Custard In The Ether

Racing Facebook

By admin | October 27, 2009

Telling your parents that you have become engaged can be a challenging announcement to word, even when they are forewarned by a very traditional fiancé approaching them for consent in advance.

In my case, it was made more difficult by a rather unfortunate encounter involving Brownies and solvent-based glass paint a few hours earlier (“Hi Mum, Rich & I have got engaged, but I need to talk to a bottle of white spirit before I can show you the ring.”). But, we were determined to tell our parents in person, so despite the exhausting Brownie meeting, we travelled across the country, first to Hampshire to my parents, then on to Bedfordshire the next day to Rich’s mum.

However, we encountered one problem. Facebook. Or more specifically: siblings with Facebook.

After breaking the wonderful news to my parents, I was instructed by my mother to ring my two sisters to tell them. I dutifully did this. The next morning I found messages of congratulations plastered all over my Facebook wall, and all over Rich’s. We had not put any announcement up on either Facebook or Twitter, quite deliberately, so there were also a few confused “what are we congratulating?” messages.

This presented us with a problem. We felt it was important to tell Rich’s mum in person before telling his siblings. However, both of Rich’s siblings are friends with him on Facebook and could have logged in at any point that day, seen the messages and telephoned their mother to find out what was going on. Our carefully planned diplomacy in making the announcement in person looked thwarted. Should we ring them first to preserve the surprise? Or should we risk it?

And so it was that we embarked upon our race against Facebook. Could we cover the geographical distance and get to Rich’s mum before the news got to her via social media? Inevitably, we hit every set of road works, every accident and every red light along the way, making our usual 1.5 hour gentle jaunt take over 3 hours to complete. Thankfully, Rich’s mum was blissfully unaware when we arrived, as was his sister when we telephoned. We left a telephone message for his brother, but then couldn’t fend off the questions on Facebook any longer, so we updated our statuses and hoped he would not be offended. When he returned the call the next day, he had signed in, so knew what was coming. Luckily, he was happy!

My point with this story (if there could be said to be a point), is that where we deem face-to-face communication of news to be important, we need to consider the speed at which information moves via social networks. We were lucky this time.

Topics: facebook | 2 Comments »

A Shameless Plug

By admin | August 1, 2009

This blog usually focuses on my digital writing, but today I am launching a print book. Yes, an actual ink-on-page publication.

The difference is that I am launching the book online and will not only be promoting it using social media, but also be supporting readers and interacting with them as they use the book.

The book is Save Your Stomach: The Tilsmere Student Cookbook. This features cheap, healthy recipes for students and tips about cooking in digs. The recipes are presented as flowcharts, making them easy to follow - even for complete novice cooks. Or at least, that’s the idea!

Because the book is aimed at beginners, I will be supporting readers through a blog, where I will be posting video demonstrations, tips and bonus recipes. I will also be available on Twitter as @savestomach to answer questions.

Perhaps more scarily, I will be asking readers to take pictures of their efforts or video themselves making the recipes. This is the real test of whether I have got the recipes absolutely right. I want to encourage honesty so a community of readers can build and improve on the recipes - sharing any adaptations they may make.

This is very much an experiment in extending a cookbook beyond the page, and I’m not sure whether it has been done before, so it will be interesting to see what happens. However, I think recipe books are perfect print publications for this type of complimentary social media support, as it encourages engagement with cooking, which is what you need to get a beginner going and give them both enthusiasm and confidence. This is where most cookbooks for beginners and students can’t help, so hopefully the social media interaction I have planned will make Save Your Stomach successful.

If you are interested in buying a copy for yourself or a student you know, Save Your Stomach costs only £10 (+p&p) by calling (01252) 879827 or by completing the Order Form and posting it to Tilsmere Publishing at:

Tilsmere,
30 Mill Lane,
Yateley,
Hampshire,
GU46 7TN

If you are posting an order form, send a quick email to catering@tilsmere.com with your name and how many copies you have ordered. I will be signing all copies ordered today.

