Thinking about Decay As Much As Create

Coda electric sedan coming off assembly line

Despite the frequency of posts slowing down a bit here, there’s still a lot of thinking and positining towrards this idea that mobile devices, services, and expereinces facilitate part of the lens by which we should look at faith in these times. In a most recent reading about steamboats, landlines, and cars, the challenge was not to think about it in terms of creating something new, but what it looks like when technologies and practices decay. Here’s a snippet:

…Some niches eventually grow to replace the prevailing regime, as cars themselves once did. But that process is equally dependent on so much more than technological invention. Look at how the cell phone has evolved to replace the landline. Our need for cell phones didn’t arise in a vacuum. Work practices changed. Commuting times got longer, creating the need for communication inside cars. Batteries got smaller. Cell phone towers proliferated.

These are the unnoticed events that happen in the slow course of technological transition. We didn’t even recognize that the car was a fundamentally new thing until around World War I, Cohen says. Until then, many people viewed the car as just a carriage without a horse.

“The replacement of the car is probably out there,” Cohen adds. “We just don’t fully recognize it yet.”

In fact, he predicts, it will probably come from China, which would make for an ironic comeuppance by history. The car was largely developed in America to fit the American landscape, with our wide-open spaces and brand-new communities. And then the car was awkwardly grafted onto other places, like dense, old European cities and developing countries. If the car’s replacement comes out of China, it will be designed to fit the particular needs and conditions of China, and then it will spread from there. The result probably won’t work as well in the U.S., Cohen says, in the same way that the car never worked as well in Florence as it did in Detroit…

What Steamships and Landlines Can Tell Us About the Decline of the Private Car at Atlantic Cities

In thinking about the implications of this tech, are we also paying attention to what decays in order for mobile to rise? And then futher, when mobile decays, what will arise from there?

[Repost] Easter Thru A Mobile Lens

A few years ago, we published an account of Good Friday and Easter/Resurrection Sunday in the context of what that story would look like if mobiles were present. Like a God piece of chocolate, It’s good to have a repeat. Here’s a snippet of what happened on Easter/Resurrection Sunday in that story:

…The brothers planned to meet near the place were ate with Jesus last. The keeper of that room also received the message from the women and assured us that we would be taken care of and fine there. We had to think and act quickly. And somehow, if Jesus is risen, get in contact with him. I’m sure that he couldn’t get a mobile – but I’ve seen him produce all kinds of things out of thin air, anything is possible with him.

The plans came along quickly. This was much different than in times past. It seemed like this time that we just wanted to be on one accord. Some of us reclined in our seats to breathe, some had been on the run a lot longer than just the past three days. Then something strange happened. The mobiles in the center of the table turned on at the same time, then vibrated, then turned off. That was weird, and we all seemed to see it at the same time. It got quiet, really quiet…

Read the rest of Easter/Resurrection Sunday, Narrated Through a Mobile Lens, and the previous installment, Good Friday Narrated Through a Mobile Lens

[Repost] Good Friday Thru A Mobile Lens

A few years ago, we composed an account of this Easter weekend, but told through the perspective of what things could look like if mobile was a part of the story. It makes sense to make this like the movie The Ten Commandments and it again for those who might have missed it. Here’s a snippet of the story:

It was only a 30 second clip. But that was all that we needed to see. There he was, I think. In the face it looked like him, but the body was badily bruised. He had something on his head, but I couldn’t tell – I’ve got a simple mobile without a good screen. It looked like he nearly fell with some beam on his back, but then some other guy grabs the beam from him and then the scene cuts. We all looked at one another terrified. We knew what was next. This kind of message only comes out for certain kinds of capital punishments.

My mobile had been off for a few hours. I needed to relocate and didn’t need any cell towers tracking my movements. Better that myIMEI simply shows up in a different region with a different SIM than traveling across regions. It was around noon when mine and all the mobile around me beeped again. There was another MMS. This one felt different. The sky had darkened before it came in. I had this feeling in my stomach that I lost something very important.

Read the rest of Good Friday, Narrated Through a Mobile Lens, this story continues on Easter Sunday.

