Will Mancini

Over the last few years I have enjoyed attending and speaking at conferences.  Yet staying on mission for me means having to miss some. Now with twitter, you can have an entirely new experience of attending a conference virtually. In fact I have found a new reality that twitter creates, enabling a preferred experience to watching a conference on DVD.  I call this new reality an Emotional Resonance Spectrum (ERS).

So why do I call it an ERS?  If thousands of people attend a conference, then hundreds will be tweeting. This stream creates an entirely new snapshot and experience of the conference. (I am not saying “more” or “better” but definitely new.) Imagine that every minute you receive from 5 to 30 short responses from people that include:

• Favorite quotes
• Bursts of emotion (good and bad)
• Questions
• Humor
• Web links to related content
• Links to typed summaries on blogs
• Side commentary from notable leaders
• Gateways to side conversations about content

Here are some huge benefits that emerge from watching a conference using a tweet stream. (It kinda reminds me of looking at “reality” through the vertical streams of random green digits in the movie The Matrix.)

#1 Absorb the conference while multi-tasking: It’s easy to keep a tweet stream up while working at the computer on something else. Or, you can check what’s happening on your phone at a stoplight while running an errand.

#2 Enlarge your perspective on the teaching: Every person or team that attends a conference has built-in biases. Watching the comments of hundreds provides radically different perspectives that enlarge my own.

#3 Feel the collective soul of the conference: I am a quote junkie, so certain phrases will always get to me.  BUT, I love watching what touches the heart of the collective soul of the conference.  Some quotes are repeated and retweeted scores of times, while others are a single burst. This learning enables a unique discernment as I serve the wider body of Christ through my consulting. For example, a quote that struck a chord with attendees of the Leadership Summit in 2009? Dave Gibbons said, ”Your failure is your platform to humanity.”

#4 Follow up on the content that most interests you: Last year as one conference ended, I looked for summaries of all of the talks via blogs referenced in the tweet stream.  I saw two that I followed up with- Tony Morgan’s and Dave Ferguson’s. Keep in mind there are two kinds of summaries, aggregators and specialists.  An aggregator (like Tony Morgan) are masters at building info hubs and they do it fast. A specialist, like Dave Ferguson (in this case a senior pastor), summarizes the conference from his point of view. Also,  I often purchase books on my kindle when attending the conference virtually.

#5 Build relationships and extend your influence: I traffic in the arena of clarity and vision.  Several people  at a recent conference tweeted references of me and my work.  For example a guy named Kevin tweeted, ”Jessica Jackley just nailed the clarity and uniqueness quotient for Kiva. @WillMancini would be proud. #tls09″  How cool is it that I get to have a conversation with Kevin, even though I am not at the conference. Another example is that Bill Donahue and I, a staff guy and Willow, were able to comment and critique publicly on one of the speakers quotes (again while I was multi-tasking).

When it’s all said and done, I am somewhat hooked on attending conferences via twitter. Sure, it may not replace being there, but this is a learning strategy I will engage for now.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

What kind of disciple is your church designed to produce?

At Vince Antonucci’s church plant in Las Vegas, called VERVE,  they not only have a clear and compelling answer to this question, but to all five of the irreducible questions of clarity that make of the Vision Frame. This is Church Unique at its best. As Vince builds community-focused church to reach lost people on the Vegas Strip, he constantly casts vision to the kind of people they are trying to become. It’s what I call a “mission measure” or “missional life-marks.” Verve’s stunning articulation this is that they are becoming:

• God Stalkers
  
• Grace Wholesalers
• and Guerilla Lovers

Check out the way Vince articulates others aspects of the Vision Frame with a similar three-fold simplicity (core vision, core practices and core process) Go to “about VERVE” and then “core.”

About a year ago, my son Jacob I and spent a day with Vince and his core team. His first book (I Became a Christian and All I Got was this Lousy T-shirt) greatly enriched my son’s evangelistic fervor.  That’s why I am so excited that Vince has launched a new book with some very cool FREE stuff for churches to integrate in their services. The title of the book, is of course from his life-marks- Guerilla Lovers.  Check out the great resource site. 

Leadership Network (LN) is an great organization, and they are doing more amazing stuff this year. Some of Dave Travis’s comments on their Learnings Blog have hinted to their 2nd big online conference, called Aha! Fresh Voices, New Ideas that will happen on March 3rd, 2010. Dave mentioned that the official announcement and details will be made early this week by Todd Rhodes. (Aha! Link is now up.)

What can you expect?  The same incredible format as their first online conference The NINES – a totally free online experience, with a mix of some great folks you already know as well as some new faces. Look for fewer total participants (40) and shorter clips at 6 minutes each. Contributers were asked to focus on a key learning and “aha!” moment in their life and ministry.  