You can also become a fan of Save Your Stomach on Facebook and help spread the word!

*****shamless plug ends*****

Topics: publications, social networks | No Comments »

Half Thoughts and Twitter Notes

By admin | July 8, 2009

At last month’s Amplified Individuals and Business Resilience event at NLab I tried an experiment: I took my notes using Twitter for the first half of the afternoon, and by hand on paper (gasp - yes, paper!) for the second half.

I have previously blogged about the experience of writing blog posts as a form of note taking as a talk or session progresses. These can then be reviewed, restructured, edited/checked over before publishing at the end of said session or a short while later. I found this very useful as it made sure I actually used my notes constructively (rather than leaving them on scraps of paper, never daring to decipher them) and also enabled me to process and structure my thoughts and observations more usefully.

I suppose I rather naively thought that using Twitter for note taking would be a similar experience. I opened Tweetdeck and prepared to tweet…

I was quite surprised by how difficult I found this. I started writing several tweets, but found that I didn’t have the time to craft these into coherent statements before the next wonderful nugget of an idea came. I then didn’t have the space to jot this down and come back to the original tweet. The result was that lots of ideas didn’t make it into my notes because they were only half thoughts.

I was also reticent about tweeting with quotes from the speakers because I couldn’t get things down accurately quickly enough to feel confident about attributing them (as etiquette on Twitter demands). When I was drafting blog posts live, I was able to take down the jist of a good quote, then effectively unpack it and write/discuss the concept behind it in my own words. There is not the time and space to do this when taking notes in Twitter.

As soon as I started taking my notes by hand, I felt overwhelmingly more relaxed and engaged with the talks. However, my handwritten notes have remained in this form and have not usefully contributed to the discussion around the event. In fact, now I come to think of it, I can’t remember where those notes are…. I need hash tag recall on all my paper work really!

In retrospect, what I needed to do was a combination of twittering and blogging - write the blog post, getting ideas clear and developed in my head, then tweet with short insights based on these notes. However, this feels almost like it goes against the “live” element of Twitter, no matter how intrusive this might be if taken to the extreme in this way. I suspect this comes from my experience of using Twitter for @bathcsc - where the information was time critical and therefore needed to be out instantly, rather than after a delay for review and reflection - the latter being more appropriate for conferences, where crafting time is important if you want to generate high quality tweets to add to the conversation.

I think my next conference experiment will be to combine writing notes as working draft blog posts, as was successful before, but encompassing tweet drafting within this. The conversational element of engaging via Twitter will have to take place between sessions (or in any unlikely moments of boredom) to avoid both being distracted and a distraction.

As with most of this stuff, it is just a case of balancing the real world with the digital dimension….

Topics: nlab, twitter | No Comments »

Big Digital Feet

By admin | July 7, 2009

How big is the digital footprint of your event? Did it make it onto the trending topics list on Twitter? How many people followed the keynotes via live streaming video? How much of the conversation was captured?

These are the kind of issues that crop up around “amplified” events. I have been to several amplified conference-type events recently, and have been asked to live blog and twitter through a three day event at the end of this month. I have therefore been thinking very hard about what amplification is trying to achieve, and how it can be managed so that it does not prove to be a distraction, but actually enhances participants’ experience of an event.

Online amplification is basically any live, online activity which gives a digital dimension to the proceedings thus enabling remote participation and creating an online record of the event. There are therefore two parallel aims - to generate conversation/interaction and to archive.

Any social networking tools could be used to amplify an event, although some are perhaps more suited to this purpose than others. Twitter is fast becoming the mainstay, but it is by far the be all and end all. Blogs, video streaming, live chat rooms, slide sharing and services such as Cover It Live all have a role to play and can effectively allow multiple entry points to the event so participants can engage through whichever single or combination of services best suit their needs.

But how do you co-ordinate all of this stuff? Should you try to co-ordinate it? And how do you get your flesh participants involved without distracting them?

