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Kevin M. Watson

Kevin M. Watson

Category Archives: Technology

How Can This Blog Help You Use Blueprint for Discipleship?

31 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry, Technology

≈ 2 Comments

I have been considering different ways that this blog can be used as a further resource for those who are using A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley’s General Rules as a Guide to Christian Living in a small group setting this fall. I have considered a series that works through the book chapter by chapter. I have also wondered if it might be fruitful to accept questions from readers or group leaders and each week I could post a video response to the question. I am open to other possibilities as well.

If you will be using the book this fall, or if you have experience leading small group studies, how do you think this blog could best be used to make the experience that people who use the book have even better? I am very interested in your thoughts.

Pulling the Plug on Twitter and Facebook

25 Tuesday Aug 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Life, Technology

≈ 7 Comments

I am going to pull the plug on Twitter and Facebook. I am not going to delete my account on either one, but I am going to stop updating them.

I wrote my first “tweet” on January 28, 2008… and then did not tweet again for more than a year. This May I started tweeting with some consistency. I also began using Facebook when I realized that I could use TweetDeck to update Facebook and Twitter at the same time. To be fair, there have been many things I have enjoyed about using Twitter and Facebook. I have a connection with many people I might not otherwise know. I have also been able to keep up to date on what is happening in the lives of some friends I don’t see as often as I would like to. What felt like the most sophisticated moment in my tweeting life was when I set up a meeting for coffee with a friend while in Tulsa.

Occasionally I would read a tweet that was too sarcastic for my liking, or expressed a total lack of understanding of a position it was uncharitably attacking. However, for the most part I was a convert to the world of tweets and twitpics and ReTweets (though it took me awhile to figure out what RT meant). I know that I was a convert because those words stopped sounding silly to me. I didn’t bat an eye when Derek Webb referred to his followers as “Tweeples” or when someone else referred an in person meeting of “tweeters” as a “Tweet-up.”

But a few nights ago, as I was trying to go to sleep, my mind was bouncing back and forth from one thing to another. I’m not sure exactly how or why, but I began thinking about the frustration I felt the week before in trying to get back into the rhythm of reading and studying after a week of vacation. Throughout the week I felt distracted and struggled to concentrate. (I also during the day almost always had TweetDeck running on my desktop.) Twitter and Facebook began to look like things that were not valuable, or at least neutral tools. They began to look like unhealthy distractions that had contributed to my lack of focus. As I fell asleep, I came to the conclusion that I needed to pull the plug on Twitter and Facebook. Here are a few reasons why:

First, my ability to concentrate for extended periods of time seemed to decrease the more actively I used Twitter and Facebook. This is what bothers me the most and is the main reason I am pulling the plug. Obviously this is a problem for someone who is working on a Ph.D. However, I hope it would bother me if I were still the pastor of a local church. I am convinced that the ability to carefully read and think about the argument of a well written book (like the Bible!) is an important, though underrated, virtue that is worth cultivating. I feel that I have been awakened to the ways that my consumption of technology really is shaping the way my mind works.

Second, in my personal experience, I have not often seen Twitter or Facebook used in ways that advance discussions about the most important or most controversial issues that are facing the church. Instead, I sometimes felt that people were using these media to take cheap shots at their opponents and to set up straw men. These are not conversations that I find it helpful to be a part of.

Third, while I have on many occasions enjoyed being able to read an update from someone I have not spoken to in a while (it is great to see wedding pictures, or a picture of an old friend’s first child), I have not found Twitter or Facebook to be media that lead to forming or sustaining meaningful relationships. In fact at times I have felt that Twitter and Facebook allow me to have the illusion that I am keeping in touch with someone, when in fact I am really just eavesdropping (with their permission) on the highlights of their lives. In other words, I may not feel as strong of a need to actually call up my old friend and find out what has been going on with them, because I feel like I already know. But the things they might most need to talk about could very well be things that they would not write updates about on Facebook.

Here is a quick example that illustrates what I am trying to get at: People write updates and often post pictures when they get married or have a child. However, they hardly ever do the same thing when they get divorced or have a miscarriage. I think Facebook and Twitter can actually lead us to invest less in some friendships. As a result, we fail to support each other when we need it most. It can even be, perhaps unintentionally, a way of insulating ourselves from the pain and suffering in one another’s lives.

Fourth, during the time that I was active in using Twitter and Facebook I was less active and consistent in blogging. I rarely felt like I had something important to tweet about, but I often did it because I hadn’t updated in awhile. For me, blogging cultivates the kind of disciplined focus on one topic that is beneficial to me personally and which I hope has a beneficial contribution to make to those surfing the internet.

