Image: WikiCommons

As more and more leaders and influencers explore the benefits of the relationship economy by participating in social networks, services like LinkedIn increase in value.

Advertising Age, for example, has just released data offering clearer definition about who uses LinkedIn and what they’re using the service to accomplish.  Although it was originally designed as a professionals’ network, LinkedIn is now gaining credibility across all networks.   Advertising Age reports it has at least 30 million subscribers.  Since many times, LinkedIn connections seem business related, it could be that Christians miss seeing how their LinkedIn rolodex has any ministry value.

But as participatory media evolves we, as Christian leaders, are broadening our understanding of the value of contacts, connections and colleagues.  Spheres of influences branch out and link us together with often fewer and fewer degrees of separation (see: 6 degrees of separation).

More importantly, others view our connections as a measure of credibility and accountability.  They see our contacts as a means of authenticating our lives.  This trend towards a relationship-based economy (placing value on relationships) is what gives social media it’s value add.

For example, if I have a friend who is asking if I know of a good ministry in Dallas, Texas, I would be far more likely to recommend a LinkedIn contact in that area than anything else.  Furthermore, if I recommend a pastor in Dallas to my friend, that recommendation is greatly enhanced if that pastor has other connections shared in common via social networking sites with the person looking for a church.

Social networking will grow in value as “advertising” gives way to personal recommendations.  You can research this trend online. (i.e. – See Online Advertising is Now Dead by Dave Winer)

If you need to know more about LinkedIn, you can receive online training via webinar at sites like Integrated Alliances. (They also offer Facebook training.)  If we know one another you can add me: you’ll find my LinkedIn profile here.

TechCrunch reports today:

“Facebook blew past MySpace in visitors from across the world back in April, but the global gap continues to widen.  According to the latest figures from comScore, Facebook attracted 161.1 million unique visitors worldwide in September, compared 117.9 million for MySpace. For Facebook, that number was up from 4.7 percent from the 153.9 million people who visited the social network in August.  Visitors to MySpace declined 1.6 percent globally from 119.8 million.

The global gap between the two is now 43.2 million visitors.  To put that in perspective that is a tad more than the number of people who visit Facebook in the U.S. alone, which in September was 41.4 million. Facebook still dominates in the U.S., with 73.0 million visitors in September.”

Besides these two golliaths, I can’t pass up an opportunity to mention LinkedIn (used primarily by business professionals) which has a reported user base of 29 million and the microblogging darling, Twitter, which has, according to a brand new Wikipedia update, has a mere 3.2 million.

Oh yeah and all the rest, Plaxo, ROOV, Friendfeed,  Nexopia (mostly in Canada); Bebo, Hi5, Tagged & Skyrock in parts of Europe; Orkut in Central & South America & Friendster, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Here’s a couple of different screen shots of the Unifyer tool a bunch of us are adopting.  We’re using it specifically to connect the community of Church innovators who will be part of the upcoming book, Church 2.0, authored by Greg Atkinson (plus a couple of technology chapters thrown in by me and Tony Steward, Online Community Pastor at LifeChurch.tv).

You can see that Greg Atkinson and I are the visual tutorial guides in the far right side of the margin but to make us live you’ll have to click into the site to actually view our presentation in bottom right help icon under video introduction.  We shot our footage at the amazing Unifyer offices in Dallas during the ECHO Conference.  Not every office has a green screen for filming, much less employees riding scooters through the office.  Did I mention they also have unbelievably cool furniture that they acquired from Yahoo!’s offices.  But don’t be fooled by all the trendy, hip atmosphere.  These guys are only serious about one thing – creating opportunities for more effective ministry by building trust, intimacy and affinity through online connections.

Using technology to foster richer communication and using it all to serve the Kingdom of God is the business plan. Unifyer is the ideal tool for a church seeking to foster a dynamic and vibrant community where every member feels valued, connected, and motivated to serve.

The Unifyer utility is the latest innovation from Pursuant, a Dallas-based company that serves non-profits, educational institutions, and ministries.  It allows individuals within larger groups to feel individually connected and to cluster themselves in ways that serve their interests, passions and affiliations.

For example, any member of a church can form a group for those who have similar needs, interests, etc.  Of course, the overseeing organization maintains the ability to flag or delete content that isn’t in the interest of the whole but talk about facilitating decentralized ministry output.  Got chronic pain, start a group.  Like to find other collegians, start a college group.  Hoping to connect with others at your church who want join a biker’s club.  The list is endless.  People value grouping together based on shared interests.

Check out Unifyer; it may likely change the way you communicate with, mobilize, and empower your community, because it’s not just about growing a friend list, it’s about building affinity.

