Tag Archive - kindle

New Kindle?

July 15, 2008 in Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

New Kindle 2.0 Coming Around October 2008……maybe?

I love my Kindle, and I just got it for Father’s Day. So if there is a new one, hopefully the older version (mine) can be updated with new interface stuff.

The “groundswell” is about relationships, not just technology

June 24, 2008 in Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

I just posted this at Leadership Network’s book blog, so please take a look.

Li
So as you may or may not have noticed I have been on a reading spree with books that discuss new web 2.0 technologies and how they are influencing leadership, especially in the church (sidenote, this is the first book that I have read with my new Amazon Kindle; talk about new technologies are changing things).  The most recent book is Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.  The book is co-authored by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research.  Charlene has a very popular blog and is considered one of the leading experts in social media and technologies, so I was very interested in reading what all the buzz has been about.

This is book is focused around the idea of the "groundswell":

Simply put, the groundswell is a social trend in which people use
technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of
from companies. If you’re in a company, this is a challenge.

This is not only an interesting challenge if you are a company, but an interesting challenge if you are a church, since people within the church no longer need to go through the leadership or hierarchy of the community to get things done. With new technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, wikis, blogs, etc, more and more people within churches are taking action and doing things on their own or with a group of people.  The days where the flow of information, content and decision making travel through the pastor and the leadership are coming to an end if they haven’t already.  With this in mind, Charlene and Josh use this book to teach companies three important things:

  • Part One: Understanding the Groundswell
  • Part Two: Tapping the Groundswell
  • Part Three: The Groundswell Transforms

As a leader in the church I think this book is a must read.  And even though they are talking more about companies, churches can easily be inserted.

There is a lot of great research and application in this book such as the categories that make up the people online which is important to know when you are determining what type of technological tool you are going to use to reach your audience.

  • Creators
  • Critics
  • Collectors
  • Joiners
  • Spectators
  • Inactives

Throughout this whole book one thing kept sticking in my mind and it was this statement by them throughout the book:

It’s important to understand these technologies, but the technologies are the detail, and it’s tempting to get sucked into the detail.  So many words have been written about blogs and blogging, social networks, and user-generated content that you might think that understanding those technologies will equip you for the new world.

Wrong.

First, the technologies change rapidly. And second, the technologies are not the point. The forces at work are.  Like the jujitsu master, you must understand how bodies move, not just learn a single block or throw.  You must develop a feel for the groundswell.

With that in mind, here’s the principle for mastering the groundswell: concentrate on relationships, not the technologies.

In the groundswell, relationships are everything.  The way people connect with each other–the community that is created–determines how the power shifts.

That last quote is brilliant.  Technology is great, but it’s not about the technology, but about the relationships.  How leadership is carried out in the church is embedded in relationships, and now with the use of new technologies many relationships are changing.  So do your church a favor and read up on how you can best capitalize on the shifting relationships and technologies that those around us are using.

This Isn’t Your Parent’s Prayer Chain

April 23, 2008 in Technology-Social Media with 11 Comments

I’ve witnessed some amazing examples of how social networking is being used to connect people in prayer.

Matt Singley has a great post with just one example happening in our church on Facebook. So check that out.

Here is what is happening. A young woman in our congregation went in for emergency brain surgery at the beginning of the week, and within a day or two her family and community rallied around her, not only in person, but also in prayer as people all over the country and here locally swarmed to Facebook to prayer for her, receive constant updates on her condition, as well as finding out ways how they could help the family. Simply amazing.

Praying for Katherine Wolf has 688 members

Pray for Katherine Arnold Wolf has 1,303 members

And everytime I log on the numbers are growing. It’s an amazing example of the power of prayer in someone’s life.

In the past and still today, people usually set up prayer chains via a phone or answering service, emails, etc. But the way Facebook is being used is awesome. And if you are on Facebook, you will see constant reminders of the need to pray for Katherine and her family.

I have a meeting with Robert of Kindle this Friday, and I know he is working on ways to build praying communities online. Kindle is another great tool, and I’m excited to see it expand and grow.

Technology as a Tool for Collaborative/Interactive Church Leadership

April 16, 2008 in Technology-Social Media with 0 Comments

I’ve come across a couple of interesting items the last 24 hours regarding Web 2.0, New Media, technology, etc.