MMF (@mobmin) 2012 Consultation – Executive Summary

A few days we posted on Twitter asking for prayer for a meeting going on this week:

That got us looking back and realizing that we neglected to post the Executive Summary from last December’s Mobile Ministry Forum Consultation. Let’s rectify that, first with a summary this past MMF Consultation:

119 mission strategists representing 56 organizations (including 31 remote participants) participated in the third Mobile Ministry Consultation sponsored by the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF). This more than doubled the 2011 Consultation participation. Presentations and discussions addressed a wide variety of issues critical to the use of mobile devices in ministry (see the topic list below). Collaborative outcomes of the consultation include plans to expand the four-week course into a six-week course, develop a training manual to equip ministries and local believers to use social media, create a mobile ministry pathway for ministries considering mobile ministry, develop a centralized online hub for all resources related to mobile ministry, design a three-hour introductory online course, and create a taxonomy for discipleship criteria on the mobile platform.

This last consultation occurred at Wycliffe Headquarters (Orlando, Florida). And if you paid attention to Twitter (@mobmin and #mobmin) in December, you’d seen several comments from various participants. But, besides the comments, there were also presentations, keynotes, and strategy sessions.

Keynotes

Strategy Workshops

Tactics Workshops

Read the rest of the MMF 2012 Consultation Executive Summary

The meeting going on this week aims to take what has happened in this and previous MMF meetings and continue to push mobile ministry activities, awareness, and opportunities forward. Items such as the Mobile Ministry Training Course more video demonstrations of mobile ministry, and more case studies/resources become the output of these kinds of sessions.

Stay tuned to the MMF website and the #mobmin hastag for more information towards opportunities and events in this space. And once there’s some data about another MMF Consultation that we can share, we’ll definitely put that out there.

A Potential BaaS Experiment

Screen_05-Mar-13_21-27-34

Having the Nokia N9 in my hands as my daily mobile is pretty neat. In part because I’ve always liked the Swipe UI that Nokia released with it. There’s except for the newly released BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices, there isn’t anything else like it. Add to that the open source nature of the platform, and even with not-as-much-support, with a little bit of learning, there’s some neat things that could be done with this platform.

One of the projects that I want to get back into is my All Books Project. That was a project to create a UI for a Bible reader that addressed reading and spatial interfaces that are key to how I personally learn. With the N9, I’m seeing that I’m not going to be able to approach that project in the same way and so what I’d like to do is do something that is a bit beyond the normal framework of an app, and takes advantage of the fact that my N9 is usually connected online, and I usually want to do more with content besides read it.

Context
Usually, I want to read the Bible when I’m in church or Bible study. There are times when I want to reference it outside of that, for example when talking with folks or writing, but will normally use a search to do so. Therefore, I don’t so much as need an app, but for my mobile to be an engine to getting me the content that I’m looking for, and then appending it to whatever canvas that I’m working with.

Ideal Usage

  1. I sit in service and my mobile is opened to the search pane (I can use the app Situations to do this auto-magically)
  2. As I begin to type the scripture being read, I get a listing of results filtering until I am done typing (think: auto-complete)
  3. I tap on that verse and am asked to which app or service that I want to send it to (in some cases that would be Evernote, others would be Twitter or SMS)
  4. If I choose Evernote, it opens a new Note with the title of the note being the day/time and then pastes the entire chapter/verse that I was searching for
  5. I go back to the search box and choose another Scripture, and this time I’m asked if I want to append the existing note or start a new one

In all of this time, I basically only interacted with:

  • the seach engine on my device which queries content on the device and content online
  • Evernote

I never opened a Bible reader. I never signed into an account after getting into that bible reader. I never clicked another button asking to export it to Evernote, or send it via email to Evernote.

That’s the kind of All Books experience that I can see from using this N9, and one where the platform bends itself to that kind of usage. I call it Bible-as-a-Service (BaaS). Basically where the bible is served to your container of choice as a service, and this its up to whatever was programmed into your device (or your skills in programming your device) into making something happen.

Breaking Down that Usage Scenario
Something like this cannot happen unless my N9 was connected already to a Bible-as-a-Service entity (think: Logos’ Biblia, are there any others?). Thankfully, the N9 (and BlackBerry’s devices) have this neat Accounts feature where I could always be signed into my account with them and then those services would be accessible throughout nearly all of the device.