So there it is, that is why I am pulling the plug on Twitter and Facebook. I hope that I will be able to blog more regularly as a result. And I hope that you will continue participating in the conversation by commenting here.

Finally, I would like to clarify that I am not writing this to make you feel guilty or like you need to defend your use of Twitter and/or Facebook. I am sure that there are many positives which I have not thought of or experienced. I am sure there are valid reasons to use these media. Yet, as I have written this post the phrase in 1 Corinthians 10 has been repeating itself in my mind: “All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial.” I am open to the possibility that I will become convinced that the positives do outweigh the negatives, and that as a result I will plug back in. But for now, for me, Twitter and Facebook may be lawful, but they are not beneficial.

Flickering Pixels – Using or Being Used by Technology?

22 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review, links, Ministry, Technology

≈ 3 Comments

The ironies were swirling in my head as I read Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps. Flickering Pixels is a book about the impact that technology has on the way that the message we communicate is received. In many ways this book is a sustained argument in favor of the slogan “the medium is the message.” Or, to make it more distinct, it is the first book I have read that is about technology that is written by a young pastor with an endorsement by a hip pastor like Rob Bell that primarily critiques, or at least cautions, the way that younger pastors so often use technology.

Here comes irony #1: The only reason I read this book is because I saw Blake Huggins send out a tweet about entering to win a free copy of the book. I like free books, so I entered myself. I won.

Irony #2: Since being made aware of the existence of this book, I have noticed that many people are talking about it in the blogosphere and many people seem to love the book… but I haven’t noticed anyone (there are probably examples of this that I just haven’t noticed) interacting with the ways that the book might inform or challenge the fact that they are blogging in the first place.

Irony #3: I am now writing a blog post about the book. And, while it has made me think about the limitations of blogging, I will not address that in this post beyond what I have already said.

Flickering Pixels is a quick read, and because of its subject matter, I would highly recommend it to anyone who spends a significant amount of time writing blogs, reading blogs, using facebook or twitter, surfing the internet, watching tv… if you don’t fit into any of these catagories you are not reading this, so I will stop there. Hipps argues that though we are not often aware of it, technology shapes us. It impacts the way that we think and see the world.

Quotation #1: “When we fail to perceive that the things we create are extension of ourselves, the created things take on god-like characteristics and we become their servants” (35).

Have you ever been around someone who has become a slave to their cell phone? They are unable (so it seems) to not answer it, even when answering it is incredibly rude. Cell phones, from my perspective, were originally created to be a means of convenience to the person who had a cell phone. Now it usually seems like they are a means of convenience to the person calling the cell phone. Hipps’ insight, however, has implications for every area of technology. I try not to answer my cell phone if I am with someone else. Yet, I am sometimes a slave to my email. The point is not that technology is evil. But we should be aware of its ability to become addicting.

Quotation #2: “The Internet has a natural bias toward exhibitionism and thus the erosion of real intimacy. There is nothing exclusive about it, yet it creates, paradoxically, a kind of illusion of intimacy with people we’ve never met in person” (113).

I immediately thought of facebook when re-reading this quote. But since I am not a huge fan of facebook, it is probably more relevant to me for blogging. I can often feel the temptation on this blog to get on my soapbox and blast away at something (I guess I just did that with the way that some people use their cell phones). And it does seem to me that there is a very fine line between the openness and transparency that facilitates an interesting and edifying blog on the one hand and an inappropriate intimacy and exhibitionism on the other hand. The hard part is that while some boundaries are clear in my mind, you may different boundaries than I do.

Quotation #3: “Virtual community is infinitely more virtual than it is communal. It’s a bit like cotton candy: It goes down easy and satiates our immediate hunger, but it doesn’t provide much in the way of sustainable nutrition. Not only that, but our appetite is spoiled. We no longer feel the need to participate in authentic community. Authentic community involves high degrees of intimacy, permanence, and proximity. While relative intimacy can be gained in virtual settings, the experiences of permanence and proximity have all but vanished.

I’m not morally opposed to cotton candy or virtual community. However, I am concerned that virtual community is slowly becoming our preferred way of relating. I don’t think the results will be any better than if we started eating spun sugar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner” (114).

Irony #4: I am going to attempt to form virtual community by inviting your response.

What do you think about Hipps critique of virtual community? Do you find it convincing? Unconvincing? I was particularly interested as I read this book in how people would respond who are starting internet campuses. If the medium is the message it would seem to me that watching a worship service on the internet could communicate the ultimate form of individualism and privatization of Christianity. Do you know of ways in which internet campuses try to offset this potential shortcoming? Or does you not see this as an inevitability?