I would argue that a co-ordinated approach to amplification is really important both to help with the archiving process, but also to help event organisers to respond to issues and improve the event whilst it is in progress. Forget hindsight and irritating satisfaction surveys that only a fraction of participants complete - if there is a problem (not enough plug sockets, a lack of coffee, poor sound etc) these kind of issues can be picked up by organisers monitoring the online activity and put right. After all, we are not talking broadcast media here!

So, how? This is the area still very much under debate and in which I will be experimenting. There are a few recommendations out there: make sure you have a good, short, memorable hash tag and encourage everyone to use it when tagging any comment or online content (such as pictures and blog posts) that they may produce; promote something like the one-tweet initiative, whereby participants are encouraged to tweet at the end of each session with their views or the most significant thing they will take away; bring the digital conversation into the real event wherever possible - usually using something like Twitterfall, or some other visualisation of tagged items which can be projected onto a wall or unused screen.

These are all good ideas - particularly the one-tweet initiative, which I first came across at the #nlab event Amplified Individuals and Business Resilience in Leicester. I really liked this idea, as it positively promotes the digital conversation without it causing a distraction. Participating into two levels of interaction at once can be tricky for some people, and this was a very easy, simple way of getting those people involved in both levels without causing stress by demanding that they multitask, making the digital conversation more inclusive and therefore richer.

What I found was lacking at the #nlab event, particularly as an online participant in the morning (I attended the afternoon in person) was a central hub where I could go to find all the conversation and get a real feeling for what it was like to be at the event. It was all pulled together afterwards on the event blog, but not at the time. In fairness, it has to be noted that the focus of the event was Twitter, so most of the conversation was taking place in that space - but this isn’t and shouldn’t be the case for most wider events, as it does not encourage the inclusion of the non-twittering classes.

This is where aggregators have a vital and, as yet, undeveloped role to play, in my opinion. Using tools such as NetVibes or PageFlakes to pull in all the content from all the other tools and to present it in an ergonomic and engaging way seems to me to be a sensible way of co-ordinating and monitoring what is going on around the even online. It also collates everything in one place - making it easier to archive the event and assess the size of its digital footprint. I have seen this done experimentally with mainly text-based RSS feeds, but it is now possible to use hash tags to pull in other kinds of content and therefore create a more media rich space. This brings us, as the remote participant, closer to the real experience without having to follow loads of links to get to the live streaming of one session, the audioboo of a live participant’s reaction, the slideshare file relating to the presentation etc.

It might be just the logical, organised, controlling part of my brain kicking in, but whilst I don’t mind the conversation and event-related objects (such as videos, pictures etc) being “out there”, if I want to collate and use these for practical purposes, or get a complete experience of an event online, I want some kind of hub like this.

One could collect all of these links on an event blog and use this as the hub, but it is hard to make the links and feeds navigable and engaging on a standard blog. A blog kept simple - with a clear link out to an aggregating hub full of live, mixed media content - can of course be a powerful discursive and literary tool which plays a role in the online conversation. However, it is really easy for blogs used as hubs to become cluttered, and standard template designs often don’t allow enough space for widgets displaying live content, making it difficult to follow an event in full.

One solution that I have recently been introduced to is Cover It Live, which allows organisers to create a live, scrollable stream of all the content, together with user polls and other neat things. One of its main strengths is that it can pull in the conversation from Twitter, but also allow non-twitterers to observe and join in. It feels very much like a live minute-taker to me, creating a dynamic timeline of the event which can be very useful both as the event unfolds, and afterwards when curating. This type of tool is starting to tap into the need for a more complete online experience of an event and could be very effective when used in conjunction with other tools.

So, how would I personally co-ordinate an amplified event?

Currently, I am finding NetVibes to be the most useful co-ordination tool out there, but I have by no means yet made an exhaustive search. NetVibes allows me to create tabbed pages with boxes that call up all kinds of media content based on RSS feeds, hash tag searches and static links - including video, audio, images, slideshare etc. I can also embed the Cover It Live commentary (which the event organisers want to use). All of the material can be arranged in a logical, appealing way, giving me (and remote participants) once space to watch everything unfold and to interact. The event blog can then be kept simple and clean - focussing on what a blog is good at doing. Where possible I will try to project visualisations of the related Twitter comments, but this will depend on the facilities at the venue. I will be plugging for the one-tweet initiative to be used to generate feedback as well as further discussion.