That active context filtering as I type would be something that’s supported on the device, but also the BaaS would have to be able to return queries quickly as well. It cannot be something that causes a lag on the device, especially when the person isn’t finished typing the item.

That aformentioned Account piece would factor into the abiltiy to export those results into a Sharing panel for other apps (Android devices are great at this part). But, think about it being the case that you are interacting with the content of the Bible, but the canvas of where you put it would be up to you. I can imagine here that some kind of usage agreements would be put in order for some translations, i.e., you can only copy/paste/export so much content in a session or that you can only do the location but need to point via URL to the content itself.

I like Evernote as a notes resource, but you might have others that you use. Thinking of the N9, the best items are the Evernote client and email for this kind of content, with SMS/MMS being a close second for sharing and additional notes.

Then there needs to be some kind of memory function provided to the platform, possibly from the use of the API, that ensures that you are making a single note that might have several verses to it, not several notes of one verse each.

Potential Project Direction?

It sounds like a great idea honestly, and one that really kills the idea of app and gets more into that blended space where there’s platforms that work for you, services that work for the provider, and content that’s usable by all. There aren’t too many content providers or media entities in this faith space that could even do something like this either. Its really a matter of being able to make the case the the content is worth more being provided as a service than it is as a destination. That’s not normal thinking by any measure.

If anyone wants to go about perusing this project, let’s chat. Even on a “dead” platform, this kind of thing might be pretty fun.

Multi-Lingual Digital Libraries

Responding to a friend’s email, we were asked what might be some of the best multi-lingual digital libraries? First, a small listing, then some reasoning to why this isn’t a separate page on this site (unlike the way we’ve done apps, resources, and services).

Reasons Why This Isn’t A Separate Page

When this question was asked, I remembered a conversation with the late WS Keel as to why this wasn’t out there already? Why is it that people have to search  far and hard to find a semblance of a library of digital content that works with various connected and mobile devices? My answer to him was quite simple: “a digital library is of no good use when there’s nothing to read it on.” MMM took the approach of pointing to mobile containers for this content. And left it to the greater digital-enabled Body to develop the hooks to connect content into these and former relevant media spaces.

The other reason that you don’t see this as a separate page is that there’s really not much in they way of local content except by a few providers. When you speak of audio content, much of it comes through Faith Comes By Hearing. They really are the leaders of audio biblical resources in this respect. That also means that if there’s work being done, its either under their umbrella, or overshadowed by the legal and logistical issues of being a small fish in a big pond.

Lastly, and most importantly, the legal issues. Instead of writing this again, I recommend the Copyright and the Kingdom (slideshow, PDF) from Tim Jore of Distant Shores Media.

Now, if there’s enough buzz from this post (probably from those libraries that I’ve missed), to make this a page to itself, I’ll do it. But, until the Body gets it together in several facets, we’ll continue to have a hard go of things finding not just multi-lingual Christian resources, but simply finding resources at all.

Content Submission

If you create content and would like to submit it for inclusion into any of these libraries, let me recommend that you do so to open libraries such as Open Bible Stories, Project Gutenberg, and Open Church. Its not that the others aren’t good, its just that they aren’t open to all of the world (yet).

Tweets, Analytics, and Reflections

Its been a nice and busy week technologically and spiritually. Concerning mobile tech, we saw in introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S4 as the headline for the week. Concerning those things spiritual, the Roman Catholic Church introduced its new pope, Pope Francis, an Argentinean. Lots to think about, and amazingly enough, it took a tweet and some analytics to put it to the forefront.

Perhaps its not right that the tweet should have started things, but or brother in the faith @bibliata pointed to this TwitPic by @JayCaruso:

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

Now, @bibliata tweeted that this is a picture of mobile ministry. My response is that its merely a picture of using tech to capture a moment. Ministry hasn’t happened yet. You see, when I saw that directed tweet, I immediately thought of James 1:23-27. That idea of ministry being derived from one of the clearer passages of Scripture which detail the outcome of this faith. Amazingly, these are the standards that Pope Francis is being painted towards esteeming the most.

That didn’t motivate much in the way of anything. I’m actually stalling from two projects as I write this. But, I turned towards MMM and took a peek at the analytics as we had a spike a few days ago (that Google-juice caused by Hacking Imaginations was pretty sweet to a lot of folks). And saw some other things that just pointed at some of the contrasts demonstrated with Samsung and Pope Francis.