UM Social Media Experiment: The Results

21 Wednesday Jan 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in links, Ministry, Technology, Wesley

≈ 5 Comments

Today concludes the two week time line for the experiment in Methodist social media exposure. There were 759 views of the YouTube video promoting Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for Today There were 44 hits to the video when I discovered it and posted it on the Methodist blogosphere. At the end of the first week there were 619 views. This means that the momentum slowed down significantly after the first week as there were 140 views in the second week. (On the other hand, that is still more than three times as many views as the video had in its first six months of existence.)

Blake Huggins was surprised at how well the experiment was going in a comment he left on my post about the experiment at one week. Henry Neufeld, on the other hand, was disappointed with the results.

I am not exactly sure what to make of the results. I think the experimented would have been more successful if the video that was circulated had not been promoting a book generally, and promoting a book I co-authored more particularly. I noticed comments on several blogs that expressed that they were disappointed to find at the end of the video that it was just promoting another book. (Though I was also surprised that so many people seemed to feel that United Methodists have so much information out there about their books. I have tended to feel the other way, that not very many people know about United Methodist publications outside of a very committed group.) I was also a bit disappointed that the views of the video decreased so rapidly in the second week.

On the other hand, I was surprised that more than 25 bloggers linked to the video in some way on their blog. And I do think it is significant that simply passing on a video was able to revive a video that was basically dead on YouTube. A change from 44 views in 6 months to 715 views in 2 weeks is a significant change. I think that this experiment does show that there exists a significant group of Methodists who are willing to work together in some capacity to raise awareness and get the word out. The big question is: Get the word out about what? Over the last few weeks I have found myself dreaming about the ways that the blogosphere could be used as a resource for helping to better get the Wesleyan message out there – not just to other Methodists, but more deeply into the emerging church and other places where meaningful conversations are happening about what it means to be a Christian, how to live faithfully, the meaning of life, etc.

As I indicated in the original post about this experiment, I will write a letter to the folks at Discipleship Resources and the General Board of Discipleship letting them know about the experiment and encouraging them to think about ways to use the internet as a means of communication and ways to work with Methodists who already have a presence and audience on the web. I will pass on any response that is appropriate to publicly communicate.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts about the experiment? Do you see anything more than this can point to or lead to?

Update: Experiment in UM Social Media Exposure

14 Wednesday Jan 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in links, Technology, Wesley

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Methodist, Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition, Social Media Experiment, Wesley

After one week the YouTube video about Reclaiming the Wesleyan Traditionhas received 619 hits (it had 44 when I discovered it a week and a half ago). The video also now comes up on the second page if you search “Wesleyan” on YouTube. So far the video has been posted on 25 different blogs and has been mentioned on two other blogs that I have found.

Here are the folks who have contributed: Hit the Back Button to Move Forward, Step by Step, Friar’s Fires, McKinney Methodist, Divers and Sundry, Stress Penguin, A Walking Paradox, Sunday’s Child, A United Method, Speaking of Grace, UM Portal, Adventures in Revland, Methoblog, Threads from Henry’s Web, My Ramblings, Thoughts of Resurrection, Thoughts from Nick, Accountable Discipleship, Matt Judkins, A Long Obedience, BlakeHuggins.com, Craig Adams, Ramblings from Red Rose, Fuzzy Thinking

The experiment was also mentioned at The Wesley Report, and Allan R. Bevere

If you have not participated in this experiment and would like to, all you have to do is post the you tube video below on your blog.

The original post about this project pointed to a desire to see how much attention Methodist bloggers could bring to one thing if we collectively talked about it for two weeks. As this has developed I have found myself hoping that this will help folks at GBOD, Discipleship Resources, and other folks who are trying to get our message out there realize that there is a tremendous resource in the Methodist blogging world. (Though, this is certainly not to say that the methoblog is a promotional service for Methodist agencies, just that it might be a good idea to keep us in the loop.) At perhaps a deeper level I have also found myself wondering if there are ways that we can work together to raise awareness of our Methodist/Wesleyan heritage. Are there ways that we can focus on what unites us and together build even more momentum and more of a presence on the web? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

(Full disclosure: I co-authored the book that is promoted in the video. If you want to see how this video was chosen, or why this experiment was started you can read the original post I wrote when I found the video on YouTube and the post that Gavin then wrote – which was what gave me the idea to do this.)

Methodist Bloggers Unite!

08 Thursday Jan 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Blogroll, links, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

One of the things that is great about blogging is that you can find out if an idea is terrible simply by the deafening silence that greets a post. Yesterday, when I posted about an experiment to raise awareness of the Methodist blogging presence, I wondered if this would be one of those ideas. I wasn’t even sure if I would hear a calm still voice… though I hoped if nothing else my closest friends would post the video because they felt sorry for me.

