Tagged: ideas

March 17th, 2009

Blogaronis Don’t Disappoint, Lots of Ideas for Springfield Bloggers Association

At the end of yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I was going to the Blogaronis last night with my friend Teresa. Well, I went, and today I’m reporting back to you. In case you don’t know, the Blogaronis are local blogging awards given by the Springfield Bloggers Association, a loosely-organized group of bloggers in the Springfield area. I wasn’t nominated for A Fool of Myself (perhaps because I haven’t done much local blog networking), so I went to meet some new people and put some names to faces.

I had no idea what to expect. Honestly, I was a bit concerned that this “association” was just a group of geeks getting together to drink. Thankfully, I was wrong. The SBA is totally legitimate; essentially they’re a varied group of uber-blogging nerds like me. I’ve finally found my element.

Ten or so bloggers were there; I’d say about half were veteran SBAers and the other half were newbies, which put me at ease. We introduced ourselves, and Larry Litle of Simple Thoughts of a Complex Mind handed out the 14 category awards. After a photo, we split into separate conversations. I asked lots of questions. Found out that Larry’s wife is having a baby in a few weeks and that he needed someone to pick up the ball and schedule the next few meetings. So I became a ball picker-upper and volunteered to organize the next meeting. I am crazy.

Seriously, crazy. You know me. I’m an administrative, organizing freak of nature who is constantly thinking of ways to improve the things around her. I am an unstoppable monster. And as to be expected, I came away from Patton Alley Pub with a million and one ideas running through my head of how SBA can improve. I mentioned a few of them to Teresa. I told Chris about them. I woke up before my alarm this morning because I was thinking about them.

So if anyone from SBA reads the rest of this post, please understand that I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or ruin the status quo of the organization. I’m a newbie; I don’t know how things work. At the same time, I want to get involved, spread the blogging love, and help the organization grow. So here are the ideas I’ve been chewing on since last night:

Blog

I think it’s a little silly that a blogging association doesn’t have a blog, and if SBA had a blog, it would be easier for local bloggers to stay up to date with the organization. Currently, meeting news, the blogroll, and the blogaronis are scattered across several different blogs, which doesn’t make it easy to learn about the group. I would propose a WordPress blog with pages for essential information about SBA and posts with news and announcements and such.

WordPress has a powerful blogroll (Links) function that allows blog owners to categorize their links, and the site could also allow bloggers to submit their blogs for the blogroll. The blogroll could be organized according to location (i.e. Springfield, Nixa, Ozark, etc.), genre (i.e. sports, technology, news, etc.), or by any other specifications.

Meetings

I’m in charge of scheduling the next meeting, and I have no idea what that entails other than selecting a meeting place. I’m going to ask around, but I’d like to see some “programs” at those meetings. You know, 20 minute (or so) lessons on any number of blogging topics or words from some “celebrity” bloggers. Maybe they already do this. I really don’t know. While it is fun to get together and have a beer (or Diet Coke, in my case), I think some people might be more inclined to come to meetings if there is a clear purpose.

Community Service

Not sure how this would shape up, but bloggers have some power with their pens, er, keyboards, and I’d like to see them put those skills to good use. Off the top of my head, we could adopt a non-profit organization to plug on our blogs for a specific period of time, we could adopt some local businesses and get them on the blogging train, we could teach senior citizens how to set up their own blogs. The sky is the limit.

Flair

Lastly, SBA needs some flair. I’m talking SBA badges and Blogaroni “trophies” for our sidebars. We would need a designer, but I happen to live with one who might be up for the job.

And those are my ideas. I’m so glad to get them out of my head because they were driving me crazy! I think SBA has great potential to grow a blogging community in Springfield; I just want to see it succeed. I’m definitely going to exchange some emails with some of the veterans last night about how I should go about scheduling the next meeting. I’ll keep you posted on how all this pans out. Scary!

Author’s Note

It totally didn’t occur to me yesterday to share some link love with the people I met Monday night. If you’re in Springfield, definitely check out these blogs:

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Posted in bloggersguide.net | 4 Comments »

March 16th, 2009

Twitter for Churches Webinar Provides Fresh Ministry Ideas

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!

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Posted in church 2.0, tweeples guide | No Comments »

 

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