Tag Archives: tech

Why Its Not About Mobile

Apple Criticism

Found an excellent article in the education space the other week that really broke through the rhetoric that we often hear in this space when it comes to tools and traditions – that its the tools and traditions, not the products of these that need the people to utilize (or not use) them that makes change happen. I found this article about as life-giving as any others we’ve linked to here, and I think that when we get out of our lenses of preferred devices, services, or even behaviors, that we really can start to see that its not about mobile, but about the kind of life that mobile and other media technologies can enable when led by the Spirit and a good dose of innovation:

…This week, I’m helping host EdTechTeacher’s iPad Summit, what we believe is the first national gathering of educators pioneering the use of iPads and tablets in schools and classrooms. As I think about facilitating the event, I keep coming back to the idea that this event for iPad users can’t be about iPads. My own koan for the week is this:

If you meet an iPad on the way, smash it.

If this event becomes a meeting about how we got rid of power cords or extended battery life or solved workflow challenges or found some neat apps, then we fail. The iPad summit is not about the iPad.

The way we are seeking is one where we prepare young people for a life of civic commitment, of self-reflection, and of meaningful work and contributions to community. The way is about unlocking student talent, compassion, and humanity. If the iPad distracts us from defining the way, then we have to smash it…

Read the rest of Why Its Not About the iPad at Edudemic

Learning w/o Help

Earlier this week, we asked the question of where you might be framing what you learn life from. And here at the end of the week, we find that given enough time and curiosity, that what you learn doesn’t just have to be about what surprises yourself, but also those around you who might have felt they should be your teachers as well:

…We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He’d never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android…

Read the rest of Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves at MIT Technology Review (via Dvice and Gizmodo)

Personally speaking, I like to experiment on my own. I know how that comes across in groups where credentials and such merit the starting point for discussions. But when we consider the reach and opportunity not only of the technology, but also of people who might be more entranced with their thoughts of social/spiritual good, than any other kinds of implications, there’s a lot that’s possible that we rarely scratch the surface of. We know that experiments like this have been done before (similar results), and even that parents can attest to just leaving a kid in the room, and magically learning of a tool, and later of context, happens.

That’s one of those paradigms that we are not usually wanting to consider, especially here in this faith space. Can a person, if just exposed to the Bible, learn all that is needed for them to live well? If I were to listen to one of the many stories from an old friend, I’d hear again how daily exposure to the Scriptures related complex ideas such as salvation, hell, and restoration. We have Paul’s words which demonstrate that there’s a purpose and office for the teacher (Romans 10:15), and also John’s which indicates that the best teacher is already with us (1 John 2:20-27). Such an experiment can affirm the ability to learn, but deny the (ego) attitude of the teacher.

We are left then with several questions, none of which have easy answers. Can a group of people, given only the utensils to learn and share with one another, teach themselves not only how to use the tools, but also maintain it and turn it into an indispensable aspect of their culture? Or, does the introduction and use of this tech just make as another control point for the learning and culture models that we already have in place?

If we can hack a tool, can learning also be hacked? And if so, what could its aims be if learning happened without the help of a teacher?

Personalizing

One of the things that we can all say that we do to our mobiles is that we go about customizing it. Usually, that starts with something simple such as adding a wallpaper that has someone/something significant on it. Others go the route of adding cases to their devices – first because of protection needs – because of the ease at finding something unique for both a personal statement and visual message. Or, we might go the extra step with ring-tones/ring-back tones so that people who hear our mobiles know that its ours. This is part of a route that I tend to take, and delight very much in doing what I can with applications such as Situations (Google Now, Tasker and Locale are similar apps for Android devices) to customize how my device acts in a particular moment.

Some people go a bit further, we learn how others might have reprogrammed their mobiles and go about building custom applications and services to plug into our mobiles.  And even further more are those people whom hack, jailbreak or root, or just use it (ah the fun of those folks using Maemo and MeeGo mobile devices; which come out of the box ready to be tinkered with) and find opportunities to personalize the mobile experience such that they are able to gain the most out of the device, while learning or exercising in the process. One could make the statement, the process of making the device “yours” goes a long way into ensuring that the experience of a mobile device or service stays relevant.

I wonder then about the parallels to when we start using these devices and services in our faith experiences. True, there are only so many routes that one can go with this kind of intersection, but I wonder if our experiences with mobile devices also opens us up to the potential of having faith experiences that are more personal than communal or liturgical?

When we meet God speaking and engaging with others in the Bible and religious history, we see first a personalized experience that later becomes something that a community of people are able to take part in. Moses engaged God first at a burning bush, and it was after many moments of fellowship and conversation that the burning bush moment became something that was (asked by God) to be an event shared with all of Israel (Moses telling them to prepare themselves for the Lord will come off the mountain… then to “Moses, you speak to God for us” – an unpersonalized faith interaction). Its interesting, because we have these devices that in some respects acts like this moment of the person or item being right there with us, and we can customize the channel to do so. And at the same time, we can customize it such that we also isolate ourselves from one another, or even from sharing the faith with one another.