Twenty-four hours after posting the invitation to post a YouTube video promoting Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for Todayhas been posted on nine blogs and the experiment has been mentioned on another.

Thanks to these bloggers for posting the video:

Hit the Back Button to Move Forward

Step by Step

Friar’s Fires

McKinney Methodist

Divers and Sundry

Stress Penguin

A Walking Paradox

Sunday’s Child

The original post was also mentioned on this morning’s Morning Report on the Wesley Report.

I am interested to see what the results of this experiment will be. If nothing else this will have been a success, because I have discovered a few Methodist blogs I didn’t know existed. If you haven’t posted the video yet, it is not too late. You can read about the experiment and copy and paste a sample post here. Thanks again to all who have participated.

An Experiment in Improving UM Social Media Exposure

07 Wednesday Jan 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in links, Ministry, Technology

≈ 17 Comments

I would like to find out how much of an impact Methodist bloggers can have on spreading the word if we all join together. How big of an impact do you think we could have? To get an idea, and to hopefully gain some concrete evidence of how Methodist bloggers can help get the Methodist message out there, I invite you to participate in an experiment with me.

This past Saturday I posted a link to a YouTube video that I recently discovered promoting a book that I co-authored called Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for TodayAfter posting the video, Gavin, at Hit the Back Button to Move Forward, posted about the video and his disappointment that it has not received more exposure. His post also stirred up some discussion about how United Methodism could do a much better job with getting our message across. Gavin also noted at one point how much the views from the video had gone up in a few days, just from he and I linking to it. (When I wrote my post there had been 44 views in over six months. As of this writing there have been 189 views!)

All of this has stuck in my mind over the last few days. I have been wondering if people at Discipleship Resources and other arms of United Methodism that are involved in publishing and communications understand what a resource they have in all of the Methodists who maintain great blogs. My guess is that they don’t realize the potential that exists for bloggers to be a serious avenue for getting the Methodist message out there.

Now let me say that while I would certainly like to see folks like Discipleship Resources and Abingdon have more success in selling books in mainstream venues like Barnes and Noble and Borders, this is about more than selling books. I believe that the Wesleyan tradition has an important contribution to make to the Church and to the world. Currently, I think that institutionally the United Methodist Church could be doing a better job communicating our message.

So, I would like to try an experiment to see what potential Methodist bloggers have to spread the word and get a message out there. I would like to see how much we can increase the views of the Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition YouTube video in two weeks. If you are willing to help here is what I would suggest: First, post the video on your blog. (The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISKTrScpzQ) Second, write a post that either links to this post or summarizes in your own words the experiment to see how much social capital Methodist bloggers have. Third, one week after posting the video write a follow-up post that reminds people about the video and the experiment.

If this experiment has significant results, I plan on trying to get in touch with the folks at Discipleship Resources and the GBOD to let them know the difference that plugging into the Methodist blogging world made. I would also suggest they create a forum from learning from you all about how they can better communicate through social media and the internet.

So, here is the video:

———————————————————————-

If you would like to save time, you can copy and paste this as the post: (you can also change any part of it that you would like to)

Kevin Watson at https://deeplycommitted.wordpress.com has started an experiment to see how much social capital Methodist bloggers have. This experiment was prompted by the feeling among some Methodist bloggers that United Methodism does not always do as good of a job as it could at getting the Wesleyan message out there, particularly on-line. So, he wants to see how many views a YouTube video can get if Methodist bloggers work together to promote it. The experiment is to see how many hits the video will receive in two weeks.

If you want to participate you can: First, watch the video below. Second, copy and paste this entire post into a new post on your blog and post it. Third, remind people about this experiment in one week.

Based on the results of the experiment, Kevin will get in touch with the folks at Discipleship Resources and let them know the ways in which Methodist bloggers are often an underused resource.

Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISKTrScpzQ

Computer Elitists – Hillarious!

19 Wednesday Mar 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Technology

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Mac, Mac vs. PC, right-click

Goodness gracious, do we care too much about our computer loyalties! Check out the comments that Tony Jones got on his blog when he posted about his new Mac and missing the right click. Some of them are helpful and some are hillarious (my favorite was comment #23)! But what struck me is that Tony writes some insightful and thought-provoking stuff, but it is the mundane post about missing the right-click on his new Mac that gets a quick 23 comments!

Brand loyalty among Mac owners is almost ridiculous. I finally bought the hype last February and bought a MacBook when my PC laptop’s screen would no longer work. I like the Mac very much, I think I would buy another one, but I am definitely not as hardcore as many of the people posting at Tony Jones’ blog. But, I had not figured out that you could change a setting on the trackpad and be able to use a two finger click to replace the PC right-click.

You learn something new everyday.

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