This last weekend was a great time at Blogworld and New Media Expo, and GodblogCon.
It was my fourth year at GodblogCon, and my 2nd time at Blogworld.
I have some thoughts about the conference and I will be posting them this week, but just a sampler of some things that stood out to me.
- Moving GodblogCon to Vegas last year to be a part of Blogworld and New Media Expo was a great choice. I would actually be interested in exploring with the Godblog people some ways that we can integrate even more, so it’s not two separate conferences.
- Huge, huge props to John Mark Reynolds, Dustin Steeve and the crew from Biola’s Torrey Honor’s Institute for putting together a great conference. They are some of the most amazing and hospitable people there are, and I’m glad to be a part of such a great group. Thanks Dustin and crew.
- Missional thinking: The connection between the two conferences this weekend was tech, new media, social media, etc. As Christians we need to do a better job of finding our common ground with others, with the world, build relationships, etc.
- New media and tech people seem to be very accessible, patient and easy going to me. The Church can learn a lot from them, especially how they collaborate with one another, communicate from decentralized positions/relationships, etc, etc. I was super impressed with how accessible all the big speakers were, and how they spent a great amount of time talking to people. Chris Brogan, Andrew Jones and Guy Kawasaki come to mind. This conference doesn’t seem to have the speakers that roll in at the last minute VIP and then leave. The speakers are great. Very participatory feel. Again, something Church conferences can learn from.
- It’s great to see friends at the conference who are involved in Church-land, but who get new media technology and are using it. I’m thinking of people like Matt Singley, Andrew Jackson and Lars Rood.
Again, I will post more this week on some more specific issues. But before I do I have a question.
GodblogCon seems like it’s on the verge of becoming more integrated with Blogworld. And it probably can take some more strides.
Are there any other major conferences where we can bring together the Church and the non-Church world, using our common interests to unite us, but allowing our differences to teach and learn from one another?
