A Fool of Myself

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated everyone on what’s going on Twitter-wise at LifePoint. Last week, I listened in on a “How Twitter and Social Media Can Revolutionize Your Church Communications” webinar given by Anthony Coppedge and sponsored by Worship Facilities Magazine. More or less, the webinar reviewed Coppedge’s The Reason Your Church Must Twitter ebook, but it gave me some more ideas for incorporating Twitter into the life of LifePoint.

Good Reminders

The webinar reminded me that Twitter does not replace what we’re doing at LifePointOzark.com or on Facebook. Twitter is simply an additional method we’re using to communicate with our people. The number one benefit of using Twitter to communicate is sending text messages to cell phones for free. Neither the website nor Facebook can do this, and we’ll be thankful we have this communication system in place when we one day need to send word to our people faster than email or phone call.

Fresh Ideas

As these type of things always do, the webinar got me thinking, and I came up with a few more ideas for Twitter at LifePoint. For starters, I’d like to implement a LifePoint-specific hashtag (i.e. #lpco), so when our people start using Twitter heavily and (hopefully) begin conversations with one another regarding LifePoint, we can all track one another with this hashtag.

I’m also going to commission Chris to redesign the announcement screen graphic for Sunday mornings; the new graphic will include (very brief) instructions for getting LifePoint updates to cell phones. Once we have all the key ministry leaders using Twitter to communicate with their people, I’ll add a list of all Twitter accounts to our bulletin, so people can subscribe to those accounts, too.

Things To Do

Here’s where things start to get hairy, well, they feel hairy to me. I have lots to do, and there’s specific order that I’d like for them to happen, but that sort of depends on my leaders.

1. Get key ministry leaders on Twitter. I already have our pastors on Twitter, and the next logical step is our main leaders. We have a keymin meeting on Sunday, and Twitter is on the agenda thanks to CB, the youth leader and the guy who leads the meeting. My biggest challenge is communicating that each separate group can a) use Twitter to communicate better but b) that’s going to look different for each ministry so c) it’ll only be as good as they make it. If they get on board, Sunday night and Monday morning are going to be filled with getting them set up.
2. Get our people on Twitter. As I said above, we’ll introduce church-wide announcements on Sunday mornings with a new screen graphic, and once the key ministries are up and running, I’ll add their ministries to the bulletin. Even so, I know how reluctant people can be to trying new things, so I’m thinking a Twitter 101 workshop. Something real “quick and dirty.” Maybe 45 minutes after services one Sunday. Encourage people to bring their phones or laptops. Quickly explain Twitter, define the essential jargon, describe how to use it at LPC, and get people set up on their own machines.
3. Repeat #1 and #2 until they stick. We all do this; we say we’re going to try something new and stick with it, but we inevitably fall off the wagon. I imagine I’ll have to stay on the leaders and our people to get them using Twitter consistently.

So that’s what I’m facing. I guess I’ll be spending some of my week working on handouts for the ministry leaders.

In other news, I’m uber excited for some upcoming networking opportunities. Tonight, I’m going to the Blogaronis, Springfield’s local blog awards. No, I wasn’t nominated, but my blogging pal Teresa and I want to meet some local bloggers. Then in April, there’s a Springfield tweetup for area tweeple. Very cool. And I’m also going to Oklahoma City in April to attend a Church 2.0 forum. Lots of networking, which scares me because you know how I don’t like small talk or meeting new people, but since I know I have blogging, Twitter, and church 2.0 in common with all these new people, I’m hoping that takes the edge off. W00t!

So, so, so much thinking. I am never bored with web development because there is always so much to research, study, do, and test. In the last week or so, I’ve been studying the traffic sources here at SarahJoAustin.com and over at LifePointOzark.com, and at both, we’re getting a growing amount of search engine traffic. That’s good, and I’m pretty sure I can attribute a lot of that growth to the use of the SEO All-in-One Pack, a WordPress plugin that allows me to add description and keyword meta tags to each post. Bueno.

