Tag Archives: SMS

ICCM Europe 2013, MMF Consultation Videos

Last week, ministries gathered in the Netherlands for the 2013 iteration of the ICCM Europe Conference. While we were invited, finances and scheduling kept us from being able to attend. Nevertheless, there was a very healthy slate of presentations and conversations covering topics related to mobile ministry, missions/evangelism tech, internet evangelism, non-English language content, and security in tech.

Last week, we were also passed a note of two of the presentations from the 2012 MMF Consultation, here links to those:

If we get a  notification of additional topics, we’ll update this post with the links to those presentations. In the meanwhile, check out Mobile Advance and GEM eDOT for more info about those presentation topics and to collaborate/contract their services for getting setup.

One More Mobile Ministry Webinar Upcoming

Great opportunity to talk about the #mobilechurch w/@symbiota... on Twitpic

For the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about the Mobile Ministry Webinar being put on by Symbiota. There’s one more on deck before the holidays roll around. The last one of these is on Dec 17th. All you have to do is sign up and show up. Just showing up gives you a chance to win some great prizes. Here’s an overview of what will be talked about in the webinar:

Visitors are increasingly using mobile devices to search for churches information, listen to sermons, and pay tithes and offerings. Your church members are mobile, how about your church? On this webinar we will be helping churches understand how to get their message through, on the most important method of communication today: Mobile Phones.

What you will learn on this webinar:

  • 3 Major myths about cell phone usage that are not true.
  • Dissecting the noise about mobile websites and mobile apps.
  • Tips on using mobile to increase donations & giving.
  • Why your church cannot afford to not be ready for mobile.
  • How to not to miss up to 50% of people searching for your church.
  • Connecting members to small groups using text messages
  • Keys to integrating Twitter and Facebook with mobile.

Sign up for this webinar and learn more about the services Symbiota offers at their website.

Did You Miss Monday’s Webinar

Great opportunity to talk about the #mobilechurch w/@symbiota... on Twitpic

Mobile Ministry Magazine was a special guest on one of the latest Symbiota webinars. This past Monday, we talked about mobile ministry (#mobmin); specifically, how churches can leverage SMS, mobile web, and mobile apps in order to grow those deeper and wider connections inside and outside of faith communities.

Good this is that if you missed this one, that you can still make another. This webinar will be held again on Dec 3rd and Dec 17th. All you have to do is sign up and show up. Just showing up gives you a chance to win some great prizes, so its totally recommended. Here’s an overview of what will be talked about in the webinar:

Visitors are increasingly using mobile devices to search for churches information, listen to sermons, and pay tithes and offerings. Your church members are mobile, how about your church? On this webinar we will be helping churches understand how to get their message through, on the most important method of communication today: Mobile Phones.

What you will learn on this webinar:

  • 3 Major myths about cell phone usage that are not true.
  • Dissecting the noise about mobile websites and mobile apps.
  • Tips on using mobile to increase donations & giving.
  • Why your church cannot afford to not be ready for mobile.
  • How to not to miss up to 50% of people searching for your church.
  • Connecting members to small groups using text messages
  • Keys to integrating Twitter and Facebook with mobile.

You’ve got two more times before the year is out. Sign up for this webinar and learn more about the services Symbiiota offers at their website.

The Data Hype Disconnect

Given the missional focus of much of the MMM audience, connectivity is something that we hear of often. In fact, it nearly becames one of those agree-to-part-and-disagree arguments when people in mobile ministry from a missional perspective get around those folks who were missional but in more connected/mobile regions. Indeed, its a challenging topic, and for many in ministry, its the kind of discussion that makes you assess what you are really capable of tackling versus what we normally declare as a goal of our efforts.

So, its always nice to see in the wider mobile discussion a talk about the real world experiences of mobile connectivity and the challenges that many devices and services aren’t so up-to-the-challenge in meeting. Here’s a snippet:

…Travelling from small town to small town in Devon, Somerset and Avon in the UK, I’ve been keeping track of the mobile connectivity available. We’re not talking a few sheds out in the countryside here, we’re talking towns of a few thousand people at minimum – and I’ve only seen a 3G symbol on my smartphone once … for about ten minutes. The rest of the time it’s been EDGE data if I’m lucky and GPRS as the most common means of getting online. In some villages, there was zero cellular signal (on both of the networks I had SIMs for) and thus not even GPRS. Nothing.

Yet the data speeds being talked about (and assumed) by the cellphone industry, from adverts to spec sheets to product launches, are in the order of ten times faster, sometimes even as much as a hundred times faster (LTE versus GPRS, for example!) That’s quite a disconnect from reality…

Read the rest of The Smartphone Data Hype ‘Disconnect’ from the Real World at All About Symbian

Having acknowledged this, we can be a bit more realistic in our approaches to serving mobile and other connected devices. Its often the perspective that Wi-Fi isn’t used much, but as Dean Bubley and others continue to show, Wi-Fi isn’t just a preferred method of connectivity, its one where much more is happening than what is being tracked. Then there’s SMS – and we don’t need to continue to beat that drum (it beats for itself just fine), but SMS doesn’t require a data package (neither does MMS), and in some cases are more than suitable enough for engagement activities where some text and data needs to be transferred and there’s little to no room to teach someone a new behavior (great case study from our partner Mobile Cause on this kind of scenario). Then you have person-to-person (p2p) methods such as Bluetooth file/message transfer which are usable, a good bit more secure than the former methods, and in high usage (antecodal evidence; Evaluation of Android P2P PDF, Bluetooth Usability Metric Whitepaper). And finally, not everyone has a smartphone – you’ve got to design your services for the best reach, not just the upcoming (because how often is it that you upgrade to the latest capability of device/car/service/etc).

