I have been thinking a bit more about the aspect of mobile having three layers: devices, services, and experiences. Specifically, I have been looking at experiences as this eventual goal, but kind of missing some of the key elements of experiences.

For example, Starbucks (McDonald’s, Panera, and luxury auto makers) define their existence as something fitting that space in life that is neither home nor work. There are areas of the USA where churches also define their existence within this 3rd space. 

Now, what happens in this space can’t be like work (take for compensation) or home (rest and maturity). Something else happens in this space that fills something needed in our lives. One of the pitches for retail outlets is that they appeal to a space where you can get away and be refreshed without a vacation.

Now, there’s mobile. When we say that we want to use mobile in a ministry context, we are encroaching on this 3rd space to a degree. It could be intentional – the bible application developer ideally wants you to use their application in this 3rd space to refresh and retool. That doesn’t mean that the application isn’t viable in the other two spaces, but that it fits better in the 3rd.

But, what about other ministry engagements. Surely, if church is considered the 3rd space, then using a mobile for bible studies, events, and to create media can fit. But, when it does get placed there, is mobile encroaching on that personal moment? Can a mobile-friendly broadcast (for example) ever be well received when a person is not willing to be engaged?

I’ve got ways to go in this thinking. But, I want to leave with the same questions we posted on Twitter some days back for discussion and reflection:

[Thought] #mobmin (mobile ministry) challenges the Christian perception that the 3rd space (home, work are 1st two) is a church(-space)?

[Thought] If 3rd space is no longer a space but is an event, what/should the focus of #mobmin lie, how does it morph to other 3rd spaces?

Great article over at IE Day giving reasons why it would be a good idea to choose a feature (or Quick Messaging) phone over a smartphone. Here are a few items:

• It’s a ready-made MP3 player – take your music, audiobooks, or podcasts with you wherever you go. FM radio is a frequent option too.
• You can download video clips or other conversation-starting evangelistic resources, to share faith face-to-face: read more.
• You can buy SIM-free smartphones new or second-hand, to use with the mobile provider of your choice.

Do note, there are some significant differences between smartphones and feature phones. Some of these (previously highlighted) are:

• Feature phones sell at a much lower cost (initial and over the time of a service contract) than smartphones
• Application stores to feature phones primarily deal in content rather than in applications that serve specific content
• Feature phones can be had with number pads, QWERTY, touchscreens, dual SIM slots, and several other configurations
• Feature phones are seen as “low class” phones in some markets becasue they occupy the prepaid pricing structure (you’d be amazed how much you can save going prepay with feature phone configured to not pull any cellular data though)

We’ve commented with a few more items in the IE Day article. Head on over and jump into the discussion and note your experiences with non-smartphones.

As I sat with a friend treating her to a birthday lunch, I watched around us as several people were engaged in conversation while fondling or even outright using a mobile device. I noticed children playing with mobiles and tablets, consumed to the world displayed within them, while navigating the social context of being at an eatery. And even the venue itself was situated for such living, wireless connectivity, comfortable chairs for solo persons, and conversational arrangements for multiple-person groups, with foods being accessible in a naturally lit room. 

My friend picked up her mobile several times during the time we were there. She was going back and forth with family members and other friends who were passing her birthday greetings. I usually demote my mobile technology to a background place when with others, but soon found myself pulling out the iPad to begin thinking and sketching on the scenes around me. I caught a moment between chewing, talking, and thought when it hit me, these people aren’t the target of mobile ministry.

In a similar scene, I gathered with a group of pastors and community leaders for a luncheon. The conversation, brokered by a friend to us all, wanted to draw out attention to the needs and posturing of politics and faith in the Middle East. After a group introduction, we broke into smaller groups to eat and swap stories. It is usually in these moments that the peculiar nature of MMM gets to stand out a bit – one can make the argument that I’m neither pastor nor community leader, but have a voice towards both. 

The conversations waver between the networking chatter, sports, technology, and even upcoming events to further connect. Though the mood here is a good bit different than others when topics around technology are brought up. In this group, any conversations around computer technology can quickly take a bent towards disdain towards its influence, to fear of its implications. It is in this group that there’s less “playful” use of computer technologies, and more “how does this fit within our contexts.”