YouVersion and many other Bible apps offer reading plans. These reading plans are usually designed (or authorized) by another party, and then you engage with them. Depending on the Bible application, you can either keep your progress personal, or share your successes and challenges with a community built around that application or service. Should our faith be so easy to personalize then? Or, should the items that we use to bolster or mature in the faith, keep us mindful of the fact that some aspects of this walk do need to happen in the closet, while others would be better walked out with others?

Image via To Live is Christ

Sacrament or Idol

Hammer and smashed phone

Before MMM was started, I can remember many of the statements that people would levy against the use of PDAs and mobiles within faith practices. One of those statements went something like, “I feel closer to God when I’m reading on paper than on a screen like that.” Another was similar to it: “I’d be too tempted to do something else rather than read the Bible on there.” The common thread of these and other statements though was in the comparison of print and computer technologies, but how we filtered that technology as an enabling tool to spiritual transformations. In a very real sense, the technologies that we didn’t grow up with would always be seen as those which can take us away from the truth of what we believe and practice.

Its possible though that such a comparison opens up another window, one that we don’t measure to speak about all that much because there are very many assumptions about faith practices. For example, when walk with our brothers and sisters who believe that only the King James Bible is the true translation of the Bible (2 even-handed books on this: In the Beginning and God’s Secretaries), or those that feel that non-Psalm-derived hymns should not be sung in the assembly, we color this faith with a perspective that takes something that should enhance our viewpoints and practices (sacrament) to something that hinders it (idol).

Its with that lens that I urge us to pay attention to a discussion happening within many rabbinic circles about the smartphone and its influence on faith and practice (liturgy). Here are snippets of two articles:

Have you seen the video in which a worshipper smashes a smartphone during the traditional singing and dancing with Torah scrolls at a yeshiva in Jerusalem? Wonderful. The worshipper, who is following his rabbi’s orders, breaks the abominable device as the holy crowd cheers him on. The rabbi then says the man can bless those present, indicating that he has reached a higher level of spirituality. The angry rabbis from the Union of Communities for Purity of the Camp, who organized last summer’s mega-rally in New York in which they warned against the “dangers” of the smartphone, can sit back and smile.

The phone-smashing ceremony at the yeshiva’s synagogue was idolatry, not Tikkun olam (repairing the world). In Judaism, when someone bows before a physical object, such as a cult image, he is an idol worshipper. Meaning, if someone attributes “divine” qualities, such the ability to work miracles, to inanimate objects, then he is considered to be on the same level as those whose idols were smashed by Abraham, the first patriarch of Israel. They thought their toys were gods, the idiots.

Read the rest of  Ultra-Orthodox Idolatry at YNet News

Rabbi Yitzhak was asked to comment on the issue on the website of his “Shofar” organization, after pictures of him using a smartphone were posted on social networks and other websites.

The rabbi, famous for his involvement in activities which are centered on helping Jews to become more religious or observant, referred to those who criticized him as “fools”, likening them to people committing offenses against God.

Read the rest of Rabbi: I have special permit for iPhone at YNet News

With both articles, the question of spiritual authority comes into play, as well as the significance that we place upon any technologies that ascribe to making us grow closer to God, or run away from Him. How do your actions define the place of various technologies in your faith-life? Do you collect print Bibles not because of their additional commentary, but because of cover styles, fonts, and holidays? Does your mobile device rise and fall with the media’s proclamation of what’s best for the season, regardless of how much you are or aren’t getting out of the device?

Look, I don’t think we need to esteem these mobile devices as the next great sacrament. Nor, do we need to deride them as some great idol of a long ago prophecy. I do think that our viewpoint needs to begin and end with whether we have these tools in hand because we are growing mentally, socially, and spiritually in the kind of direction that speaks to the unity of the faith. From there, let’s keep the faith a product of our relationship with God and one another, not of one determined by what technologies we choose.

Unique Numbers, Unique Possibilities

Useful assessment (Source: gsma.com) - click for full image

The image on this post comes via Horace Dediu (‏@asymco) via Twitter/TwitPic. It speaks to both the unique numbers that have characterized mobile for sometime in terms of its relationship of subscribers to the global population and to what’s addressable within those constraints.

