GIVEAWAY!

I'm a little late posting this due to being transporting across time and space, but if you comment, you will be entered to win Kem Meyer's book, Less Clutter, Less Noise. Kem is the communications director of Granger Community Church.

Facebook readers, be sure to leave your comment on my actual blog, not just in Facebook.

Charleigh will help me pick a name from the hat on Sunday morning.

And be sure to follow the rest of the Q&A Blog tour from Kem's blog list of various other blogs.

And if you aren't interested in the book, you will still need to comment if you want to hear the back story of this picture.






Here's My question to Kem and her response:


I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook; I loathe the thought of Tweeting. I see their value, but I also see so many people being sucked into these social networks, wasting hours of time playing games, taking quizzes, sending flair, etc. which seems like the ultimate in clutter and noise. I know these networks have the potential to help us market our church, to market my art and Etsy store, and even the gallery where I display my work. How can they best be used while subtly communicating "don't settle for updates thinking you've experienced the real thing."



KEM
Vanessa, I hear you, girlfriend. I loathe the pokes, surveys, hugs, fish for my aquarium, etc. on Facebook as well. That’s why I block them or ignore them. Just because all of that is available, doesn’t mean I have to use it and it also doesn’t make the other parts less valid. The same holds true for blogging and tweeting. I ignore what’s not helpful and engage with what is.



"Like most areas of life, the greatest dangers often come out of the strongest positives. And we don't stop using good accounting principles because of the bookkeeping abuses of Enron." Phil Cooke



Kelley Hartnett is the Director of Communications at Morning Star Church in Missouri. I love how she broke-down her “Rela- tech-ship”.



I’m connecting with people—more frequently and more consistently than I ever have. In the last few days, I’ve gotten real-time updates from friends about a death in the family, a sudden hospitalization, a first-ever homecoming date and reactions to the presidential debate. I learned that a quiet church guy has an incredible wit, and I discovered that another church guy and I share the same wacky taste in music. All of my in-person interactions with these folks have an undercurrent of community that I’d not experienced before. I’m learning from people—more effectively and more efficiently that I ever have. By paying attention to other church communications professionals, I’m discovering what conferences I need to attend and what books I need to read. During a recent media aftermath, I tweeted an SOS to my social media guru friend who was able to offer immediate, sage advice. And because all of those people know other people, I have a virtually unlimited, instantly accessible network of really smart people at my disposal.



Three years ago, Facebook didn’t even exist. Now it’s the fifth largest “country” in the world. And, it’s not hard to figure out why. Because we relate to smaller institutions and subsets of society much better than we relate to large and remote entities such as Big Business, Big Media, Big Government and Big organized religion--technology has revolutionized the definition of community. Virtual communities and spontaneous new social structures are popping up in personal and professional spaces. They have the tendency to make inhibitions melt away. This can be good and bad. But, mostly good.



Over the past four years, I’ve evolved from a skeptic to an advocate about this subject. Twitter and Facebook, in particular, are currently impacting and strengthening our ministry at Granger in ways I couldn’t have predicted. Contrary to my first thought, technology hasn’t caused everyone to check out of relationships, but rather enhance existing ones.