With my friend, I left our lunch meeting full in stomach, mind, and spirit. We had a great time reconnecting, listing to one another’s lives, and even learning what each other are doing new with our passions. Her’s is taking her towards fashion design, and her recent mastery of her new mobile phone has allowed her to begin to draw up interest around her designs and abilities.

With the other group, the conversations usually leave me in a readied quiver. Mobiles that get pulled out of the pocket during that time are accompanied with the statement, “I’m still not even sure how this thing works.” The few techies that attend those events are usually just as swayed by certain platforms (development or otherwise) as much as they are the messages they help to deliver. There’s less of a blend between the technology and life, there are more distinct boundaries between the layers here.

As I write this, I’m reminded of the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF) meeting this past December. We talked a lot about mobile, but there were very few of us who were using mobile so actively that it opened up life around us. We knew the layers, but for some, the boundaries of its context were quite defined. And therefore the technology (devices, services, and/or experiences), framed walls that were items to be overcome on the road towards enabling a movement.

Mobile ministry is probably not for the people like my friend I had lunch with.

We’ve piggybacked on the discussions happening around the web in respect to mobile health. And certainly, there’s a lot that’s being discussed in respect to using mobile devices and services at the point of diagnosis and prevention. However, one of the aspects of mobile health that we’ve rarely talked about is the idea of wellness.

Wellness, or your state of physical, mental, and spiritual health is sometimes passed off as an area that only “new age spiritualists” think about, but I think that we’d be missing a bit about “carrying for this temple” if we didn’t highlight it in part.

This hits home a good bit for me because as I love to get out on my bicycle, I find that I’ve not nearly ridden as much in my time in a rural area as I have in urban areas, despite the lack of traffic. To wit, I’ve not felt as good physically and mentally as I know that I can be. To the point, right before sitting to pen this, I logged (on my mobile using Sports Tracker) a ride where I wen’t 13.5 miles in about 1hr 5min. Last fall, I was doing 17 miles in that same amount of time. Physically, that’s a problem, and I know its effected me mentally and spiritually.

There are applications like Nokia’s Wellness Diary that go beyond looking at a workout regime, but will also help you recognize sleeping and eating patterns so that you can make adjustments to your lifestyle to improve not just your quality of life, but also how you are able to respond to change all around you.

So, let’s open the discussion on mobile wellness by looking at what you do to keep yourself on track whether with specific mobile software to guide you or a service that helps you track. Let’s spur one another not just towards preaching the Gospel with words, but having the wholeness of life that lives it as well.

The question of mobile applications is a popular one. Certainly, there are a number of people who cannot see mobile devices and services without them. And to some extent, this has always been the case. The question though that’s been been hard for some to ascertain for themselves though is whether they need an application or not.

Applications are event or task-driven software. Sometimes, this might require some input from the person who desires information. Other times, this input information may be derived from outside sources such as another website, sensors on a mobile device, or a combination of these plus input from the person. So then, with asking this question (should I have an app), we should probably start with the key piece of data – what will this application be providing?

In previous articles, we’ve talked about mobile having three components (devices, services, and experiences). In this piece, we’ll try to answer this question (should I have an app) through this lens.

Content and Services

There are two things you provide through any computing interface: content and services. Depending on your realm (media, education, etc.), what you are providing is key to discerning whether you need an application or not.

Taking from a recent inquiry where we were asked to help someone determine what kind of app they needed, we asked the question: what will your application be giving that your current endeavors on your website and Facebook do not already offer? The intention was to have a spade of content that was readily accessible to potential fans of their work, but that question (a content question given their realm) was already answered through their existing media engagements.

Platforms and Ecosystems

A consideration for any kind of application (whether native to a specific computer platform like Windows, iOS, etc., or more ubiquitous like the Internet) is where it will be living – if you will, what is the platform that you will choose to serve this application from. Again, depending on the realm that your content or services exist within, this can be a simple answer or a complicated one.