But I’m concerned about a drop in the traffic from referring sites and direct traffic. It seems as though people are finding specific posts on SJA and LPO, but they’re not sticking around to check out the rest of the site. No bueno.

So I’ve made some adjustments to both sites and their RSS feeds, and I’m keeping tabs on the stats to see if anything changes. And in case it matters, I tend to develop SJA and LPO together because they use the same WordPress core and many of the same plugins, but their audiences are somewhat different. SJA has about 40 subscribers via RSS while LPO has about 130 via email. SJA has more followers on Twitter, but LPO has more fans on Facebook. The SJA readers tend to be a bit more on the bleeding edge of the Internet than LPO’s readers. There’s some overlap, but not much.

This was the state of SJA and LPO:

• SJA and LPO were both imported to Facebook notes (my profile and the LPC page, respectively).
• SJA and LPO were both fed to their respective Twitter accounts.
• Both SJA and LPO RSS feeds were full text.
• SJA’s Twitter account is fed to my Facebook status, so my tweets about SJA go to Facebook.

And this is what I changed:

• Both SJA and LPO RSS feeds are summarized. About three lines of text are sent to the RSS feed, which means that I lose all text formatting and the first few sentences must compel people to click through to the web sites. Bleh. I don’t think this will be an issue for SJA, but I’m curious about LPO since many of its readers subscribe through email and are used to getting full text in their emails. At the same time, as LPO increases its content, summarized posts will keep the email brief and scannable.
• Both SJA and LPO are still fed to their respective Twitter accounts. This allows readers an alternative method of subscribing to the RSS feed (by following these accounts). I added instructions to the LPO site for receiving updates via text message (via Twitter), so people can receive our feed via email, RSS, or text message/Twitter.
• SJA is no longer imported to Facebook notes. My friends were commenting on my notes/posts in Facebook rather than commenting on SJA, which meant they were getting my content on FB rather than on SJA. I’m also working to delete my 300+ imported notes from FB. My friends can still read my headlines/recent posts in my FB status and can follow a link to my blog.
• LPO still imports to Facebook notes. Now these are summarized notes, so LPC fans still have to go to the web site for complete info.
• Both SJA and LPO utilize the WordPress 2.3 Related Posts plugin. This plugin finds related posts for the current page, and adds them to the bottom of the post. My hope is that SJA and LPO will be a bit more “sticky” and keep readers around for longer spans of time.

It’s been about a week, so any “trends” in traffic are hard to decipher with so little data; however, there is some difference in the stats from Google Analytics:

• On SJA, direct traffic is up about 26% and referring site traffic is up about 22%.
• On LPO, direct traffic and referring site traffic are both up about 1%.
• For SJA, clicks from Facebook have increased about 31%, 23 clicks to 35 clicks.
• For LPO, clicks from Facebook have increased 257%, from 7 clicks to 25 clicks.
• Visits, unique visitors, and pageviews are up on both sites. On SJA, 30-47%, and on LPO, 2-5%.

My best guess for the increase in SJA traffic is the closure of BloggersGuide.net last week. Any traffic that was going there is being redirected to SJA. And for the increase in LPO Facebook clicks, we added a bunch of old pictures to our page and discontinued our Picasa web albums, and our people are getting tagged in those albums and those tags are appearing in news feeds across Facebook. There are too many variables to know whether my traffic plan is working, but I’m hoping these mini trends are a sign of what’s to come. As always, I’ll keep you posted.

The blogosphere and the twittersphere were abuzz about Skittles.com yesterday. Before you read the rest of the post, check it out (you’ll have to provide your birthday and agree to the terms and conditions) and report back to me. Interesting, huh? Essentially, Skittles is utilizing the power of social media–using what Skittle eaters were already saying–to generate Skittles.com content on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.