First. Cynthia Ware posted Is Your Church Leadership Interactive? at her blog, and at the Leadership Network Digital blog.

I love what she says:

The Church, as a primary vehicle for communicating the Good News, stands to amplify it’s voice by using the interactive attributes found in the new media.

and

Let’s remember, the congregation is not just listening. They’re also talking.

Second. Robert Yang of Kindle Joy sent me this slide presentation. I liked it so much I passed it on to some of our pastors.

Kindle and the Continued Emergence of Online Collaboration

January 9, 2008 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

In the previous post, What Buying, Collecting and Amassing Large Libraries of Books May Say About Us, I reflected a little on Amazon’s new wireless reading device, Kindle. A couple of the questions that I raised were:

  • Will a movement towards electronic reading promote more collaborative writing efforts? How will this effect new theological thinking and publication? And what will this do in terms of authorship and ownership?
  • What will be the future of publishing as we know it now?

Concerning these questions, I was most intrigued by this following passage in the article:

In a connected book, the rabbit hole is no longer a one-way transmission from author to reader. For better or for worse, there’s company coming.

Talk to people who have thought about the future of books and there’s a phrase you hear again and again. Readers will read in public. Writers will write in public. Readers, of course, are already enjoying a more prominent role in the literary community, taking star turns in blogs, online forums and Amazon reviews. This will only increase in the era of connected reading devices. “Book clubs could meet inside of a book,” says Bob Stein, a pioneer of digital media who now heads the Institute for the Future of the Book, a foundation-funded organization based in his Brooklyn, N.Y., town house. Eventually, the idea goes, the community becomes part of the process itself.

Stein sees larger implications for authors—some of them sobering for traditionalists. “Here’s what I don’t know,” he says. “What happens to the idea of a writer going off to a quiet place, ingesting information and synthesizing that into 300 pages of content that’s uniquely his?” His implication is that that intricate process may go the way of the leather bookmark, as the notion of author as authoritarian figure gives way to a Web 2.0 wisdom-of-the-crowds process. “The idea of authorship will change and become more of a process than a product,” says Ben Vershbow, associate director of the institute.

This is already happening on the Web. Instead of retreating to a cork-lined room to do their work, authors like Chris Anderson, John Battelle (“The Search”) and NYU professor Mitchell Stephens (a book about religious belief, in progress) have written their books with the benefit of feedback and contributions from a community centered on their blogs.

“The possibility of interaction will redefine authorship,” says Peter Brantley, executive director of the Digital Library Federation, an association of libraries and institutions. Unlike some writing-in-public advocates, he doesn’t spare the novelists. “Michael Chabon will have to rethink how he writes for this medium,” he says. Brantley envisions wiki-style collaborations where the author, instead of being the sole authority, is a “superuser,” the lead wolf of a creative pack. (Though it’s hard to believe that lone storytellers won’t always be toiling away in some Starbucks with the Wi-Fi turned off, emerging afterward with a narrative masterpiece.)

Fascinating stuff…..

I have been blogging for about four and half years and during that time I have had the opportunity to collaborate more online with others than was previously possible. Now I’m only a click away from collaborating on articles and some book ideas with those around me, and with Facebook, blogs, wikis and more the possibilities are endless.

I still enjoy going away alone to a quiet place or sitting in a coffee shop as I write, but the possibilities of collaborating with others (reading, writing, commenting, bookmarking) through some wireless reading device such as Kindle is so exciting.

This is an area that I have just recently begun to seriously think about, so I’m going to point you in the direction of some others who have been doing this already, and who have some more astute thoughts on some of these issues than I.

Check out Open Source Theology which is a site that encourages a collaborative effort in the development of an emerging theology for the emerging church. Not to be confused with emergent village.

Read Neal Locke’s Challenge to Emergent Authors

As for me. I’m currently exploring a collaborative writing project with four others through the use of a wiki. If anyone has any wikis they love using, let me know.