Graphic taken from VisionMobile’s article HTML5 and What It Means for the Mobile Industry. Also, Mobify has written recently on the topic of mobile apps versus mobile websites (disclaimer: we use Mobify for our mobilized website) with some items to consider that correlate with Vision Mobile’s findings.

Going back to the example above, the person was interested in an application for mobile devices, but was not aware that to address their current audiences, developing a mobile application for at least three mobile and at least one desktop platform (mobile: iOS, Android, and BlackBerry; desktop: Windows or Mac OS) was the course. Or, they could opt to take the route in developing a web application (using HTML5 most likely) that could fit across most of those platforms, but would (in that case) simply duplicate existing efforts on Facebook and their current website.

Closing the Experience

Regardless of your content/service and the platform, there’s a larger goal that you have in mind when you are asking the question “should I have an app.” Have you clearly defined the goal of this experience? What are the spiritual, theological, social, or personal takeaways that someone will (not should) have when they finish a session within your application.

Let’s go back to the example we’ve been using. Remember how we asked the question “what will your mobile application offer that your website and Facebook site don’t?” That question gets extended here. What is it that your content or service offers that changes the person? Does your current website or social networking engagement follow through on this experience goal? For what you think of building into your mobile application, is this a realistic goal for a mobile application? Mobile use is different than a regular PC, and even other forms of media (radio, TV). Given the attention span that a mobile device might have, and what you are thinking of as a mobile application, do goals line up with what can be had given this mobile context?

The “Checklist”

Clearly, this isn’t always an easy question. And for those whom are looking towards developing a mobile component to their offerings, there are other questions that come along as the prior two sections are nailed down. We have these three layers of mobile (devices, services, and experiences) that help guide towards answering some (or all) of these questions. This at least gets us to the point of having a checklist of sorts towards answering this question.

Should I have a mobile application?

• Am I delivering content or performing/administering a service?
• What does a mobile application enable my content/service to do that current channels (website, social networking, etc.) cannot do as effectively?
• What platform should I choose for my initial mobile application?
• Is my content/service complicated by logistical constraints (languages, delivery/receiving methods, etc.)?
• What resources do I have to develop on the platform our audience is most likely to meet us on?
• What experience should be gained after this mobile application is closed?
• Does this follow along with our vision/values?
• Are there aspects of the experience that we can’t control that we are ok with?

Granted, this is a simplified checklist, but it at least should help some in getting through the question of “should I have an app” towards the perspective of making sure that you don’t just have it to have it, but also profitably put your energies on reachable goals.

Over at Mobile Advance, a weekly list of links to news and happenings in and around mobile is posted. Here’s a snippet of what’s in Weekly Web Watch #27:

Apps

• Introduction to jQuery Mobile (by IBM/C. Enrique Ortiz)
• Why Web vs. Native Isn’t a Black and White Battle
• Standards for Web Applications on Mobile: May 2011 Current State and Roadmap

Read the rest of Weekly Web Watch #27 at Mobile Advance.

In the previous post, we talked about how innovation needs to be relevant for it to have some kind of initial impact. How about we look at things later? For example, one of the questions that we pose to groups that want to work with MMM is: what else are you expecting to happen after the introduction of ‘X’ to your community?

If you will, is it possible to look far enough down the road towards the application of mobile or web technology to see some of the implications that you just won’t be able to control? For example, a group decides to add mobile technology to improve the ability for people groups to communicate with one another. But, doesn’t see that down the line, it was the use personal communication devices (and no longer sharing a single regional phone line) that caused group conflict, sometimes on a major scale (see the testimonies of the introduction and implications of mobile in the book Where Are You Africa).

Is it right to ask someone/organizations to be cognizant of the effects of mobile that can be so far down the line that its not (technically) controllable? I think so. And I think it comes in how we approach the technology as driver towards some kind of intended outcome.

What is the intended outcome of having a device that takes someone attention to their mobile device for one hour, instead of 5 minutes (the time spent on a game versus checking email)? With heads down that long, are we expecting that they will become less attached to the technology and more attached to reflection? Or, are we expecting that what we are doing is simply replacing an analogy behavior that’s done already? If we had them head down playing our ministry game/watching our movie, they now have a need to charge their device in more places. So there’s a purchase to extra batteries, car chargers, etc. They are using it more often so we now have to add sermons and teachings on fixing one’s attention spans. And the list goes on.