There is certainly a lot to think about and a lot of experimenting to be done to get the balance between free, unbridled conversation stretching out from your event to create that digital footprint, and managing/collating all that amplified content to help it enhance the experience and lasting impact of the event. One thing is for sure: this new dimension will continue to change the way we experience conferences and organised events in the future, so we’re in exciting, experimental times!

Topics: internet, nlab, social networks, twitter | 2 Comments »

Considering Amplification & Resilience

By admin | June 23, 2009

At last week’s NLab event at DMU’s IOCT the following video by the fascinating Andrea Saveri was launched…

Amplifying Businesses and Communities for Resilience - Andrea Saveri

One of the things I found most interesting about Saveri’s video was the idea of flexible, ad hoc communities/social structures. We often think of communities as long term, fixed entities that take a long time to establish fully. However, I was struck that whilst social media does help give us a greater sense of the wider world, it also appears to be giving us a more acute sense of our immediate, local world. It is also enhancing our concepts of involvement and responsibility when creating and organising community resources.

I had never really thought of community as something which could be fluid, ad hoc and temporary, but then I suppose I had always thought of communities as purely geographical rather than a thematic series of connections. Once I rearranged my thinking to reflect this, the idea of flexible, transient communities as a necessity for resilience in the face of changing economic and climatic conditions seemed really obvious! Such communities being amplified (or at least, featuring amplified individuals) also makes sense, as this enables the community to stretch out beyond its boundaries to find a wider range of expertise in the event of a crisis and to organise itself without relying on a traditional hierarchical structure.

Even though we now have freedom from geographical constraints when developing thematic communities online using social media, geography is still a vital element in terms of building business resilience - something that small businesses grasp and do much better than larger firms. Given my recent work on the @bathcsc project, I was very interested in the focus on the local throughout the NLab event, and the ways in which global social media tools are actually really effective in reinforcing and supporting local social structures. The most successful aspect of the @bathcsc experiment was that it was rooted locally and by effectively amplifying the customer services department at the bus station, I was able to build up a range of local connections that in turn amplified our activities and could have led to further development, had the project continued.

Saveri’s point about businesses needing to think of themselves as part of an ecology struck home here…. traditionally, businesses (particularly larger ones) don’t think of themselves as part of an interconnected, partially supportive, partially competitive ecology - but rather as part of a purely competitive business environment. Tapping into community knowledge sounds great, but competitive mindsets need to change if this is to be sustainable - i.e. mutually beneficial.

Amplification will only work as a resilience tool if it is used to engage with local communities - rather than as an alternative to the town crier. Despite being in uncertain times, I came away from Saveri’s video and the NLab event convinced that small businesses have the upper hand on this one - and may demonstrate the most resilient business models as a result!

Topics: community, nlab, social networks | No Comments »

Paper-Mediated Experiences

By admin | May 27, 2009

I have recently been grappling with a question:

Is it possible to have an authentic spiritual experience mediated by a computer?

Several of the papers I have been reading raise this issue, particularly with reference to online rituals. Aside from there being no sure way for social scientists to determine an authentic spiritual experience (only an apparently authentic one), there are concerns over whether the nature of the Internet - with its “conspicuous reflexivity” and being a “too exclusively ocular, image-driven, textural, change-orientated, individualistic, detached and disembodied medium”(1) - is particularly conducive to spiritual experience.

For the purposes of my research (more on this to follow) I should be focussing on this issue, but instead I have found myself wondering why we don’t question our paper-mediated experiences in the same way? In fact, do we even think about the fact that many of our experiences (whether they be spiritual or otherwise) are mediated through paper? Why do we use this type of language to describe communication and experiences through a computer, but not through other channels?

