Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise

Where is the love?

I recently had a conversation with a church who invited William P. Young (author of The Shack) to speak during a weekend service. Now, they're getting hit hard by some of their congregants. Hit hard with comments like "This author belongs no where near this building."

Really? Really.

We get this type of feedback at Granger every single time we touch anything secular. The argument isn't new news. It spans hundreds of years. I'm not interested in arguing an old debate. And, for the record...nobody asked me to. But, they did ask me this: "When you find yourself fielding this type of feedback, how do you respond? How do you cast vision?" Here's how I responded.

"It is always good to communicate a simple WHY behind WHAT. For example:

• This novel gives a voice to real, deep human longings. We’re going to explore the themes in this book to start a conversation about how the Bible, God, Christ and the Holy Spirit meets these real longings.
• We listen to mainstream songs and read mainstream books to observe the spiritual journey revealed in the lyrics and storylines. This book is no different.
• I also love what the president of Notre Dame recently said to the unruly Christian protesters who were bashing Obama when he came to speak at the ND Commencement ceremony (the protesters argued Obama shouldn’t be allowed to step foot on the Catholic campus because he is pro-choice). He said, 'You can't change world if you shun the people you want to persuade.' Well put.

So, keep it simple. Focus on the why behind the what: Love God, Love others. Keep open heart & mind to what we have to learn through the process. As Christ-followers, we do NOT have all the answers and Christ didn’t call us to be the judge and jury for the world. He called us to show them we are different because of our love. Some of these vocal congregants have just forgotten the main thing. You can help remind them."

I hate hearing about situations like this, and yet it happens all the time. I don't understand how a group of believers can get so agitated because the author of a fictional novel is visiting their church. Would they be that up in arms if JRR Tolkien came to speak about his fictional novel? Both authors have spiritual overtones in their stories. Neither author claims to be an authoritative theologian who is challenging Biblical foundations. (sigh) 

This recurring "issue" is one of the MAJOR reasons I look forward to the Innovate Conference every year. How DO you effectively leverage cultural conversations without compromising the holiness of your calling? It is true that grace and license are not the same thing, but we all need practical help doing daily ministry in that tension. That's what gets exposed at Innovate09.  

Social Networking Discussion

Recently, I had the chance to participate in a Q&A facilitated by Paul Steinbrueck over on the Christian Web Trends Blog. John Saddington and Matt Farina were there, too. The 4-part series just wrapped up. I thought I'd share it all together here.

Part 1: Social Networking Consumption

Part 2: Social Networking for Organizations

Part 3: Social Media for Individuals

Part 4: Future of Social Networking

Twelve pages of creative goodness...

You can find it here. 

7 Myths Marketers (& their bosses) Gotta Stop Buying...

I read an article this week that begs to be shared. Want to get the most out of marketing in today's world? Stop believing these myths.

• Myth #1 - "I'll just hire me one of them marketing superstars.
• Myth #2 - "If everyone just picks themselves up by the bootstraps and tries harder (or works smarter)...
• Myth #3 - "If we can just get some of that marketing automation, that'll solve our problems."
• Myth #4 - "If we can't quantity it, we shouldn't do it."
• Myth #5 - "I don't care what it takes, just get it done!"
• Myth #6 - "We can't spare a dime to invest in research."
• Myth #7 - "We don't have time to examine our own navels."

Read the full article on Chief Marketer.

All Time Alltop Questions and Answers ...

I like and respect Guy Kawasaki. He has personally and professionally helped me several times over the past few years. He has visited Granger and even endorsed my book. Not long ago, we were exchanging emails and I asked him if there was anything I could do to help his causes like he had helped mine. He only asked one thing... spread the word about Alltop. Ok! Love to!

And, then I stalled out.

I didn't understand what Alltop could do for me. That makes it pretty hard to talk about. So, then, I stalled longer because I was determined to figure it out on my own. And, then I stalled longer because I was embarrassed to admit I couldn't figure it out on my own. I finally broke down and told him. Why didn't I do that in the first place? I annoy myself.

And, now that I understand it, I'm pleased to report it has become a new tool in my arsenal of information search weapons. So, here's my Q&A with Guy about Alltop. Hope it helps you.

1. In plain English, what is Alltop?
   
   Alltop is a collection of over 600 "magazine racks" covering topics from adoption to zoology with food, politics, sports, and health in between. MyAlltop is the customizable, power-user feature of Alltop. It enables you to create a personal collection from over 32,000 information sources--if you're interested in something, we probably have it covered.
   
