SF Giants Save a Million Bucks With Telecommunications Upgrades

The Generation M Manifesto

I subscribe to the Havard Business Review and have for the last few years because I think it’s a great publication.  I really enjoy it.  I would summarize the following article but it’s too good. I had to just copy and paste the whole thing.  Sorry.

This article was written by Umair Haque of the Edge Economy.  Visit here to read the original article as originally posted in HB blog section.

The Generation M Manifesto

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy “business.” We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.
You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.
You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today’s markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.
You didn’t care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.
You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There’s a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I’m going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation “M.”
What do the “M”s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It’s a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth “M”s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday’s way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who’s Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn’t just kind of awesome — it’s vitally necessary. If you think the “M”s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn’t going away, changing, or “morphing.” It’s the same old crisis — and it’s growing.

You’ve failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they’re your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they’re broken. Here’s what I mean:
“… For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation’s total output of goods and services.”

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn’t be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don’t need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here’s what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday’s profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century – or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community

Twitter for Beginners: Some Do’s and Don’ts

Twitter is now one of the hottest social networking sites on the Internet. Members from all ethnic, age, religion, and lifestyle groups come together, which is what makes this such a great site. People connect with loved ones, build new friendships, conduct research, or market products.  Social networking media is a powerful tool for people in leadership roles that want to get information out about the organization. However, knowing some of the Twitter dos and don’ts will help your experience be a successful one.  It’s not just about telling people what you are eating for dinner!

Some of the dos include:

• Add a picture to your account profile.  People want to see who they are communicating with
• Add a bio to your profile.  Take a few minutes and tell us what you love, what you do for a living and what you are passionate about.  You bio is a way to validate your tweets (what you write is called a “tweet”).  You don’t have to get too personal.
• Accomplishments – People love hearing about accomplishments in that it motivates and encourages
• Feelings – Even business owners and leaders can post about feelings, which might be comments showing passion for the organization, product, or service offered to the public
• Distinct Information – Another great do for people on Twitter is to share a special skill or unique insight since Twitter is designed so people have two opportunities – to communicate and to learn.
• Ideas – Most people love learning about new software, cool gadgets, sound technology, and other ideas so sharing something new, exciting, or innovative is always a great option
• Blogs – Among the Twitter dos and don’ts, one of the big dos is to advertise and market business through writing blogs or Tweets. Business owners will see a significant increase in readers and ultimately, customers.
• Choose Wisely – People will be more successful on Twitter by following people they trust, those that have something important to offer and are interesting
• Honest Aspirations – It is important to be upfront about aspirations, making it clear the person, product, or service being represented, which will boost the number of people interested in learning about the business.

Now, as far as the don’ts, some of these include:

• Too Personal – One of the things that many people are uncertain about when joining a social media such as Twitter is just how personal information should be. One of the don’ts among the Twitter dos and don’ts is to be careful in how much and to what degree personal information is shared. There is nothing wrong with discussing personal experiences but especially for people using Twitter for marketing, personal information should be limited to owner and leader bios specific to the company. Distracting – Information provided on Twitter should be brief and concise, not fluffy and cluttered, which becomes extremely distracting
• Too many Tweets – For people that want to maximize the value of the Twitter experience, they need to be careful not to flood their homepage with Tweets that don’t add value to their followers. 

Here are some fun people to follow:

@baysidechurch
@drjohnjackson
@guykawasaki
@successfool
@kemmeyer
@timastevens
@cjalvarado (had to throw it in there)

What is Social Influence Marketing?

Read a great article from Razorfish today and wanted to share it with you.  (Big thanks to @Guykawasaki for the tip).

What is Social Influence Marketing?

Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is about employing social media and social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needs of an organization. Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential consumer makes a purchasing decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to market to the consumer anymore; as a marketer you also have to market to each individual’s social influencers throughout the marketing funnel.