I particularly wonder this whilst standing in church, watching everyone scramble through their order of service to get to the right page for communion each week. I am lucky enough to be blessed with the kind of memory that allows me to recite most of the Church of England liturgy given the first word as a prompt (if that can be considered a blessing), so rarely even open the order of service. But for those that do - are they having an authentic spiritual experience? Even though they need to have a piece of paper with some printed text in their hand to do it?

Now, I can’t answer that question. However, I must note that I am of the opinion that, for instance, reading the bible can be just as spiritual and as revealing an experience when read on an iTouch as on traditional paper. What interests me is the focus on the medium through which the ideas or stimulus for the experience is delivered. Why don’t we question paper mediated experiences in the same way as we question those mediated via computer?

The answer is probably complacency. We are used to paper. The computer is still working its way into parts of our lives in new ways, so we question the change.

I suppose what I would like to see is us reaching a point where we consider computer-mediated experiences equally and objectively alongside other physical mediation tools. When we can talk about paper-mediated communication and compare it to computer-mediated communication, paper-mediated rituals vs computer-mediated rituals, then we will have reached a point where the bias is dissolved and we can start making more meaningful, descriptive comparisons which may help inform the evolution of things like online rituals. The aim being to have more authentic experiences - no matter how they are mediated.

Maybe then we can figure out what “authentic” experiences actually are….

(1) Dawson. L.L (2005) ‘The mediation of religious experience in cyberspace’, in MT Hojsgaard & M Warburg (ed) Religion and Cyberspace, Abingdon, Routledge

Topics: christianity, internet, language, religion | 1 Comment »

The Monetization Question

By admin | April 13, 2009

Thanks to Cromarty, who neatly picked me up for avoiding the monetization issue in digital publishing in my previous post (thought I’d got away with that!).

I think the danger is to think that there will be one solution to the great question of how to make money out of selling digital creative content - just as there was traditionally really only one fundamental model for selling physical objects such as books. However, there being no one clear way to sell digital content is obviously one of the main things hampering publishers. It also makes it difficult to picture what kind of activity the sales department at the digital publishing houses of the future might be undertaking.

I think it is becoming increasingly evident that they will need to be flexible - there will be a different way to capitalise on different pieces, depending very much on how the user experiences them. We may see a rise in the number of subscription based serialisations and micro payments (following the iTunes model). We may also increasingly see content given away for free, but revenue gleaned from advertising, and sales of associated merchandise. There is then obviously the dubious role of e-books, where publishers try desperately to compromise by putting digital writing content into a format they can understand.

The key thing to remember is that the word “free” has become so intrinsically linked with the Internet, that it would be a mistake to think that one can make money out of every little bit of creative content to drip from the virtual gold-nibbed pen of digital writers. There will be a higher proportion of free content in digital publishing, with money being made only if publishers can justify the added value to discerning consumers.

In many ways, this should be extremely liberating: publishing sales teams will have to work much harder to sell content to consumers in a relevant way, whilst writers/creators will be driven to produce really high quality (or at least, popular) work to generate an income. However, for this to come to pass, both creators and marketeers need to get a much better idea of what people are prepared to pay for online, and what they want as consumers. Audiences online also need to become exposed digital writing as a valid way of reading - stepping beyond the current misconception that serious reading is only done through the medium of the book.

Whatever the solution(s) turn out to be, digital publishers will no longer be able to think of sales in terms of physical units. The importance of a flexible approach is the only guaranteed prediction anyone can confidently make at the moment.

It is also worth remembering that, believe it or not, the problem is far older than the arrival of the Internet. Art has always been difficult to sell….

Topics: Creative Writing, eBooks, new media | No Comments »

Publishers as facilitators

By admin | April 7, 2009

One of the things I have been mulling over recently (in admittedly quite a random way) is what various jobs might look like in the future as a result of the growth of digital technology. I am well aware that I am not alone in this, although many of the realistic opinions and discussions I have read seem to focus only on how the evolution process might work, starting from our current state.

