Kem Meyer's Blog, page 24

Need a communications tune-up? Join the Less Clutter. Less Noise. Group Blog Project…

Paul Steinbrueck over at OurChurch.com is kicking off a group to blog through Less Clutter. Less Noise. He did the same thing last year with Chris Brogan's Trust Agents and had great success. Sign up by Friday, December 17 and you could win a free book.

Get the lowdown from the source.

Newspapers solve problems that no longer exist…

You've heard about it for months, and it's finally here. SoChurch is officially alive.

I'm optimistic about the possibilities and timing of this product. If you know anything  about me, you know I never use my blog to talk about something I don't genuinely believe in. I genuinely believe in this. Last week I jumped on the SoChurch blog to talk about a few reasons why.

Our eyes are wide open to the reality that people are looking for and sharing content in new ways. If we're not committed and responsive to that, we might as well have a tea party with our stuffed animals (and the rest of our imaginary friends). Now, before you're tempted to dismiss me for getting too dramatic with that analogy–here's a real-life quote that's just as dramatic:

"Newspapers solve problems that no longer exist." via Macrowikinomics: Rebooting business and the world.

In order to accomplish what's essential, we are willing to redirect energy from some of the things we're accustomed to into new areas of growth. And, one of the biggest themes driving our focus for 2011 is: SHARE THE STORY EXPERIENCE.

Our job isn't to create more information, but to make it easy for people to find, contribute to and share good information that's already out there. So, instead of adding more controlled, corporate-scrubbed content to our website, we will be scrubbing our website to champion major communication channels that intersect and join people together with the web parts and relationships already part of their daily life.

Full post: Limited Finances and Unlimited Creativity…

Master interviewer Kevin Hendricks will not be dodged…I tried.

For the past few weeks, my buddy Kevin Hendricks has been interviewing CFCC Board Members. Yesterday, it was my turn. Things were going fine until he threw a surprise question in there about gender gaps. I tried to dodge it, but he didn't flinch. After years of escaping this question, Kevin was the first one to get me to go on record. My answer is not intense, which might disappoint some people, but at least it's out there.

Come to think of it… none of his questions were easy.

What's different between the church and corporate world? What's better and what's worse?
What's the most exciting thing you've seen churches do to communicate in the past year?
What things have you learned from coaching fellow church communicators?
What's the current state of women in church communications? The gender gap in the pulpit is pretty obvious, but is there a big gender gap in comm departments?
What do you see down the road for the Center for Church Communication specifically and church communication in general?

Full interview about better communication at Church Marketing Sucks

Increasing chaos with less clutter? Notes from my #AND10 breakout…

When you leverage organizational strength to release a decentralized network, communication can get messy. The question isn't about whether or not there's value to structure but about re-discovering where and how much of that structure is essential to equipping unstoppable, organic multiplication.

In the midst of a strategy shift myself, I'm being stretched to discover and champion new approaches that keep corporate communication lines untangled as we diversify. I spent just a few minutes at the AND Conference sharing a short list of intentional principles that are helping us.

Connect multiple areas to operate as part of a larger family
Link to content that already exists
Cultivate common ground
Share the narrative

Here's my speaker notes for a little more depth and context.

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Church communications coaching with Tim Schraeder…

This just in. Where can you find valuable insight, growth opportunities and connect with other church communications practitioners?

One-on-one coaching with TimSchraeder in January.

Consider this my official endorsement. No contract. No royalties. Just me calling out greatness when I see it. You're welcome.

What every communication professional can learn from the #NASATweetup…

Justin, our beloved technology concierge, went to last week's #NASATweetup to see the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. The launch was scrubbed (sad face) but in his ever "glass-half-full" spirit, Justin is finding the bright spots (smile face). He just shared a post with me from one of his #NASATweetup buddies. He thought I might like it. He thought right.

The experience of using social media real time to share an experience with the rest of the world brought home a few lessons about how social media impacts everything we do and how we can use it to advance our ideas.

Social media is a great way to tell a complex story
Not all social media channels are created equal
Social media is the best crowd control
Hashtag hashtag hashtag
Get everyone (and everything) participating
Twitter is real time

Full post .

Are you selling vitamins or aspirin? Do you know the difference?

"If you want to succeed, you'd better be selling aspirin rather than vitamins. Vitamins are nice; they're healthy. But aspirin cures your pain; it's not a nice-to-have, it's a must-have."

More from the Heaths in Fast Company

It makes me think stuff we push as churches. With a life-saving objective, we jump ahead and answer questions people aren't asking YET. Which doesn't save anyone. It actually interrupts the life-saving process.

Next steps are highly personal. Programs are just environments where SOME people can find SOME of the answers. They are not THE answer. What's the issue? That's what we need to communicate. My buddy Nate Baird said it best…

Chevrolet has several different types of automobiles.  When they want to communicate tough and dependable, they usually advertise the Silverado with a commercial of hard-hats, construction sites, and dropping heavy loads into the bed of the truck. When they want to communicate fast and sporty, the Camero is the king as it speeds through a closed-course making tight turns. When it becomes strategic for them to communicate "going green," they have hybrids and crossovers that will do the trick.

The idea is not creating the car, the idea is communicating to buyers that they care about the issues the public cares about.

The deliverable (e.g., newsletter, event, postcard, class, etc.) is not the idea. The idea is communicating we care about the issues you care about. How do you communicate about stuff like:

Spiritual isolation– the worst kind of need that happens with nobody else around.
Fractured families– distorted definitions of heroes and lack of role models.
Economic and social depression– lack of dignity, education and resources.

We're trying. Here's our call to action this Christmas season…

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The abundance of choice is wreaking havoc…

A recent study assessed the world we live in.

"We are constantly bombarded with options and choices we believe will make us happier at every turn, and then after we make a decision, we are told that better choices exist."

Their analysis?

"It is time to restore gratitude for and contentment with what we already have. Ironically, it may be our ability to choose our state of mind which can set us free from the burden of overchoice."

Just in time for Christmas folks. I'm going to put this in my kid's stocking and say "You're Welcome!"

Full article at Psychology Today.

Revamping Communication Arts Volunteerism…

It's important to provide people with good information, so they can make good decisions about where to serve with their time and talents. (I've talked about it before.) And, recently, we realized that the information we were publishing about our Communication Arts and Tech Ops teams was tired and tardy (out of date). So, we took inventory inside of what's changed (structure, tools and objectives) and looked outside to other people and places we dig for some ideas and inspiration. After all that, here's what we came up with for our Communication Arts Teams.

Search

When people are just browsing all opportunities to choose from, they don't need detailed documentation about every department, every team in that department and every role on that team. What they need are some big picture tools that help them scan and move towards a general area of interest. A one page overview is perfect introduction to what happens in our department for Tier 1 fact-finding and self-sorting.

Communication Arts Big Picture


Invite

Once someone has their interest piqued for a particular department and wants to take a next step, we drilldown into more detail about various team opportunities & expectations in each department. It's a Tier 2 sort/filtering tool.

Communication Arts Teams




Serve

Once someone is serving on a particular team and/or in a particular role, we'll provide guidelines document as needed. Here's a sample of what we're working on for our social media teams. It's a Tier 3 unifying/clarifying tool.

Social Media Team Guidelines

Wondering where we landed with Tech Ops? Glad you asked. Jason shares the scoop: part 1 and part 2.