I’ve adjusted this slightly to address church leaders:

Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is about employing social media and social influencers to achieve the positioning needs and mission of the church. Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential attender makes a decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to communicate to the attender anymore; as an pastor, leader, advocate you also have to communicate to each individual’s social influencers throughout the social marketing funnel.

Thoughts?

Why Online Ministry Needs To Be On The Agenda

Should doing ministry online be part of your church’s overall strategy?

Let me first preface this by saying that I believe in real life, face to face community.  I think it has been a vital part of church history and always will be.  Community and conversations are happening every day on the web (some may be about your church without you even knowing) which is why I think online ministry needs to be on the agenda.  Here are a few reasons why I think so:

1.  The web has become an integral part of the way people communicate.

You are missing some HUGE opportunities to connect with people by not being where your people are.  Many times church staffers discredit, downplay, or even belittle something web based just because they aren’t into it or don’t understand it.  Nobody is saying you have to be completely “into it” but if millions of people find something in Facebook or Twitter than it’s probably worth a “looksy.”  I’m just saying.

2.  Conversations online have a longer shelf life.

By engaging in conversations online you contribute to something that can be viewed by hundreds of people for years.  Taking a “Hallway” conversation or a “hot topic” to the web gives others the opportunity to join in and benefit from it.   If I have an issue with my mac and I want a solution, it’s second nature for me to view the Apple forums or google the issue to see what conversations exist on the subject.  More times than not I find what I am looking for very quickly.  Calling Apple is unnecessary.

3.  It keeps you honest

What?!  Keeps you honest?  The web provides a shroud of anonymity allowing people to fake identities and profiles so how does it make someone more honest?  Real community is earned online.  People sniff, call out or otherwise ignore anyone who seems like they are faking it or uninterested.  Conversely, saying “hi” or “how’s everyone doing?” rarely cuts it and will usually never give you that sense that you are “in” either.   You have to respect the conversations, chime in, engage, add value and then do it all over again.  It’s an organic security mechanism designed to filter out the posers.  People who aren’t honestly into it or who are bent on childishly disturbing it will most often be dissuaded and or blocked from participating.  This helps people/organizations push connections not just agendas.

4.  Feedback and Collaboration

For so long churches have taken the position of MERELY telling their audiences what programs are important, what’s hip, what’s relevant and what’s cool.  ERRRRRRR. Wrong.  This is the information/interconnection age and people have access to the best resources instantaneously.   So if your programs are actually not that interesting your audience will get the info elsewhere.  In the past, if someone wanted to go to a bible study on a Tuesday and their local church didn’t have one or it stunk, they were kind of out of luck.  Now a days if they want more of something they’ll jump online and go to the top bible study sites hosted by some top theologian and get their fix.  Ministry online allows churches to stop MERELY telling people stuff and start LISTENING.  It also begins to show people that the message of “Being slow to speak and quick to listen” is something we (the church) actually value.  I like how Phil Cooke put it  “Yesterday it was about dumping the same message on the mass audience because they didn’t have much choice. Today, it’s about making a connection—the kind of connection that not only makes people hear what you have to say, but also makes them respond.”

5.  Convenience

Essentially we say, “If you want to learn or dive into this or that study, join us on wed night at 8pm at the church!”  Aside from church on Sundays, why can’t I learn at home, or during my break at the office, while I’m surfing the web  or while I’m in the car? It’s the push vs pull media debate here.  In reality, people tend to frequent or revisit organizations that understand the value of being able to gather information (pull) when convenient for the user.  Give that mom who is putting her little ones down for bed a chance to listen to that wed night lesson by putting it online and she’ll most likely become a fan.  I’m not saying preach a gospel of convenience I’m just saying that we should look into tools that can remove as many barriers as possible.  Making it convenient goes a long way.

Final thought: Courtesy of Kem Meyer “If an organization isn’t ready to set up a blog, Twitter or Facebook account, I think that’s ok. At a minimum, they should be searching to see what real people in their community are saying about them.”

Is your church talking about online ministry?