Everyone has had an opinion, and I know the hype will die down quickly, as all things do on the Internet, but I gotta say, I think Skittles got it right. Skittles figured out that people will come to their site to look up nutritional information or to contact the company, but those same people won’t stick around for much else. But they might already be talking on Twitter about the Skittles snack they’re eating. Or they might join other Skittle eaters in a group on Facebook. Or they might take a cool photo of Skittles to share on Flickr. Or they might make a Skittles-themed video for YouTube. I don’t eat a lot of Skittles, but I might be inclined to check out Skittles on these sites.

As a web developer who is quickly becoming a social media nut, I’m totally envious of all that content, all those users. Talk about a dream! I struggle with LifePoint Online (our entire online presence) and the lack of participation on our web site and on our Facebook page. We’re getting to know Twitter. We’re on YouTube, but not much is happening there because we haven’t really pushed it. And we’re not on Flickr (yet?). I’m not sure who’s fault it is, this lack of participation. On one hand, I’m probably a little too gung-ho on this whole social media craze, but am I wrong to see its possibilities at LifePoint? On the other hand, many of our people are just now getting on the social media train, and it’s not their fault we’re remedial social networkers. We’re in the Midwest, the Ozarks. Things move a little slow here.

So I guess I’m just dreaming today. Tasting the social media rainbow, so to speak. Imagining what might someday be for LifePoint Online.

Man, I’ve been reading a ton of crazy awesome stuff this week. My brain is going to explode. Well, actually, that’s what this blog is for, brain shrapnel. (That would make an awesome blog title. I should buy the domain name.)

Today’s reading isn’t really all that new, especially in Internet terms. February 12, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study on the use of Twitter by online adults. You probably heard all about it two weeks ago, but I’m reading it for the first time. (And BTW, a huge thanks to Pew for their incredible research project. I think half of my thesis sources were from them.)

First off, my one beef with this study: Pew’s definition of Twitter includes “use of status messages or mood and location messages on a social network site.” While I agree that all these tweets and status updates are virtually the same thing, calling them all Twitter is misleading. But now you know. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Not surprisingly, Twitter has been most embraced by young adults, 18-24 and 25-34. Perfect, that will be my argument for getting the twentysomethings at LPC to get on Twitter. But let’s think about it. Five years ago when Facebook launched, it was launched to the public, the older young adults were in college–Facebook’s target. And the younger group was in high school, Facebook’s second target. It’s also important to note that after age 35, the use of Twitter drops to 10%. That means I’ll have to work on getting many of the parents at LPC to use these services.

Another big “surprise,” Twitterers are more likely to use wireless devices when making updates. In fact 76% of them use the Internet wirelessly (17), and they’re more likely to use their cell phones to text and go online than the rest of the cell-phone using population. When we get bored, we whip out the laptop or iPhone and see what everyone else is up to online. If LPC’s people aren’t wireless in one form or another, the chances that they’re going to tweet are slim. Good to know.

I love this: “The use of Twitter is highly intertwined with the use of other social media; both blogging and social network use increase the likelihood that an individual also uses Twitter” (9). I could’ve told you that. Social media is like crack. You start blogging, then you start reading other people’s blogs, then you follow them on Twitter or friend them on Facebook, and before you know it you’ve made friends with people you don’t even know (Hi, lifestudent and Lorraine!)

Pew presents a “portrait of a Twitter user” (12) and gives some key demographic information on Twitterers. For one, their median age is 31 (13), right around the median age at LifePoint. They’re also more racially and ethnically diverse, but that’s because the youngest American young adults are more diverse than the rest of the population (14). Twitterers can mostly be found in urban areas (35%), which is probably due to better Internet, wireless, and cell phone services in those areas. Because let’s face it, if you are using dialup in your rural neck of the woods, the last thing you want to do is waste time and bandwidth telling other people what you are doing, which is waiting for pages to load. Ozark presents a challenge. In the last 15 years, it’s grown from very rural to nearly urban. Internet and cell phone services have kept up, but there are many people who still live in what we call “the sticks.” Not that they’re rednecks or anything, but once you get out of city limits, Internet service often goes down the drain. And so does their Twittering.

