Tag Archives: strategy

A Few in the Tabs

I’ve got a few pieces sitting in the tabs that I’ve wanted to expound on, but just haven’t made the time to do so. Here are some of those items sitting under that extended contemplation:

…One of the things I love most about technology is the space it allows us to dream and innovate. There’s always an opportunity for something new and people are hungry for it. So, if mobile technology has truly expanded to become a part of our daily life, how can we use this to reach people with the truth of Jesus Christ?

Read the rest of Mobile Technology and the Church at The Issachar Initiative

…Second, I’d like to point you to a great little book called Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology by Derek Shuurman, a computer science professor at Redeemer University College in Canada…

Read the rest of TheoMedia and Other Great, New Books on Technology at Don’t Eat the Fruit

…Vision must be aligned to the company’s mission: What is great about the drones is that they actually make a lot of sense given Amazon’s core business model. As I wrote previously in Amazon’s Dominant Strategy

Read the rest of Amazon and the Benefits of Vision at Stratechery

…this points to how important research triangulation is to make good decisions based on insights, not just data. Real insights are found at the intersection of different research methods. Not over in the corner with just one method…

Read the rest of Conversions Are Not People at Elezea

In the case of the touchscreen, the spatial and visual meaning is not exactly gone, but is now floating and inflated. The touchscreen has multiple screens—each screen, a unique landscape. The single smooth surface offers itself for multiple landscapes and constantly changing meanings. At one moment, a swipe will unlock the phone; the next, the same swipe will answer an incoming call. Same motion, same locations, different meanings. The touchscreen’s agnosticism permits multiplied meanings.

Read the rest of Unbuttoned: The Meaning of Buttons in a Touchscreen World at The Second Eclectic

…Digicel built its business model around going to small, difficult countries that larger companies would avoid. These countries are challenging environments that “you’d run a mile from” because they don’t seem to have the resources to afford mobile telephony, says Colm Delves, Digicel’s CEO…

Read the rest of This Company Brought Cell Service to the Remotest Countries on Earth — and Then It Ran Out of Places to Go at Quartz

These all might read like stars on a cloudy night. But, I’ve had them set because these all speak to various points about mobile ministry which might elevate opportunity, best practice, caution, or surprise. I don’t know what might consist of those items on your reading list, but these are just a few of mine. As you walk though the holiday – and a slower news cycle – perhaps part of what stays open in your tabs provokes your imagination or sense of opportunity.

Security and Comms, Your Mobile Concerns

As I’m sure that if you are reading MMM, you are aware of much of what’s happening in and around the NSA/Snowden topic and its effects. In an article read recently at The Atlantic, something stuck out that made me wonder a bit:

One senior collection manager, speaking on the condition of anonymity but with permission from the NSA, said “we are getting vast volumes” of location data from around the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. Additionally, data are often collected from the tens of millions of Americans who travel abroad with their cellphones every year.

I just wonder, and maybe its just me more than things that are already spoken – do folks who work in IT/IS for organizations who do travel and need secure communications understand this? Are they putting together security plans which are easy to follow and clearly lay out why “mobile as normal” isn’t the lingua franca anymore?

In a conversation with the CEO of GSMK Cryptophone some months back, amongst the security topics we talked about, the way that mobile is perceived as an area of concern – or not – for faith-based orgs/NGOs came up in one of the questions, here’s a quote from my notes:

What would be some recommendations that you’d have for religious organization who have a need for secure mobile communications, but aren’t sure where to start?

  • think hard about what your threat scenarios are; what are the potential problems
  • what areas/people that need to be protected
  • think of the entirety of communications
  • lots of problems can be solved with open source software
  • pay attention to the range of suppliers and the range of solutions out there
  • understand that mobile devices might not be usable at all

Are these concerns that you hear in your planning sessions for mobile ministry efforts? Or, do you only think about security, political, or other implications only after they have happened? How do you address mobile concerns, if at all?

Additional Note: After investigating several mobile security solutions, GSMK seemed to have the best overall solution. I was very convinced after conversing with them that not only would it be a tech solution, but a behavioral one. Plus, for those who like those modern devices, their security-hardened version of Android is hard to beat. Check them out for your personal or organizational needs.