]]> http://thedigitalsanctuary.org/2008/10/08/unifyer-church-20-site-up-and-growing/feed/ 3 http://thedigitalsanctuary.org/2008/09/24/roov-facebook-love-connections/ http://thedigitalsanctuary.org/2008/09/24/roov-facebook-love-connections/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:50:16 +0000 Cynthia http://thedigitalsanctuary.org/?p=1325

There’s so much exciting news in the world of the socially networked church right now, it’s hard to keep it all straight.  One of the most important pieces of information I got this week is the one above.

Check out the wording “not a ROOV Facebook app”.  Sounds more significant than just another app, huh?  Maybe like a marriage proposal.  Or at least an engagement…

Pay attention to ROOV; this is the beginning of something big as social media allow the global Church to network itself in new ways based on connections between individuals with shared passions…..

Faith communities are responding to the social media revolution.  Churches are leveraging online technology and attracting the attention of even the most seasoned participatory media veterans and experts. (i.e. Chris Brogan on Social Media Pastor)

As Christian leaders grow increasingly well-educated about opportunities for both intra-congregational communications and missional/outreach connections, certain options stand out.  Unifyer is just such an empowerment resource.

Unifyer is a powerful web-based tool that allows leaders to deliver important information to church members with the click of a button.   It’s also a place where individual church ministries can communicate with their participants and with each other, all without requiring centralized oversight.  Decentralized conversations are the driving force behind participatory media.  No surprise to Christians who have observed the gospel message spread virally person to person ever since the New Testament church was established.

Unifyer taps into the micro-communities blooming everywhere online and fertilizes them by allowing the rich connections and conversations that encourage growth and produce fruit.   Unifyer allows real-time, two-way conversations that foster intimacy, build group affinity, and grow online communities.

Although it might seem like Unifyer is a website, a database or an online social network, it’s really a powerful combination of key elements of each of these.  It’s a beautiful concept assembled in an elegant package and I intend to highlight it often.

I’ll use future posts to share with you some of the feedback from the early adopters who’ve already realized Unifyer is available.  I’m also looking forward to telling you about my visit to their offices and how Unifyer will be used to support the community developing around the upcoming Church 2.0 book on innovation in the Church.

Unifyer is brought to you by the Pursuant Group.   If you are interested in learning more about this brand new service, you can always access their badge in my sidebar.

Chris Brogan provides a great list of 50 online Applications & Sites to Consider, well-organized and concise, to use for handy reference. 

I'd add Tweetdeck and TwitPic to the Miscellaneous category and put in a category for good aggregators (i.e. - Alltop).  What would you add?

Blogging

The recent Southern California minor earthquake caused a flurry of tweets in the twitterverse.  This is what it looks like on a Twitter-graph.

Twitter, the micro-blogging or social messaging service (SMS) has been embraced by communication's early adopters but hasn't spread in terms of mainstream acceptability yet.  In fact, according to Wikipedia, Twitter has only 2,200,000 users.

Furthermore, it's proven somewhat (how's that for diplomatic?) unreliable by users.  Thus 'serious updaters' have remained uneasy and investigate other services and options for universal status updates.  (See – Read Write Web's Six Ways to Update Your Status.)

Although Twitter has been talked about frequently at Digital, many unconverted still think of it as a narcissistic, time-wasting, pointless, squandering of words.  They are of the "who cares what I'm doing right now?" camp.  Prudent Christians think carefully about stewardship issues and where we invest our time is important. 

But bear with us over at Digital.  Twitter can be a bit of a surprise.  It has an unexpected way of creating links, forging bonds, developing certain degrees of intimacy and spawning mini-communities.  And when it comes to the Church, that may make micro-messaging hugely important.

Micro-blogging has hidden attributes that we are just now discovering.  Take, for example, the recent Los Angeles' shaker.  When the earthquake hit, I was sitting at my desk with 2 computers up – one on a twitter page. 

I saw a trusted friend in my area of SoCal say in a tweet – earthquake.

I shifted everything I was doing to pay attention and look for a confirming tweet.

I received one within 5 seconds from another friend – about 60 miles away.

I observed multiple confirmations within 10 seconds, all from SoCal locals.

I, myself, began reporting from my location via tweets.

I began checking in with my network of twittering friends since my phone lines were down.

I began answering tweets from worried twitter friends across country.

I realized my network of locals was the most immediate & accessible source of info.

I had 10 people add me as a twitter connection within hours.

I predicted that twitter might be as news-worthy as the earthquake.  

LA Times next day twitter coverage.

You can follow my journey by simply going to my account (http://twitter.com/cynthiaware) and scrolling backwards. 

This incident galvanized my feelings about Twitter – it's not about the news; it's about people.  It's about relationships; it's about who connects to who.  When do those connections happen and when are they the most meaningful.  It seems that in little episodes of micro-connecting, relationships are created. 

Increasingly, as the relationship economy emerges, our networks of trusted "friends" will grow more vital.  The communication tools we use to support them, whether email, cell calls or tweets, have inherent value.  Maybe, as prudent Christians, we will change our view from time spent online to time invested.