Twitterers like getting their news on their mobile devices, and they’re less likely to use traditional media (like physical newspapers) to get their news. If this isn’t an argument to communicate LifePoint news via Twitter, I don’t know what is. Pew wraps up their report with this:

Twitter users engage with new and own technology at the same rates as other Internet users, but the ways in which they use the technology–to communicate, gather, and share information–reveals their affinity for mobile, untethered, and social opportunities for interaction. … Twitter … enhances these opportunities (22).

So I guess the key is to get our people the information they want so they can “communicate, gather, and share” it. The question remains, Are we providing the information that they want? I’d like to think we are, but it’s tough to tell. Communication around here seems to be one way, and there aren’t very many two-way conversations regarding the information we provide. Good thing? Bad thing? I’m not sure.

If I could create a TV show based on my day, I would call it “Frazzle Rock.” I have been frazzled all day long, and it would be a good day to live underground and eat radishes. My day has been insane since my first step into the office today, and on top of that, I had a cup of coffee this morning, so I’m jittery on top of everything else.

First, a quick update on my meeting with the youth guy last night: CB was totally onboard with Twitter, and he started getting the youth to sign up last night. Introduced him to HootSuite and TweetDeck and got the youth account set up. I’m excited to see how he’ll be using it to stay in touch with the students and their parents. On to my Thursday…

My first joy of the morning was a note from my boss to return some books that we had purchased for the resource wall. We’re in the middle of a sermon series about the family, so the wall is covered with books about marriage, sex, parenting, kids, teens, etc. To his dismay last night, the boss noticed that the book titled “How to Talk to Your Kids About Sexuality” was endorsed by Ted Haggard. Eek! Granted, the book was published long before the incident, but as a church, we simply can’t recommend books with that kind of endorsement.

And women’s Bible study was this morning, which was fine and I love having the moms and their kids in the building, but when you’re already frazzled, more activity is not what you need. Once the building cleared out, I was able to tackle my set of Thursday tasks. Then I got a series of phone calls from miscellaneous people asking a variety of different things of me, and I hadn’t had lunch, so I was not only jittery but getting grouchy.

Ate lunch, took 30 minutes to just sit and breathe, and then I had a meeting with Linden to discuss our Twitter project. I really didn’t think we had too much to discuss, but I have quite a few notes. We discussed the audience and scope of our project and nailed down some goals for it. Not sure when or where we’ll release it to the public, but we think it will be a good resource for those who are brand new to Twitter and haven’t figured it out, whether for personal or business use. It was awesome to talk to Linden (gotta love Google voice chat), but we both agreed it will be tons better when we’re both on the same continent.

After wrapping up some loose ends in the office, I took some notes and brainstormed for a creative communications meeting tonight. Web development falls under creative comm along with photography, design, video, and production at LifePoint, and the leaders of all those areas are meeting tonight for coffee. I have seven minutes to hit the highlights of web development, and my three main points are

1. Twitter implementation
2. Sermon archiving
3. Redemption story writing

I’ll also be commenting on specific challenges I’m facing right now, which are training my volunteers to take some of my web development load and creating fresh content for the web site. And then we’re brainstorming for the next sermon series on Ruth; I have some ideas, but they’re in no way related to web development.

Now wouldn’t you all watch a TV show of me in my cave-office going about my day? Granted, I’d be a bit muppet-ish, but that’s part of the fun!