I’m not necessarily of the thought that gadgets are making us stupider or stealing aspects of our humanity, only that we haven’t totally thought through the implications of using this technology. While we can start for ministry (good, serving) needs, the impacts are always further. Being honest with some of the projects and applications we’ve come across, we’ve not done as good a job thinking ahead of use. That’s going to cause some unintended consequences. Some of these we’ll be ok with, but others might cause problems much too large for an application (or Facebook revolution) to solve.

I was drawn to an article by a tweet which dang near summarized a number of projects that I’ve worked with in the past:

Innovation starts when someone has an idea, a sense that they can make something in the world work better. So far so good, but an idea plus 5 dollars is worth 5 dollars. Innovation is about taking an idea, working out whether it has value in the world, then getting it built and adopted by the people who would value it.

If the quote wasn’t a good kick, the rest of the article definitely was.

Since we are in the business of working with individuals and organizations which have aims of better utilizing mobile in a ministry context, we definitely have our share of “hey this idea will be the best thing ever to spread the Gospel.” Unfortunately, many of those ideas begin to fail when questions start to be asked about its relevance or realistic application.

That same UN Global Pulse article noted a few questions that any visionary/innovator should ask before they set their feet towards working out any new idea (summarized bullet points):

• Understand what the problem space is
• Know what already exists in that problem space
• Clearly state the gaps in a way that allows people to help
• Connect the resulting problem set with the people who are available to help
• Try things out – internally and externally.
• Understand when something is useful, usable and significantly improves on what has gone before.
• Find champions.

Some years back, one of our contributors (Jay Noggle) penned the comment, technology is only relevant when its personal. It is vy true that cultural shifts and even pressures to be relevant might compell us to be innovative. Howeve, the test of anything innovative is how it communicates to its intended audiences. The Harvard Business Review adds three bullets to these:

• What are the conventions for this type of product?
• What are the key features/things to be communicated?
• Is the timing for this product effective?

These bullets are just a further extension of applying this wisdom: be innovative, be relevant, be realistic. Let’s be encouraged to experiment and figure out solutions which may have mobile components, but do so in a way that’s not just cool, but relevant to an addressable group of persons in a clear manner.

I don’t like printing things. To me, printing out materials for something that is going to be used one time and then tossed away is a waste of both paper and ink – materials I don’t feel like spending a lot of money on. For all my antagonism towards printing, however, even I have to admit that there are times where a printed sheet often managed to get out of the way better than having a few gizmos with me.

Funerals have been a particular conundrum for me. As far as I’m concerned, my job at a funeral is to offer a small glimmer of hope of Gospel and then get out of the way to help people express their grief. It’s a formula which works for me. For several years I was fine printing out my short order of worship for a funeral, using my iPaq/Palm/iPod Touch/iPad to read the Scripture passages. This worked ok, even though I felt like I was juggling too much. The arrival of the iPad on the scene, however, led me to cease the printing portion of the movement. Instead, I’d put the order on my iPhone (in Airplane mode) and read the Scripture from the iPad. I hated it. If I felt like I was juggling too much with a piece of paper – using two electronic devices felt like I was doing an acrobatic routine.

My biggest problem sprang from the reality that devices which were so good at getting out of the way were suddenly in the way. I’d have to wake one device, and then another, and suffer the odd looks that people would give when i unloaded multiple computers on to the podium. It wasn’t good.

My recent embrace of user notes, however, has now afforded me a solution. Olive Tree’s reader allows me to create a user note without linking it to a verse reference (which, ironically, is something I want to be able to add manually so I can edit user notes in two pane mode). This allows me to put the order of worship in a second pane, and access the Scripture readings in the first. I tried this at a funeral last week and finally found myself free of any sense of juggling. If you have an iPad, and you’ve been leery of using it in a pastoral context such as a funeral or wedding, you might want to give this a try.

Previously posted at Painfully Hopeful.