Technology Ratchets was a piece that still rings as a mark of the disruption that mobile tech can be in various capacities. Samsung clearly realized it, and designed the SG4 around it. But what about the church. Pulling something nearly prophetic, the rise of the church in Central and South America isn’t just a matter of changing economies, but a changing view of what matters the most in all communities (relationships, family, and consistent beliefs demonstrated in daily actions). Its not just what you swing, but how what you swing effects your life and those around you.

We have been playing with augmented reality (#AR) pretty often this year, and our experiments with Layar have been something to behold. Sure, we can do neat things here at MMM, but the value of it isn’t going to make sense until its applied to your life. Samsung’s GS4 has so, so many features. Many of which that I can look at and say “I’d use that,” and “hey, my Nokia N95 used to do that.” But, its really all about what gets life done. I hope that Pope Francis is adamant about pointing that the Holy Spirit is the best life companion any of us could have, while admitting the Babel effect that having a companion in your pocket can cause.

That’s where the next piece in our analytics makes things even more interesting. Our insistence that if you are going to go mobile that you should embrace its unique characteristics isn’t lost on some folks. There are a number of folks that I’m coming across who tell me things like “I don’t have a PC, can I just show it to you on my phone,” and that kind of activity makes me smile. Of course, these are people to whom public services such as libraries or personal commodities such as owning a tablet or a laptop isn’t normal. They really do everything on their mobiles. Samsung seems to recognize this in their latest, does the church continue to understand and navigate to a similar communicative state?

Lastly, there was a piece last year where I talked about the beginnings of the All Books Project and this idea of spatial interfaces. Interfacing not only with content in a linear manner, but one that also takes into account context and physical space. Its pretty hard to wrap your mind around, or, you can just take a look at some of the neat features in that new Galaxy 4 mobile and start from there. Interacting with your mobile in space… and then what? What happens next? Who’s life is impacted by your ability to take a photo on both sides of the lense, or with whom do you share that gallery of images from your missions trip? How do you show someone who needs to better manage their health how their mobile can participate with that? Or, do you leave them to that part of their life’s space without accountability?

It was only a tweet and some analytics, but it got me thinking about the two main news themes of this week. New tech and new positions are good. Lives that empower others are better. What’s in your hand that can change the world around you?

[Book] Ministry in the Digital Age

Ministry in Digital Age cover

One of the folks that I really get exited about hearing from, talking to, or doing events with, Dave Bourgeios, is on the verge of introducing his book Ministry in the Digital Age. Here’s a snippet from his post on the announcement and subject:

Imagine a missionary training to go to Russia but not learning Russian. Imagine a pastor preparing a sermon about the Psalms and knowing nothing about King David. These examples are unthinkable; no one would do this. But yet we have many in ministry today who have not learned to understand the use of digital tools. To me, not knowing how to use the Internet or social media in today’s marketplace is just as unthinkable as any of the previous examples.

 

I understand that there are many ministry leaders out there who are intimidated by these new tools. Others have tried to use them, but have not had the level of success that made the attempt worth it and have become discouraged.  I wrote my book, Ministry in the Digital Age, to help those who know that they need to move forward with these tools but are looking for a roadmap to get there.

How critical are digital tools to ministry is what Dave asks. Are you taking the steps to understand it?

Preorder Dave’s book from InterVarsity Press

Hacking Imaginations

As usual, John Dyer cracks open the thinking about the implications of Google Glass with maturity and a healthy sense of awe:

Google recognizes that the success of Glass has very little to do with how many features it has, and everything to do with embedding the product in our collective imagination. They know that if you want to get the entire world to buy something that no one is asking for, you can’t start with specs, you have to start with story.

 

Before people buy things, they have to “see themselves” with the product. For example, if you try on a new cardigan and you look ridiculous, you probably won’t buy it. But if the mirror reflects a more awesome you, then you’ll probably bring it home. With technology, we too need to “see ourselves” using the device, and the image we create in our minds needs to show us overcoming some obstacle that would be difficult without the gadget. Without that story in place, we’ll never feel compelled to buy.