2. How is Alltop different than Digg?
   
   They’re two totally different animals. The purpose of Digg is highlight specific articles that interest, honestly, male techies. It helps them know that there’s a new version of Rails or Halo. The purpose Alltop is not to highlight specific articles or even sites/blogs but to enable people to scan “all” the news about a broad base of topics. For example, it will be long time before something from http://adoption.alltop.com/would appear on Digg. Here’s a good way to think of it:
   
   ** How many people are in China? Go to Google.
   ** Shanghai company clones Mac ROMs and ships “Mac” netbook for $200. Go to Digg.
   ** What’s happening in China? Go to http://china.alltop.com/
   
3. I don’t see Alltop replacing my normal RSS reader, but it’s not supposed to, is it?
   
   For some people, MyAlltop could, but first, most people cannot use a RSS reader. It requires they understand what RSS is, then they need to find the RSS feeds (which is non-trivial, believe me, we have had to find 33,000 feeds), and find a reader and use it. That’s the market for us.
   
   For people who have a RSS reader, then we offer something different because most RSS readers turn into another email inbox with hundreds of unread messages. And they are not good for scanning—that is, you only get what you subscribe to. An Alltop topic provides you a broader overview quickly.
   
4. Where should my readers start to get a feel?
   
   Here http://church.alltop.com/ here http://digital-media.alltop.com/ here http://christianity.alltop.com/ and http://web-design.alltop.com/.

Cultivate the story...

Last month I talked about my picks for personal & professional enrichment 2009.

More details about one of my picks, Cultivate 09, were revealed yesterday when the web site went live.

Very nice. Does this look curiously unique or what? I'm loving a few things about it already:

1. It's a prequel (October 27) to Story (October 28-29).
2. It's totally collaborative and insanely interactive.
3. Proceeds benefit the Center for Church Communication and Blood. Water. Mission.

I also got crazy new scoop this week about one of my other picks, Innovate (September 24-25). I got a feel for the flava with some early images, put finishing details on the new Arts Mash-Up and Speed Storytelling Round and am having final conversations with some unexpected participants. Uh. Wow. Another curiously unique opportunity. I can't wait to share it all next week.

We scrapped our job descriptions...

As a team, we strive to be insanely committed to customer service. We really do. Some of our core values are positivity, teamwork, flexibility and innovation. We've even put systems in place to help prioritize the moral fiber of our team. We love our job, these values are easy to commit to. But, sometimes, they're harder to practice in the daily grind.

Even when we love our jobs, personal pressure can consume us. Even with good intentions, sometimes our projects can become the priority. Over time, our task list becomes our "precious" and we forget we're on the same team with others who don't share our "precious".

As a team, we acknowledged this reality of our human condition and agreed we needed something more; something practical to prevent us as individuals from getting out of sync. Something that moved our job out of the leading role and into the supporting character. Something we could refer to daily, if needed, to remind us what the win really is.

So here’s what we did. We scrapped our job descriptions and completed this exercise.

1. Answer the question: “At the end of the day, if I’ve done this, then I’ve done my job.”
2. In your answer, remember to demonstrate the benefit to others trumps the task.
3. Keep your answer simple and short enough to easily remember and recite.
4. Include your individual strength theme to help maximize impact.

Here's what we came up with ...

The underbelly of technology nobody talks about...

Last month I had the privilege of delivering a keynote session at the Dynamic Church Conference.

The team at Fellowship Technologies was generous enough to make all of the keynote sessions available to everyone, whether you were able to make it to Dallas or not. You gotta love those guys.

My topic? The Underbelly of Technology Nobody Talks About.

DC09: Kem Meyer Keynote from Fellowship Technologies on Vimeo.

In case you missed the after AFTER party...

Did you hear? We broke tokbox. So many people showed up to the live after party on Shawn Wood's blog, the video crashed. We party. The crowds come in. That's how we roll. 

Plan B? I recorded my answers to Shawn's questions & share them with you here. Enjoy.

Live Video book blog tour after party...

I was on the virtual road all day last Friday: 28 blogs, 27 cities, one day. Now it's time to blow off some steam. Shawn Wood is hosting the after party TODAY at 2 P.M. EDT...

Unscripted. Unrehearsed. Uninhibited.

Shawn is like the Ryan Seacrest of, er, well, um, my after party. You never know what question he's going to bust out with during an interview. This guy is unpredictable.

Join the party. You are invited. Let's get it started, hwah, let's get it started in here.

TUNE IN AT 2 P.M. EDT. Aww yeeah.