Guy Kawasaki wrote on OPEN Forum in October about FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report. Here’s a quote from his post:

As a small business owner, you need to understand how technology is changing the customer experience. The folks at Razorfish wrote a report called “FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report” to help people understand these change and to explore the coming trends.

According to Razorfish, “…today’s consumer is more technically adept, open for experimentation and—most importantly—active than ever before.” Its recommendations include:

1. “Act more like publishers, entertainment companies, or even party planners, than advertisers.”
2. “Create content that engages and ‘reaches’ consumers across channels, provide valuable services over mere advertising, and master an increasingly complicated and expansive content distribution model.”
3. “Rethink the way they create relationships (or conversations) with consumers before it’s too late.”

The report also examines the impact of widgets, RSS feeds, “advertising as a service,” Twitter, online video, iPhones, and new design standards. In short, this is something you should read to stay on top of Web technology and digital content.

I have just downloaded the report. Based on Guy’s quick summary it looks like it has much to say to the church and how we can reach those who don’t know Christ. I’m looking forward to reading it over the Thanksgiving break.

You can download the report by going to: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report

My family and I went out to eat tonight. We went to a restaurant where we had been several times. We have always enjoyed eating there. The food has always been good. The service has been good. the atmosphere is good. Everything about the restaurant was always been good. That’s why we have gone back.

Tonight one thing was different. The food was awful. We ordered pizza. Nothing fancy, just a sausage pizza. We waited for 30+ minutes for  the pizza. The waitress brought it out and it was…burnt. You could tell by the look on her face as she was cutting it that she was prepared for us to say something. She served it with a little bit of fear. Why? Because she knew something was wrong. She didn’t want to hear about it. She didn’t want to deal with the negative. Was it her fault the pizza was burnt? No. But, she still served the pizza.

It was her negligence in serving the pizza. She should have told the cook, “I’m not serving this to one of my customers.” But, she didn’t. She settled for complacency. She didn’t stand up for what was right. What would have been the best for the company. She was fearful for herself, not the customer or the company.

Her negligence cost not only her, but her company. She didn’t get a good tip. They won’t get my business anymore.

Why do I tell this story? I think this story is similar to what happens in the church way too often. People come with certain expectations. I want to be welcomed. I want to be challenged by the message. I want programs that will help me raise my children. I want my children to be in a safe and secure area. I want to know the people watching my children are not child molesters…and the list goes on.

When they come and their expectations are not met, the ones that they are the most concerned about, the root expectations, things change. They will put up with food taking longer to be prepared if the food is great. They will put up with mediocre service if the food is good. But, if the food is bad, why come back?

What we do in the church is VERY important! Having nice facilities, or wonder music, or background checks on workers, and challenging sermons are all crucial. What are the deal breakers? What are the things that we MUST provide or the people will walk and not come back?

I have some thoughts…beliefs. What are yours?

We are working through an exercise in our Communication Team. Each of us have taken the Strengths Finder 2.0 test. We are sharing our findings with one another and then plan to make changes to how we do things based on our strengths.

Below are my top five themes of talent, ranked in the order revealed by my responses to the Clifton StrengthsFinder.

As you may know, the Clifton StrengthsFinder measures the 34 themes of talent determined by The Gallup Organization as those that most consistently predict outstanding performance. The greater the presence of a theme of talent within a person, the more likely that person is to spontaneously exhibit those talents in day-to-day behaviors.

Focusing on natural talents helps people build them into strengths and enjoy personal, academic, and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.

Activator

“When can we start?” This is a recurring question in your life. You are impatient for action. You may concede that analysis has its uses or that debate and discussion can occasionally yield some valuable insights, but deep down you know that only action is real. Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all the lights have turned green. Besides, in your view, action and thinking are not opposites. In fact, guided by your Activator theme, you believe that action is the best device for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. How can you grow if you have nothing to react to? Well, you believe you can’t. You must put yourself out there. You must take the next step. It is the only way to keep your thinking fresh and informed. The bottom line is this: You know you will be judged not by what you say, not by what you think, but by what you get done. This does not frighten you. It pleases you.

Responsibility

Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly dependable. When assigning new responsibilities, people will look to you first because they know it will get done. When people come to you for help—and they soon will—you must be selective. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.

Maximizer

Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps—all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.