Rhett Smith, has been the college director for the last many years at Bel Air Presbyterian Church.  Over the course of his tenure he has been dreaming and thinking a lot about the desire for, and need for connecting those involved in college ministry (i.e. pastors, directors, volunteers, etc.).  Rhett says that although there are lots of college ministries, there is a certain disconnect among this particular age group as well as for those in ministry to this age group.

So, after a season of praying and thinking about it, Rhett created and launched a social networking site devoted to these people.

"I hope this site can be a hub that brings us together, helps us promote events, share ideas, meet, pray, etc. It is a place where we can bring together the work that we are all doing, and hopefully be energized and encouraged by what is taking place out there."

You can check out the site at Collective Muse.

Or you can visit the Facebook group here at Collective Muse's Facebook page.

"It's a work in progress," Rhett says.  "I wanted to do a slow and gradual roll-out and just fix, edit and redesign things as they happened, and were needed, rather than trying to have everything perfect.  It's really my experiment in using some of the new, free and easy tools for connecting.  I think part of the new media is also about taking risks, making mistakes, failing, etc, and trying again.  You can do that because the costs have collapsed as Clay Shirky would say.

The site is "An open and collaborative network for those engaged in thinking creatively and relationally about college ministry."

Collective Muse can be used to:

Connect
We desire to connect those serving in college ministry.

Engage
We desire to engage those involved in college ministry on issues regarding theology, ministry, praxis, etc.

Collaborate
We desire to collaborate with those serving in college ministry on projects that bring innovation and new ideas to the study and practice of this field.

Innovate
We desire to be a community that creates and welcomes innovative ideas in the field of college ministry.

Gather
We desire to gather together in order to form relationships and grow from our interactions with one another.

Prayer
We desire to be a people that continually seek the direction of college ministry through time in prayer.

Diversity
We desire to be a community that spans the breadth and depth of Christianity, interacting on this site with those involved in serving in college ministry in the various denominations, non-denominations, and traditions of Christianity.

Resource
We desire to be a resource for those serving in college ministry, as well as students who are a part of college ministry.

Rhett says, "By creating this site, I hope to bring people together/connect, by creating a platform for them to share, eventually cooperate and then do some collective action for the good of college ministry."

See similar article: Tuggle – Social Networking for Ministry Leaders

First Monday, an online, peer-reviewed journal, published the article – The Augmented Social Network: building identity and trust into the next-generation Internet by Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster.

The authors describe the future of the internet as an evolution from online experimentation and fads to stabilizing trends creating reliability, trust, even dependence.  They view social linkages as far more than a passing phenomenon.  They predict the ability of citizens to form relationships and self-organize around shared interests in communities of practice in order to better engage in online citizenship.

They propose an Augmented Social Network (ASN) model that facilitates connections between online communities and even builds into Internet architecture the role identity brokers could play. The authors note several elements of an ASN including:

Persistent Identity. Enabling individuals online to maintain a persistent identity as they move between different Internet communities, and to have personal control over that identity. This identity should be capable of reflecting an endless variety of interests, needs, desires, and relationships.

Interoperability Between Online Communities. People should be able to cross easily between online communities under narrowly defined circumstances, just as in life we can move from one social network to another. 

Brokered Relationships. Using databased information, online brokers (both automated and "live") should be able to facilitate the introduction between people who share affinities and/or complementary capabilities and are seeking to make connections. Such a system of brokered relationships should also enable people to find other individuals, information or media that is of interest to them, through the recommendations of trusted third parties.

The surprising thing is that this abstract was published back in July, 2003.  Only 5 years later, and here we are. 

My Facebook tells me I should add you as a friend.  Why?  It knows who we share in common.  Let me search you and verify your established online presence.  Now I can add you to my Plaxo, LinkedIn and twitter contacts.  This means I get to find out who you're connected to, see your work history, and probably hear what you ate for breakfast today via tweet.

Because building community is essential for the Church, we can capitalize on social networking.  In fact, isn't one of our primary goals to seek out those in need of spiritual hope and initiate relationship with them?  Since we know the Good News is most commonly transmitted person-to-person, it's not hard to see how the social web provides a unique new forum for sharing our faith. 

The relational trust individuals share paves the way for those with spiritual hope, healing and health to link with those they find in their circle of trusted others.  Equally importantly, it allows buildable bridges / connections with those a degree or more away. Quite obviously, we can not try to impose our beliefs on a whole society, but individually we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ, communicating with people of other faiths (or no faith) via the linkages we have online.

While some criticize the masks people wear online (persistent pseuds), view online communications as "not real" or reflect on the fragilty of social networking (all important considerations by the way) many Christians are engaging in conversations, networking and even collaborating with individuals they might never get a chance to communicate with face-to-face.   I say it's an opportunity.  What's your take on online social networking?