In a previous post, we threw some numbers against the wall to explain in a similar fashion that while mobile is indeed an opportunity, what it can address directly isn’t limitless. Look at that graphic – as of 2012, the GSMA is saying that of the 4.7 billion people who could be addressable with mobile, 1.5 million (a tick less than 33%) of them are not connected due to network coverage issues. That’s a pretty large pocket of folks that you can’t rely on to download your app, receive your SMS/MMS, or scan your QR code/AR dimensional plane. For mobile to have effectiveness there, you’ve got to think more off the grid, and more to the point if mobile is the most relevant delivery or translation mechanism (for example, what we saw with AirStash on an airplane).

When you do adjust for that, then the possibilities of using mobile become unique enough that it seems as if it truly will reach the ends of the earth.

7in of Near Perfection

iPad (1st gen) and Amazon Kindle Fire HD

There are just so many new gadgets out there, and for the most part, its a crazier world when it comes to tablets. For those who might have been coming from a PDA or eReader background, the idea of a 10in tablet is wrought with some significant risks (weight, platform lock-in, etc.) alongside the obvious gains. And so the 7in tablet begins to take some root as a potential alternative. From a physical standpoint, we’re talking about something with a bent towards reading (unless you’ve got a Samsung or HTC model with a stylus and those neat styli tricks). From a software perspective, we are mostly talking about Android (I’m still wishing for something solid to come from the Mer/MeeGo camp). And then from a usability and faith end, we get that really interesting ask of how this shape of device fosters a maturing faith perspective and a life lived in light of such perspectives.

I’ve recently purchased a Kindle Fire HD to potentially replace my 1st gen iPad. And while I’ve begun to note some of my impressions about it, I’m not yet completely comfortable giving the KF-HD all the work that I gave my iPad. These are different devices, and not everything that one tablet can do should be done on all others. At least how they have come across so far, the iPad is more of a canvas (you can’t do much until you add the paint of various applications), and the KF-HD is a catalog (the 21st century Sears/JC Penny catalog) – I dig into that distinction some on my personal blog.

Still, I can’t help but thinking that there’s a legitimate space for this size of device, and what we can continue to refine about our understandings about mobile as it relates to faith. For example, a few days ago Mobile Advance asked (via Twitter) something specific towards the Google Nexus 7 tablet for an upcoming African trip. Of note to his question was this ability to utilize a device in a mostly offline context. Here were some of the apps recommended in that conversation stream:

Essentially, these are apps which enable taking a 7in tablet and treating it more like a Moleskine notebook and not just a browser/ebook device. I don’t know that anyone can disagree with that perspective. But, its neat that in a device that is this size, that such a use-case isn’t so far away from normalcy. (And in rethinking about it, I forgot to mention a multi-language dictionary; too many years going online for those moments, whoops)

And besides that, you’ve got to think about how that shifts how you use your mobile device. In my case, having the KF-HD makes me use my smartphone more. I don’t know if its because I haven’t adapted to using it as easily as I have my iPad, or that its just faster to continue on this current workflow by using my N8 (and a recently acquired Lumia 900). I can see how someone who has a laptop and doesn’t want to remove that from their lifestyle will use a 7in tablet alongside a low or mid-range smartphone and be just fine in some of their computing pursuits. At least with the Kindle Fire/FireHD, I’m not sure that this is a perfect size to be a netbook/laptop replacement – even though the range of solid 7in tablets and their attending software points in that direction. I do think that its a near-perfect size though to replace a high-end smartphone and larger tablet. Which might make for some interesting decisions for many when it comes to costs of computing over time.

As with the iPad, I expect use and perspectives to mature over time with this new tablet. And to be honest, I’m not totally sold on it just yet either. Its nearly perfect, but as I’ve said in some other ramblings, my usage could be better done with a phablet (phone+tablet) like the Galaxy Note II, or a solution like the Asus Padfone 2. I’m a weird one though. My device choice here is honed for a question to be answered much later. For you, the 7in (or even 8.9in and 10in) tablets might fit your usage needs a bit better. Much like we’ve talked about building a Bible app from the perspective of a layman, not a pastor, there’s something to be said for a smaller screen that might fit the usage and mental models of a different type of person that just isn’t as widely heard. We’re listening for that here now, and whatsoever the results of adding this to the #mobmin utility belt might bring.

[Video] On the Scene w/Mark 5 Ministries

MMM (Mobile Ministry Magazine) was on the scene recently with a few members of the Mark 5 Ministries IT team. Mark 5 Ministries is a community of Christians dedicated to solving computing technology problems for missionaries. Learn more at their website

Just A Phone

sketch by Antoine RJ Wright, sketchnotes.antoinerjwright.com, via Dropbox
During my recent trip to Helsinki, one of my friends asked me if it really is possible that someone could do all of their necessary computing (re: live) from just their phone. They cited things like needing a larger screen for movies or games, and just the general discomfort of having much of what they interact with happening on a 3-5in screen.

