything, unless it can do it better than those services (which I doubt it can do).

So here are a few pointers that I have found helpful:

Continue Reading…

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry: Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed

May 16, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 24 Comments

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the “manifesto” Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don’t.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

  • student participation
  • the fast changing culture of college/university life
  • finicky tastes/styles
  • revolving body of students and leaders
  • budget
  • access/control
  • etc. (these are just a few)

Continue Reading…