Connectivity isn’t a guarantee. Depending on the purpose of your application or service, you need to pay close attention to the contexts people will be utilizing their device, and the expectation they will have towards whatever it is you built that you have deemed relevant for their intersection of faith and technology.

FrontlineSMS Version 2 Announced

screenshot of Annoucements panel for FrontlineSMS 2
While at the Biola Digital Ministry Conference, there was a heaping of conversations about mobile apps and mobile ministry strategy. But, the best question came from a few brothers from West Africa who not only see the potential for mobile tech in ministry, but see it from a context that is altogether a challenge for some of us in [more] developed nations to understand. Primarly, their instincts for mobile begin with non-smarpthones and SMS. While I could mention a few activities underway and the (small) collection of resources we’ve put together, not being able to get them up and going before we parted from the conference was a downer.

Perhaps God had my excitment to come later for a reason. The introduciton of FrontlineSMS version 2 came not too long after the start of our conference. And now, a few weeks later, I’m getting a chance to take a look at what seems to be an impressive and exciting update to what has already been an oft-recommended product.. In terms of solutions for creating and managing connections via mobile, you will find it very hard to do better than this award-winning and open source SMS (text) messaging tool:

What’s different about the new platform
FrontlineSMS Version 2 makes it easier to create and manage common SMS activities like making announcements, conducting polls and automating replies to incoming SMS. Our polls activity visualizes incoming data, allowing you to quickly understand the results. You can manage messages more easily with a flexible filing system, featuring folders and an archive capability; as well as an inbox, outbox, and the ability to monitor pending messages. Important messages can be starred for later, and a more robust search allows you to locate messages based on name, location, or date as well as by activity, group and folder. You can export your messages limited by date range, or from any search result, collection of messages or group of contacts.

The architecture of the new software makes it stronger and more flexible, allowing developers and users to customize FrontlineSMS to better meet their needs, and integrate it with other platforms and systems. Browser-based and built to run on Windows, Mac and Linux, FrontlineSMS still does not need the Internet to work, sending text messages via a phone or GSM modem. Online SMS aggregators Clickatell and IntelliSMS are already built-in, for those with a web connection, and more services will follow in the months to come…

Read more about FrontlineSMS 2 at the FrontlineSMS Blog. View a walkthrough of some of the updated and new features of FrontlineSMS 2 here.

If your organization has deployed FrontlineSMS or similar SMS services for communicaitons we’d like to hear about your progress and successes (and even failures). These are the kinds of stories that mobile minsitry practioners pine for at conferences like Biola and many others.

JIT (Just in Time) as Your Mobile Focus


When preparing for this week’s articles and activities, a term kept coming to mind, then it started popping up in various articles and comments. The term is simple, JIT (just in time), and it refers to a context of information and the media channels supporting it. But when we drive into mobile, JIT takes on another, more personal implication – I’m using this device for this channel because at the moment of need, its just in time to reply.

When was the last time that you went to your mobile for something you needed right now? Was it directions? A movie time? A contact you needed to message? How did it make you feel when you got that desired information? Were you relieved? Or, did you decide that you’d not go that route anymore – hoping that you never were stuck in that same place with that “only known to you” avenue of finding it?

In designing for a mobile context, this concept of JIT has to be taken probably a bit more seriously than everything else. We can see that there’s at least one signifiant set of mobile consumers who can be strictly judged by this JIT approach (see Pew Internet report).

So, when you are designing your application or service – does it matter to a JIT context? Yes, some content doesn’t. Let’s strike that off the board now. Now, to the content that does matter – can it be accessed just as its needed? Does someone have to remember a login code to get there? Do they have to compromise privacy in identity, location, or relationships to get whatever is needed just at that time? Is the value of that extra step worth what’s at the end of the rainbow?

At least from my perspective, many of the apps – and I can argue even down to the mobile platforms themselves – do very little these days to repsect that some information needs to be gleaned as easily as God makes Himself available to us – think it, nav to it, got it. When its not, what breaks in the experience? There are less than 20 app slots on that homescreen – is what you offering as necessary to someone’s life also valuable enough to be put on that screen that’s accessible at the immediate moment of need? If not, did you have the right focus/perspective in building that channel?

Just in time… we get dingged about that towards MMM all the time (hence the design approach taken with the alternate mobile site). If its not available when its needed, then its value diminishes faster than the time it takes to finally get there – if you do get there. Tech is relevant when its personal – but personal matters in the context of being right on time.

[Repost] Easter/Resurrection Sunday, Narrated Through a Mobile Lens

Last year, we published an account of Good Friday and Easter/Resurrection Sunday in the context of what that story would look like if mobile were present. 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