Read the rest of How Google Hacked Our Imaginations with #IfIHadGlass at Don’t Eat the Fruit

Some interesting thoughts on using the currently-in-development version(s) of Glass were posted at The Verge a few weeks ago. It’s very much like the idea of Bond getting a new device from Q and then stuttering around with it until he sees the reason for it. This would offer some context to John’s thoughts.

How do you go about hacking your imagination? Or, what do you do when you find your reality in need of something off-the-wall so that you can reframe life accordingly? Would make for an interesting narrative if we all had a story and knew fully how the tech and behavior choices we made would effect them.

Plug: for more thoughts like this, you should really read John’s book From the Garden to the City. Its a rare and needed look at the theology of technology, and the technology within theology.

The “Other” Way to Transfer Content to Mobiles

A few weeks ago, I did a bit of a mobile device upgrade. I found a very nice deal on a Nokia N9 and pulled the trigger. One of the reasons for getting this device (despite its age and the non-Android/iOS aspects of it) was the inclusion of NFC (Near-Field Communications). NFC is a radio transmission protocol that’s used to instigate wireless data transfers. It is too small a wave to do the transfer for all but the smallest pieces of data. But, it can be used as a trigger to enable Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to take over the transferring of files and other data between devices.

This ability to instigate the transfer of data between devices is something that comes across the #mobmin field pretty often. In some of the contexts, we’re asked about P2P (person to person) media transfers because the use of an Internet service to facilitate that is not always so economic or practical. So, the use of Bluetooth, a shared, offline Wi-Fi hotspot like AirStash, or even turning to a multimedia card reader (by itself or embedded within a mobile or laptop) becomes the method that people employ. NFC technology within mobile devices can help to simplify the process of doing these transfers. The key here to to understand what all a device can transfer, and then making sure that you’ve setup your device accordingly for sending or receiving.

Steps to Use NFC (if your device has it)

  1. Make sure that NFC is turned on (you will probably need to go into Connectivity settings in order to set this on)
  2. Make sure to enable the confirmation of a transfer (this is a security measure to protect your device and the information on it)

After that, its as simple as navigating to the content that you wish to share, clicking on Share, setting your device back to back with another mobile that has NFC, then tapping the screen and starting the sharing of the content. The other device has to have NFC for it to work like this. Otherwise, you will want to use Bluetooth pairing in the conventional manner in order to share the content (turn on Bluetooth, make both devices discoverable, select the content you want to send, then send it).

Samsung’s S-Beam and Other NFC Implementations

This article was sparked by a reading of How to Use S-Beam over at Android Authority. S-Beam is a Samsung-branded implementation of NFC that not only uses Bluetooth, but can also use a variant of Wi-Fi called Wi-Fi Direct. When using S-Beam, the idea of transferring videos to other Wi-Fi Direct devices makes sense because it uses the much larger pipe used for Wi-Fi, instead of the smaller Bluetooth channels.

NFC is also usable from static boards such as business cards and billboards. Going along with Samsung’s Galaxy III campaign in the USA, there are many billboards in places such as malls and airports where Samsung invites the Galaxy III (or any Samsung NFC-equipped device) owner to tap the ad and get some kind of application, news, or media content. The best part about this kind of activity is that nearly anyone can purchase a “blank” NFC card and then use either the mobile device or an attending PC to program it for sharing info in a similar manner. Samsung calls their programmable tiles TecTiles. Nokia has a whole suite of programming documentation on the subject for Symbian, MeeGo, S40, and Windows Phone projects.

NFC can also be used in situations such as making identity and access tokens (really cool when you see this: tap the device against a panel on a door, hear the door unlock, then walk in). There are plans to doing things like this for automobiles, but already we are seeing this specific implementation in schools and businesses. There are even NFC enabled phone accessories that do everything from charging a device on a pillow, to playing music through a wireless boombox.

Conclusion

You don’t need to make a web service in order to make something mobile that can get from one device to another. If your device doesn’t have a memory card slot, you can use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to make the transfers. NFC is a protocol that makes it easier to start those connections. Many new smartphones have NFC (Samsung, Sony, and HTC models on the Android side, Nokia and HTC on the Windows Phone side, some of Nokia’s Asha phones have it, and the new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 devices do as well) and most will be able to at least transfer content between them.

The days of saying “I have to wait to email it to you” are done, wouldn’t you say?