Thinking, thinking, thinking this morning. But first some randomness:

• We ordered pizza for Explore LifePoint on Sunday night, and the pizza guy left his pizza carrying bags here. I called Pizza Hut, but no one has come by to pick them up. My question: If you’re a pizza delivery guy, how do you forget your bags?
• My mom is now on Twitter (handle: RowdyJo). It’s awesome that my mom is playing with technology, but I’m still a bit stunned. Furthermore, I have no idea where her handle came from (her name is Vicky Jo). And while she’s not the first person in Clinton, Missouri, to be on Twitter, she is the third. And the first woman. The others are a guy who plays a lot of video games and probably doesn’t wear pants and a young minister that I don’t know. And you all know me, I’m a thinker, and as I was thinking and showering this morning, it occurred to me that the Henry County Sheriff’s Posse could utilize Twitter to communicate with one another via their cell phones. (My mom’s on the posse.)
• I’ve had Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” song in my head all morning, and my brain is singing, “If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.”

Now that you know all those random things, let’s get on to why I need to write today. I have a meeting tonight with LifePoint’s youth guy to discuss with him Twitter and its potential applications for the youth and their parents. CB and his wife both joined Twitter last week and are still playing with it. He’s already figured out that Twitter is a fast way to “instant message” with me. I’m thinking through how I should broach the subject with him. Here’s some talking points I’m tossing around:

Benefits

• Communicates nearly instantly
• Targets youth, their parents, and youth workers
• Allows one-to-many notifications
• Allows for conversation with and among youth/parents/workers
• Makes CB accessible

Uses

• Update and remind youth/parents/workers
• Call youth/parents to action
• Reinforce messages
• Promote events
• Share events as they happen with TwitPic
• Converse with youth/parents/workers

Applications

• Wish youth happy birthday
• Send prayer requests to youth group
• Remind youth/parents of your message’s main points/action steps on Thursdays
• Share camp and D-Now pics and activities with parents who are at home

I’ll use Disciple Now as a practical example. Last weekend would have been a perfect opportunity to tweet. First off, CB could’ve promoted D-Now to the youth and encouraged them to bring friends at the last minute (e.g. “D-Now starts tonight at 6 PM. It’s not too late to invite a friend or your entire lunch table!”). The youth turned in their cell phones for the weekend, so CB could’ve shared the weekend with their parents as it happened (e.g. “David Crowder puts on an amazing show. Even more amazing: Watching your youth worship. God’s already working!”). Even more, CB could’ve shared the main talking points of the weekend, so the parents could follow up with their youth and ask meaningful questions about the weekend. And let’s not forget all the pictures Chris could’ve shared as the weekend progressed.

I don’t think Twitter will be a tough sell. CB is pretty tech savvy, and he appreciates good communication. Even more helpful will be a follow-up to the key ministry discussion from Sunday night. All of us discussed the need to get whole families involved with the youth and the children and getting parents to take the lead in discipling their kids. Whereas the current stream of information starts with CB, goes to the youth, and might get to the parents (think straight line), Twitter will allow for a triangle of communication where CB can communicate with youth and parents simultaneously, parents can communicate with youth and CB, and youth can communicate with CB and parents. And lest we forget, the youth can talk to one another, and the parents can talk to one another, too.

If he takes the bait, we’ll need to move quickly. There’s a parent/student meeting on Sunday after church, and that meeting is the perfect opportunity for everyone to get signed up and tweeting. I’ll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!

I hyped up Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears’ new book Vintage Church last week when it arrived in the office, so I thought I’d pass along my thoughts on chapter eleven, “How Can a Church Utilize Technology?” I’m sure the rest of the book was awesome, but I’m on a technology kick right now, so I only read the one chapter before passing it on to the boss.

The chapter wasn’t exactly what I expected. Naturally, I was hoping for more Internet insights, but mostly the chapter was about technology in worship services and such. A lot of the chapter can still apply to me, though. First off, I loved this quote, “No matter what the medium, the message needs to be clear” (271). Can I get a “Woot!” for the five pillars of technical communication? (They are clarity, accuracy, brevity, organization, and ethical, for the record.) In case you haven’t figured it out, the message is always the gospel even when the message is an announcement about a roller skating party.