My methodology has been a bit more detached and possibly more fundamental.

What got me started on this was the seemingly endless debates about what publishers should be doing to deal with the digital “problem”. There have been many commentators looking at every angle of the issue: should they be plugging e-books or moving straight into mobile web? how should they ensure copyright of digital works? are publishers even still relevant in an era of diy content producers?

I decided to strip it back and ask one question: what does a publisher actually DO?

The simple answer seemed to be “they facilitate”.

They facilitate all the practical (normally physical) bits of getting the author’s content to the reader. This covers everything from typesetting and producing the physical books, to the promotion and distribution. On the most basic level, they are producing the technology that gets the author’s ideas out there.

So what might that involve in the future? Particularly with digital-native content?

Could this involve hosting and maintaining sites, rather than printing on paper? Or providing coders, animators and the like to help develop the mechanisms for delivering the author’s ideas rather than more traditional editors and illustrators? Or providing PR support to authors engaging in large scale interactive projects?

Some of these things publishers are already doing - although often more as part of a 360 degree approach to marketing a print based work, rather than something that is purely a digital enterprise. But a truly digital publishing firm would have to consider having these things available in order to effectively facilitate an author reaching their reader. (Note: I am very deliberately avoiding the monetization issue, as I actually think that is very much a separate matter).

The other question that arises is: would digital authors want this kind of facilitation from an agency of this nature? Or are digital authors the type of people who want to do it all themselves?

Well, I certainly think that digital writers are generally more interested in the whole of the production process of their craft than print-based authors, but would not want to risk going beyond that by making any sweeping generalisations. There will always be creators in any art form who want to be with their baby from start to finish, and those for whom the idea (or content) is their contribution to the process of producing an artifact (and in fact the main value of that finished artifact). Neither is more noble than the other, of course - they are simply different creative approaches to the same problem: get idea to audience.

Stepping back and taking this view may not solve any problems for publishers or writers. However, it might help us to get a better perspective on what we perhaps really want to create as a digital publishing industry. And in these times of recession, it is always reassuring to try and imagine what the job vacancies of the future might be….

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Being @bathcsc And Meeting The Geeks

By admin | March 10, 2009

Over the last couple of months I have taken on an alternate identity in the name of experimentation and (hopefully!) corporate new media evangelism.

Now, that sounds glamorous… the reality is a little more prosaic: I have become @bathcsc - the resident Twitterer at Bath Bus Station’s Customer Services Department.

As part of an experiment in proactive customer services (compared with the normal reactive customer services model) I have been using various social media to reach out and talk to bus users across Bath. The intention was to help passengers feel more informed and engaged with the bus company. This was very much a local experiment as we looked for ways to improve customer satisfaction.

This admittedly risky experiment paid dividends in the recent bad weather, when icy roads caused severe disruption to public transport. Whilst the rest of the Customer Services team battle with the deluge of telephone calls, I was frantically Twittering and blogging every development under the handle @bathcsc. The number of followers and blog hits soared and is continuing to grow, even now normal service has resumed for both the weather and the buses. The response from local customers has been really positive and we are now asking customers for their suggestions about the future of this type of communication from their local bus station so we can build on this.

What has been more interesting for me personally is how this online networking has had tangible effects in the real world. The example I have cited several times is of the Twitter follower who made the trip to our office to ask who had been doing the online updates during the snow. After tentatively admitting to this, I was delighted to receive a box of chocolates. Apparently the updates saved hours of time waiting at the bus stop for a service we had pulled due to the treacherous conditions, for which he was very grateful

We also received interest from the local traditional media. I got a text message from a friend to say “they just read your Twitter update about the fog delaying buses out on the local radio!”. Now, I can exclusively reveal the shocking truth that I had sent that update out via my iPhone whilst lying in bed in Hampshire after a quick call from my boss in Bath to let me know what was going on. I remember thinking: “This is what online communication is about!”