What Buying, Collecting And Amassing Large Libraries of Books May Say About Us

January 4, 2008 in Uncategorized with 6 Comments

Some thoughts on St. Jerome and his library:

Occasional fits of conscience over the propriety of reading pagan literature tortured Jerome, and he was once temporarily deterred from it by a harrowing nightmare. Yet he could not permanently forego this pleasure or the collection of books that allowed him to indulge it. Over many years Jerome’s library must have grown large and contained in the end far more Christian than pagan books. Source: Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts by Harry Y. Gamble

He continued to read the pagan classics for pleasure until a vivid dream turned him from them, at least for a time. In a letter he describes how, during an illness, he dreamed he was standing before the tribunal of Christ. “Thou a Christian?” said the judge skeptically. “Thou art a Ciceronian. Where thy treasure is, there thy heart is also.” Source: Catholic Online-St. Jerome

I use these stories not as a statement to say we shouldn’t read non-Christian literature or books. I don’t believe that for a minute. But rather to point to another side of the story that was talked about in class during seminary. My professor of Early Church History, Dr. Nate Feldmeth talked not only about Jerome’s struggle towards reading pagan literature, but his struggle and indulgence in the collection of books and amassing of a large library. So when the question is put to Jerome about where his treasure and heart is, it also has to do about his treasure being in his books.

I am open to disagreement, debate or discussion on that side or rendering of the story. There are many students and scholars out there who could elucidate the nuances and meanings of Jerome’s dream. So if you have thoughts, please comment.

But what interests me is books. And what our indulgence and collection of numerous books say about us. I wrestled with this issue in April of 2005 when I was moving and had to box up and move over 2,500 books. I have since pared that down to about 800-900, and I’m hoping to cut that down even farther in the next few months.

Some thoughts on why we buy, collect and amass large libraries of books
Positive Reasons–

  • We are in school and are required to buy books for classes.
  • We love reading books.
  • We want to be informed.
  • We want to be challenged, shaped and transformed by our reading.

Negative Reasons–

  • It makes us feel and look smart (so we think).
  • It gives us an identity (smart and well read person).
  • It impresses people when they walk into a room or office and see all those books (so we think).
  • There is some good feeling we get when we purchase a book (whether we read it or not; we are no different here than people who shop all the time and buy things they don’t need or wear).
  • Ego feeding

And on and on and on we can go in both the positive and negative aspects of buying and collecting books.

Why bring this up: The Kindle Effect?
Why do I bring this up? First of all, let me say that I love books and have been one to think that I look smarter and impress people with them. Second, my identity has been tied to my book collection at times and that is scary. I think, what would happen if I lose all my books and that was scary. (On a sidenote: I’m glad the one person who wasn’t impressed was my wife).

I bring this up because I was really intrigued by Newsweek’s article on Nov. 26 called The Future of Reading, which was about Amazon’s new wireless reading device Kindle.

I started thinking about whether or not I would be willing to move from reading hardcopy books to reading books electronically.

  • And I think I would, except for the question of what would happen to my identity if I were to get rid of all those cool looking books on rows of bookshelves?
  • Would people still think I’m smart?
  • Would my electronic book collection still impress people?

I mean otherwise, wouldn’t it be more cost effective, efficient and manageable to have our books on one device and on hard drives? I know, we all love having tangible books in our hands. I get that, but as technology gets better there might not be a difference.

Future Questions
I suggest you read the article on Kindle in Newsweek because it raises a lot of questions that I’m going to bring up in some future posts.

  • One, what is the future of reading?
  • Two, if we are concerned about the environment, why wouldn’t we move away from books that cost so much in resources such as trees, paper, manufacturing, shipping, etc.
  • Three, what is the future of both reading and writing in community? Which raises interesting questions about authorship, ownership. It also brings to mind interesting theological questions that you may have studied before concerning the authorship of certain books in the Bible and the role of the community or multiple authors in its production.
  • Four, will a movement towards electronic reading promote more collaborative writing efforts? How will this effect new theological thinking and publication? And what will this do in terms of authorship and ownership?
  • Five, what will be the future of publishing as we know it now?

These are just some of the questions that were raised for me as I read the article. Some are directly related to the article and others were from tangents in my thinking.

Thoughts
I would be curious to hear your responses or thoughts, so please comment if you wish.

  • Why do you buy books and collect a large library?
  • Would you stop buying hard copies of books and move towards electronic reading?
  • What do you think of Kindle?
  • Does your treasure lay in your book collection?
  • Do you buy and collect books because you think it makes you look smart or it impresses people?
  • And as a pastor, wouldn’t it be easier and efficient to have all your resources at the touch of a finger than in volumes of books?