Having been on the road for the better part of the past seven days, the news queue here has been a bit on the shrinking side. We’ve been keeping things going on Twitter (@mobileminmag) and engaging in some smaller conversatoins there. Here’s our attempt to get you caught up with where MMM.

Apps and Challenges

For example, in one aspect of the past week’s trips, Brett (one of the contributors here) and I got a chance to connect and talk about how we’d like learn better cross-platform development techniques for some of the content that we own or read. We got into talking a bit not just about apps, but things like QML, HTML5, and even the mobile web server. Being on an edge of mobile use, we’re finding that its not just a matter of having access, but there’s sometimes when ownership and accountability needs to also be a part of the pie.

That goes into the Kiosk Evangelism project that MMM has been a part of and some of the challenges there. As a project, its going through a leadership transition. Some of the questions though influence practices and understandings. For example, if creating a mobile-tuned service (such as the digital library component of Kiosk Evangelism), does it make sense to go native with an app, or use the browser and possibly something like Modernizr to create a UI that plugs into several systems an scales well. Does such a UI need to also be offline-context-sensitive, and if so how?

There’s also the challenge of owner rights. Church Mag recently opined about jail breaking and it caused me to go back into the archives a bit and relook at just how free we are to customize devices or interfaces. Certainly, there’s a challenge all around if you want to do something right.

Some are better than others with challenges. I’m always impressed at the energy and execution behind Logos and YouVersion and their latest projects serve as a solid measure of encouragement. Of the many support and feature updates for the application and service, I’m impressed the most with how YouVersion is paying attention to how we hear the Word. Audio and native language features ring most relevant for a lot of folks. Logos has released Vyrso which is basically a reader that goes beyond just Bibles. Through that system, I wonder how many budding authors will take up the challenge towards creating content that empowers and reveals the impact of the Gospel? Seems like as good a channel as any to do so.

Events and Movements

On the other side of happenings, there are several events and movements happening that all have something to do with how we approach (or at least view from our perspectives) mobile ministry.

The Uplinq Conference recently concluded. We attended this last year and had a great time as a part of the WIPJam Panel talking about opportunities and challenges for mobile developers. This year, the conversations started on mobile and there was a lot of innovations presented in mobile and blended reality computing.

Due to scheduling, we cannot attend this year’s Muther Hackathon, but we certainly want you (or your dev team) to get out there to it. If you would like passes, shoot us a message or tweet as we have a few free ones to give away.

MMM will be at the ICCM conference in Indiana in a few weeks. We’ll be speaking on a session about mobile ministry, actually breaking down that sketchnote that we’d posted here last week. We’d love to connect with you if you are going to be there.

And don’t forget about the Carnival of the Mobilists. Though its now on a once-per-month posting queue, the selection of articles that makes it to each Carnival seems to get better and better. This month No. 249 is being hosted over at Francisco Kattan’s site. Now that I’m not in my car or in front of folks for a few hours, its definitely something that will enter my rested reading time.

MMM Team and Role

Personally, I’m having fun with a new mobile (the Nokia N8) and some of the challenges around using it with my personal approach to mobile. That part has been fun, but its also led to finding some nuggets that would be valuable here.

Our team has taken some heavy shots personally and spiritually lately. Its been an honor to keep them lifted in prayer, but having been sick last week definitely showed me just how fragile all of us can be.

What is MMM’s role? We point to what’s happening. Unfortunately, we’re also finding that people sometimes need help with finishing what they started or just telling their message in a manner that’s able to be heard. To some extent, we are a media initiative, and to another, we’re just some hands and feet to some parts of the Body that want to move forward with a pure and honest depiction of the Gospel in their contexts.

That makes for a wide and deep role for us. And honestly, one that a single person has trouble with, let alone a small team. If you’ve been interested in getting involved with helping us share the stories of faith and technology, get in contact with us. If your heart is in other areas, and you’d just like to know how we can be supported, get in contact with us.

We’ve got some house-cleaning to do on some of the pages here we know – and we’ll get to those items in time. In the meantime, there’s a Body using this tech that’s asking for the road that isn’t techie or overly theological. We’re helping to cut a trail, rambling on about what we find as we do 😉