Communication

You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write. This is your Communication theme at work. Ideas are a dry beginning. Events are static. You feel a need to bring them to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid. And so you turn events into stories and practice telling them. You take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors. You believe that most people have a very short attention span. They are bombarded by information, but very little of it survives. You want your information—whether an idea, an event, a product’s features and benefits, a discovery, or a lesson—to survive. You want to divert their attention toward you and then capture it, lock it in. This is what drives your hunt for the perfect phrase. This is what draws you toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. This is why people like to listen to you. Your word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.

Woo

Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don’t. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet—lots of them.

How well do you think these themes describe me?

We’ve already made some changes to how we are doing things within our Communciations Team and we’ve only looked at two person’s strengths. I highly suggest any church staff or teams of a church to take this test.

To learn more about your strengths and to discover your Top 5, visit http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com.  To take the online test you have to purchase the book to receive a unique code.

We began MinistryCOM ‘08 on Friday morning with worship and prayer time. It was a great experience that I honestly have not had at a conference before. Then Scott Hodge, pastor of The Orchard, took the stage.

This guy is intense. I had the opportunity to hear him last year at Innovate’07. He delivered then…and he did it again. He has so much energy. He reminds me of an electric Chihuahua. No really.

Here are my notes from Scott’s keynote.

Communicating Through the Challenges of Change

• Scott is the Com.  Dir. @ the Orchard!
• Scott went & worked with his dad at his church.
• He went there to help transition.
• The biggest challenge was redefining their purpose, how they did church.  Why, how, & who the church exists…the culture of the church changed.

Lessons Learned Through Transitions:

• We don’t decide or dictate vision
• We can help translating and clarifying the vision so people can “get it”
• If they don’t get the vision – then it doesn’t matter, it won’t succeed.
• What can we do to help people get our vision?
  • We must find different methods to communicate our vision.
  • We must continually cast the vision.
  • We must cast the vision at different times.
  • All ministries must be casting the same vision.
• People getting vision = Alignment

3 Questions we need the answers to:

1. Who is God calling us to reach? Who has God uniquely and effectively equipped us to reach?
2. What is it going to take to reach them?
   What do we need to stop doing to reach them?  Programs, ministries, meetings, etc…
   It’s okay if we’re not for everyone.
   What do we need to start doing?
3. Are we willing to pay the price?

We must remember:

• Not everyone will like the new direction
• Costs:  People, money, resources, friendships
• The leader must be willing first
• Support staff must be willing to follow

We have the opportunity to create culture!  We need to carefully choose what we celebrate, and what is announced.

What a GREAT start to the day. Thanks Scott for your message. It rang true to me.

This past week I was able to participate in MinistryCOM ‘08. It’s always fun to hear great speakers and learn from some of the best in the church communication field. I’m going to post my notes from each of the main speakers. (I’m not a professional note taker, these were for me and I’m just sharing)

Mike Foster - Shamu and the Unfortunate Taming of the Wild

• Are we Shamus or Killer Whales?
• Shamu – safe, boring, scheduled life
• Killer whales – attack, live, die

1) We must be in the ocean not in the tank

• We should be out with the other fish
  Experience the wild
  It opens creativity.
  Helps you learn new ideas.
  Jn. 5
  Meet culture head on
• Pursue the passion God has given you
• How much of your schedule is in the tank or ocean?
• We many times spend our time talking & discussing the wrong things for way too long.

2) We must overcome our fears

• Killer whales are the top of the food chain
• They fear no one
• We must put away our fears and do what God is calling us to do.
• Fear brings dependency on God
• Our “guardian angels” are bored

3) Action is not only rewarded it is demanded

• We have to take the dog food to the dogs
• Getting pleasure out of design, process, ideas without executing is wrong
• An executed idea is what is valuable!
• Action is important
• Make sure the work you are doing is impacting people
• Action takes planning & execution spending time doing both not majoring on one
• Find YOUR process and USE it!

4) A killer whale feels pain

• It’s unavoidable
• If you live on the edge you will get cut
• The bleeding edge is bloody

Mike is the real deal. He challenged me to move out of the pool and into the ocean. Thanks Mike!  He did a GREAT job kicking off MinistryCOM ‘08.

I took this photo while in South Bend, IN. When I took it, thoughts of the church came to mind. How does this photo affect you?