Well, you kind of know my answer to this line of questioning. But, I wanted to open it up here as there was a conversation on another website which also brought this topic to light that reentered my view.

The perspective of computing where I am from (USA and middle class) is that there are more and better screened options to do various types of computing. There’s the automotive dashboard or cylcing computer for transportation. There’s the TV for home media viewing. There’s the mobile and tablet for personal media viewing, gaming, and creation. There are tablets made for collaboration. And other examples. Given all of those available screens, it is easily the assumed practice to master each of those interfaces within their specific domain because they are available to you. When you don’t have (or want) a TV, you morph the smaller screen of a mobile, understanding its limitations and using a few of its benefits (sitting in bed with your favorite programming on-demand-style).

However, I chose to go about computing differently, and hence the question from my friend. Clearly, they were impressed that I could do so much from a mobile and tablet. But, they had very little context of what it meant to go about computing when the mobile was the primary or only means of doing life-by-PC. One of our friends on the trip was from an area where the majority of people didn’t have access to much more than a mobile and perhaps a radio or community TV. They could see how my lifestyle choice lent me a perspective into how they lived a bit more than some other commentators on mobile. And that’s really where this article, and conversation topic comes from. They said simply, if I had the choice to live mobile-only, but there was more, most people would chose the more instead of the only. With many not able to make that choice, sometimes, we have to consider our brothers and do our best to see through their eyes – was my response to these.

And so I’ll put the question to you as it was put to me. Could you see a situation where you had a mobile or tablet as your primary computer? If so, what challenges would you run into personally, professionally, spiritually, etc.?

Mobile (Yes), Website (Probably)

A few days ago, we retweeted an link to an interesting article:

RT @SeattleMing: No Mobile Website? You’re Probably Turning Customers Away http://m.entrepreneur.com/blog/224238 #mobile #smb #business

The article basically relates the fact that for those doing commerce, sales, marketing, or any other kind of engagement activity that a mobile website is at the very least what you need. Now, this is a point that we’ve said before – even going as far to recommend that you might want to reconsider your efforts towards making a mobile application until you have finished that initial effort of making a mobile website. But, after reading this article, and considering exactly what contexts people find themselves in, I’m ready to make the statement that you (individual, organization, community) does need to be mobile, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they need a website.

[I hear the thinking happening now. First he goes on and on in the beginning of the year talking about not making a mobile app the center of your mobile strategy, and then there's this push for SMS and mobile website considerations. Now, he's saying that a mobile website probably isn't needed? Uh... I thought MMM was the one who had their minds wrapped on straight?]

The ideology behind Instagram is very intriguing, and very much factors into this. The other part of things again speaks to that aspect of being in a context where you might have a mobile device in hand, but you might not necessarily be mobile. With Instagram, you have a community of people, who essentially snap images, add filters (because their cameras don’t really take awesome pics to begin with is my opinion here), and then post them thru and app to people who follow them. Officially, there is no central website. All of the interaction for Instagram happens in the app, and if you aren’t in the app, you might see fleeting pieces of the experience when those photos in the app are also shared on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.).

Its mobile, but not exactly the base of a mobile website. Yes, there is data connectivity being used, but that’s happening through APIs that work with the camera hardware through a simplified application. The application is probably not even as necessary, as something like Instagram could just as easily supported email or MMS for receiving the photos and encouraged (smartphone owners) to use the default or a recommended 3rd party app to do things like filters and such. You’d not have the following aspect, but you would be utilizing the network of folks whom are already in your phone book. Yet think about it, none of this is happening in a way that is different from how your faith community is already connecting with one another.

Your mobile device has a camera, speaker, microphone, ability to record audio and video, compose messages in a memo or in a text/email app, receive/make voice calls, send/receive DMTF codes… whew. You get the drift. And if you are like me, your mobile probably does a bit more like has HDMI or composite video output, an FM radio receiver and transmitter, has a memory card slot, can attach to USB accessories like portable hard drives, memory keys, has the ability to receive files via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, or can send to a media center device the multimedia content on it (DLNA, AirPlay, etc.). There is a lot happening within that little device, and you have to constantly not just consider what it is that people think is the default of what they want to do, but also consider that there are many other screens pulling on their attention spans and that if you want to be noticed, then your approach has to be distinct.

Mobile is a lot more than downloading an app that asks you for some measure of personal information. Its more than being restricted to a web browser or a programming language. Mobile is about capturing at the right moment the context and communicating that to someone on the other end of the collection of cell towers between you and them. Discover that and you find the magic bean that is what mobile can grown/build/encourage for you. Don’t restrict your mobile efforts to an app, website, or SMS. Look at the device and go further. And then when you do, be prepared to be surprised by what people will do with the tech when you show them a little bit more than simply tapping a keypad or pinch-zooming on a screen.