Driscoll and Breshears also advocated “stickiness,” allowing the content generated by the church (sermons, music, etc.) to be accessed for more than one Sunday, one geographical area at one time. The Internet enables the church to increase its influence when the church makes its resources–those sermons, songs, etc.–available online. By doing so, the Internet is the new “front door” to the church and lets people visit the church before gracing it with their physical presence. I’m not looking for a new church home, but if I were, the first place I’d go in my search is the Internet, and because I’m such an eSnob, if the church doesn’t have a decent website with a few essential functions (i.e. service times, maps, ministry descriptions, etc.), I’m not likely to visit that church in person.

I knew this, but it was good to read it: “The preached Word is the most important aspect of the church service. … It is also the most visible and distinguishing aspect of a church” (273). These sentences alone challenged me to rethink my priorities in web development at LPC. If the preached Word is the most visible and distinguishing part of the church, then more than likely, that’s the number one deciding factor in whether a visitor decides to stick around. We have sermon archives on the LPC web site, but I wonder if there’s more we can do…

Another fantastic quote:

No matter what you do, you will draw some people and repel others, so don’t be grieved when you lose people. Rather, decide whom you intend to draw and whom you are willing to repel (273-274).

Those are tough words. No one, not even a church, wants to be rejected; furthermore, I don’t think any church would want to admit that there are some people they want to repel. Icky. But at the same time, that’s why, based upon my understanding of the church, God initiated the local church in Acts. Every church has its own “church-ality,” and just like people are drawn to certain personalities, so are people to certain churches. Other churches aren’t better or worse. They’re just different.

That said, churches need to attract people, which requires name recognition in the community (275) and invitations via personal relationships and the Web (276). In Ozark, LifePoint has built a rapport with the community, but outside Ozark and into Springfield, we get mixed up with NorthPoint Church. We don’t have a PR department (or if we do, that’s me), so we don’t do any press releases and barely have any advertising, but the word-of-mouth approach seems to work well for us. Of course, we’ll probably do a big PR push when we move into the new building. Naturally, that’s going to get a lot of attention from the community. (So if anyone reading this is a PR person and goes to LPC, I need your help.)

Driscoll and Breshears also encouraged us to experiment before committing to any technology, whether it’s online or in the production booth. We’re also to visit other churches and businesses for ideas, hire consultants, and count the cost of new technology on our time, staff, and finances before committing. Most importantly, I thought, we’re to use technology as a tool. Lane always says, “We don’t use people to get ministry done. We use ministry to get people done.” I think the same goes for technology.

Technology is a tool for the church to connect with people and provide them with gospel content about Jesus. Now more than ever, churches that want to reach out effectively to lost people, particularly young people, don’t necessarily need to love technology but must learn to use it to connect with people they love. Any church that is willing to use technology well is demonstrating love by approaching lost people in a way they are accustomed to. this technological hospitality is the practical outpouring of Jesus’ love for our neighbor (281).

I love technological hospitality. It’s like LifePoint’s web presence needs to feel like my living room: comfy couches, lit candles, fresh cookies, NPR playing in the background, and snuggly cats to lower your blood pressure. (OK, maybe not my living room, but a figurative living room. Maybe Lori O’Dell’s.)

Lots and lots to think about. I love it.

A few notes before my day gets too crazy. The Barna Group is out this morning with a new report on how technology drives the generation gap. I will never be able to afford their actual studies, but the summary had some interesting facts and figures. In sum, they’ve figured out that the youngest of American generations–what they call the Mosaics–is integrating technology into their lives at a faster pace than the older generations. Big surprise there.

And naturally, the 18-24 class and the “Busters” (25-40, I think. The generation after the baby boomers) are integrating more mainstream technology into their lives faster than the Boomers and the “Elders” (the generation before the baby boomers). Everyone, it seems, is using the Internet for email, searching, etc. and across all generations, there seems to be an increase in the creation of personal home pages or blogs, watching TV shows and movies online, and download music. (It’s no wonder, Hulu.com is awesome.) All in all, everyone is becoming more dependent on the Internet.