Last week I was very kindly invited along to a Bathcamp meeting to meet other local geeky technology people. I was introduced for the most part as @bathcsc and quite surprised by how excited many of the people were about what we had been doing. The potential for solving transport problems with social media and engaging with these skilled customers was inspiring. They liked their technology having a real world use as they moved around. It enabled them. But they also liked the personality aspect of our Twitter and blog updates - it made the service more of a human contact.

If even technology geeks can have this reaction, then it is fair to say that this will be a crucial factor for most users of such communication services. It is more about real people talking to real people, rather than about the technological medium. Over the last few days I have even seen Twitter followers joking with us:

“@bathcsc ‘Chocolate Poodle Bridge’ are you winding us up?! :)”

“@bathcsc Which is sillier: a bridge called The Chocolate Poodle or a pub called The Chocolate Poodle ;-)”

“@bathcsc Hahahaha, you said tickety-boo. Not enough people say that any more!”

Now, generally people don’t have a laugh and a joke with their local bus station. I think this is element of social media use which is in real danger of being missed when it is used for corporate purposes. This may be an overhanging symptom form the old broadcast media model, or simply the result of managers focusing on the (scary) technology, and missing the human aspect of it’s application. It may also be the result of a need for control.

Whatever the reason, I believe the next phase of the @bathcsc experiment will highlight this human/personality-based element of online communication via social media and the role resulting community can play in business, which will hopefully prove my point!

We shall see….

Topics: community, internet, social networks, twitter | No Comments »

Church as a Web 2.0 Model

By admin | October 1, 2008

In the beginning there was a thought….

…and the thought was thus:

“Church is a community, not a physical place: the Internet is a community, not a physical place”

Within my local church community the vicars have been fighting a battle to change the way we use language when referring to church - emphasising the difference between “church” and “the church building” and “church events”. Church itself is supposed to be a community - a set of connections between people reaching out to connect with outside people, completely independently of the physical bricks and mortar of the building we habitually use for the practice.

The reinforcement of this point made me think of online communities, which exist purely as connections between people, as there is no physical communal space involved - only a virtual one. Having spent so much time studying Web 2.0 communities, I was inspired to brainstorm other ways in which church fits in with Web 2.0 principles. So the thought process evolved…

“Church is a collaborative environment: the Internet is a collaborative environment.”

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have heard a preacher emphasise how much the various services and events are collaborative efforts - the number of people involved in “doing” church is usually exhausting to list. There are the flower arrangers, the cleaners, the tea/coffee makers, the worship leaders, then ushers, the church wardens, increasingly the technicians… all coming together at least once a week to collaborate in the production of a shared event/experience. As a digital writer/creator, I have found that a major driving factor in most Internet successes is collaboration and collaborative experience. Communities form online around collaborative projects and groups take ownership of such content which can be remixed and debated within the community. This led me on to…

“Church relies on user-generated content.”

This is where the theologians can start picking me to pieces I am sure. However, a great deal of the material involved in the way we “do” church is user-generated (albeit God-inspired, depending on your personal beliefs!). Everything from the worship music to the prayers to the sermons could be considered as user-generated content which is shared and commented upon within the context of church.

I could go on - looking at the distance learning model set by Paul in his various letters or the constant status updates we send (Twitter-like) to God in prayer - but I don’t want to get carried away. Basically, the parallels between church - or perhaps collective religious expression in general? - and Web 2.0 are quite striking. Having meandered into this line of reasoning, I am now looking for ways in which the reality of church can (and is) being translated into the virtual realm. What might it gain or loose in this translation? What strategies are individual church groups using to incorporate Web 2.0 equivalents to compliment the similar activities they are doing offline? What might an entirely Web 2.0/web-native church be like? Would it escape the materialistic fixation with ceremony and bricks and mortar that physical churches have to battle in order to prioritise the community focus?

A lot more thinking to be done, as always. However, serendipitously, my long-ago-ordered copy of “Religion & Cyberspace” arrived this morning, so with all this in mind I better get tucking in…

Topics: christianity, community, internet, new media, prayer, religion | 2 Comments »

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