Where did the name originate?  About ten months ago, I worked with LN’s team to distill down their six values. They named this conference after their second value. Here is the list:

1. What’s next? - We explore what could be.
2. Aha! - We create environments for collaborative discovery.          
3.  Positive deviants*  We work with the exceptional.           
4.  Generous relationships. We invest in the success of others.
5.  Results, results, results… We pursue BIG impact.
6.  JESUS  We strive to model Jesus in everything we do.

The mission of Leadership Network is to accelerate the impact of 100X leaders. See a fun little interview on LN- Ben Arment with Dave Travis.

This weekend, the leadership at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church is rolling out the Vision Frame to the congregation. The “flow” of the rollout, designed with senior pastor Greg Finke and executive pastor Vince Parks, is to move from awareness to understanding to action. Many times when vision is communicated, the opportunity to deepen understanding is missed. Understanding is a bridge between hearing and acting.

The root idea behind the term “to understand” does not use “under” in the typical sense of “underneath,” but in the sense of “standing between or among.” It is a term for proximity- to “be close to.”

Since 1640, the term “make out” has been used to convey the idea of making something more understandable; making it clear and meaningful.  In fact, the sexual use of the word was not used until 1939. This adaptation of the term provides an interesting facet and connotation for leaders helping their followers “get close to” vision.

The question is, are you making out the vision for your people, not just by talking at them, but by getting close and helping them really understand it?  Consider the definitions for the verb “to understand” and apply them to vision:

• Do people perceive the meaning of the vision?
• Are people thoroughly familiar with the vision?
• Do people grasp the significance of the vision?
• Do people regard the vision as firmly communicated?
• Do people accept the vision as true and from God?
• Have people assigned their own meaning by interpreting the vision for themselves?

Keep making out the vision and don’t forget to share your ideas with others via Open Source Vision Casting: Share your ideas on twitter using the #visiondrip hashtag.

As my appetite for reading blogs increases, so does my realization that many Christian bloggers are stuck. Why? Because of the notion that if you have something to say it might be construed as proud or arrogant.  This dilemma of false humility leaves the church blogosphere littered with overused terms like “random,” “musings,” “ordinary,” and “simple.” Are you, like me, getting tired of seeing another site with the headline “Another Ordinary Guy’s Random Musings?”

As someone geared toward helping others find clarity, I stand somewhere between frustration and sadness when I see blogs that are stuck.

Now some people will immediately object:

• What if people are not trying to be “famous?”
• What’s wrong with being humble?
• Maybe their blog is just for a few friends?

Okay, while these are appropriate concerns and may even justify the existence of “random musings,” I see a deeper problem at play.  The Christian blogger’s dilemma is that false humility creates missed opportunity. By hovering in a state of understatement, the rest of the world misses out what God has uniquely put in you. Is it possible that God wants to make a dramatic contribution through you? If so, then failure to discover and decorate the world with your unique voice, is a subtle way of dishonoring God.

What are some practical next steps if you want to make a contribution through blogging with more clarity and passion?

#1 Start by being honest about false humility. How are you tempted by this form of pride?  How does that get expressed in your blog?

#2 Reflect on your unique contribution. Consider the anatomy of uniqueness:

• What unique content can you provide?
• What unique voice or style do you bring to any content?
• What perspective or life experiences create unique value for your content?
• What are you passionate about? How does that drive or flavor your content?
• If you could talk to a 100,000 Christians for 5 minutes, what would you say to them?

#3 Find inspiration by noticing the unique focus of other blogs. Here are a few I like.

• Michael Hyatt is about personal productivity in leadership from a CEO and publishers perspective.
• Tim Stevens is about “leading smart;” a no-nonsense, culture savvy, exec. pastor.
• William Vanderbloemen is about creating connections, a Princeton-trained pastor who focuses on search and staffing in the faith-based arena.
• Anne Jackson is about pursuing health and compassion with a transparent style and heart for the church. (How many female believers talk about porn addiction?)
• Mac Lake is about leadership development with a strong practical bent and multi-site church perspective.

#4 Start researching what others have written  the subject. Here is a great post on Finding your Blog Focus by Lorelle that goes deeper and has more links on the subject.

#5 Boil down your contribution into a few words or short phrases. No formula – let your personality express itself in how you express it.

#6 Begin thinking and writing from the portal of your own unique contribution. Start asking questions like: Should I rename my blog? What is a good blog tagline? What do my topics say about my contribution? How can each post carry my unique signature, even in a small ways?  How can I write more passionately?

Make 2010 a year to push through random musings to deliver the essence of you. The world will be better when you do!