As a web developer, it’s encouraging to see more and more people going online, and it’s encouraging to know that the generations ahead of me are integrating the Internet into their lives more and more. Of course, I could’ve told you that. My mom, aunt, and mother-in-law are on Facebook (Boomers) and so are my two sisters-in-law (Busters). And my mother-in-law watched 24 online a few weeks ago after Chris and I told her she could catch up on the episodes she missed (we are so proud). Now, if only there were a way to get those generations to stop sending me meaningless email forwards…

I digress. As for me, I’m an ’82 baby and fall into those transition years between generations. I could be a Buster or a Mosaic, but based upon my use of technology and the importance the Internet plays on my life (it’s sorta my career, so it’s sorta important), I’m gonna go with the Mosaics. My age/generation/enthusiasm presents a challenge in my web development at LifePoint because the Internet is like my fifth appendage, and for those who’ve never had a fifth appendage and have survived quite well without it, it can be difficult to explain the need for it. (That made sense in my head. Did you get the analogy?) The generations ahead of me–many of LPC’s people are Busters and we’re getting more Boomers–need a better reason than, “Because it’s awesome!” to convince them to get on the Internet train. But I’ve always loved a challenge, so we’ll see how this goes.

I am wiped out this afternoon. I nap sounds blissful, but I need to run errands straight after work. Well, I could postpone them to tomorrow. The chances that I’m going to need my dry cleaning before tomorrow morning is slim. But I also need to get milk. And I thought I might pick up a couple of Junior Frosty’s for Chris and me to snack on tonight while watching smutty television. And I’m thinking Papa Murphy’s pizza is a good idea, too. Ugh.

Not necessarily any progress on anything I mentioned yesterday. Well, I did work a few hours on my and Linden’s collaborative writing project. It’s shaping up nicely. It might make a decent eBook, but I’m not sure what the minimum length for an eBook should be. It’s six pages right now + any formatting and graphics we added to make it fancy. (Hmm…I have a husband who could do that for us…) It’s definitely too long for one blog post. That’s for sure. (And can I say how nice it is to work on a collaborative project without being concerned for my academic future?)

Sunday is coming, and LifePoint is starting a new Twitter account for worship experiences. Essentially, Chris (for now) is going to be live tweeting the 10:40 service with song titles and Lane’s main sermon points. We’re going to let him get one or two Sundays under his belt before we announce it officially, but we think it will augment the podcast nicely.

I have one more thing to do before heading home today, so I better get to it. Going to try and keep my Internet time “lite” tonight and enjoy the conclusion of the Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice “crossover event” without tweeting about it.

Yeah, I don’t know what it means either, but I figure if love is a battlefield, Twitter can be, too. Mostly admin stuff this morning, and I spent the afternoon following up with my two web development volunteers. That’s an adjustment. I’ve done the LPC web development essentially by myself for almost five years, and handing over tasks (and thus, control) are not easy for me, but delegating gives me more time to work on things like Twitter projects and other things I love. And I’m learning that when you lead volunteers, you still have to check on what they’re doing and give them feedback. And today, I had to write a set of instructions for one of my coordinator positions. It took most of the afternoon, but it was time well spent.

Linden and I started collaborating on a Twitter guide for our beginner friends. It’s long. And we’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s either going to be a huge blog post (or series) or it might morph into an eBook, which would be cool. Hopefully, I can put in some time working on it tomorrow afternoon.

And the hubby Chris has a blog. He’s been working on it all week. He’s so cute! It’s hosted on a subdomain of SarahJoAustin.com, so until we get him a real domain name, I won’t tell you how to find it (it’s not ready anyway). But I can’t wait for you to read it!

And something else happened that was awesome, but it’s not completely finished. Let’s just say that someone who is pretty important in the online world and I have been emailing about a project. Hopefully, I’ll have more tomorrow about that!