Your Pregnancy | 16 Weeks: “Get ready for a growth spurt. In the next few weeks, your baby will double his weight and add inches to his length. Right now, he’s about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long (head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces. His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it has been, and his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head. His ears are close to their final position, too. The patterning of his scalp has begun, though his locks aren’t recognizable yet. He’s even started growing toenails. And there’s a lot happening inside as well. For example, his heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, and this amount will continue to increase as your baby continues to develop.”
Thinking Religion: Smuggling Religion | Thinking.FM: Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of the Watchmen, Rambo Jesus, Westboro Church, Southern Baptists and Obama, Palmyra, Indiana Jones, and the next reformation.
This Week’s Topics
Who watches the Watchmen?
Rambo meets Heart of Darkness meets Jesus
Hatin’ on Ivory Coast
Well, the Bible says…
Obama supposedly offends the Southern Baptist Convention
Palmyra, India, Israel, and the role of the antiquities black market in politics
RIP, average attendance | Faith and Leadership: “Church attendance was once a key indicator of a virtuous cycle. If the church could get a new person in the pew regularly, offerings would go up, involvement in small groups and missions would climb, and the church would be healthy. If attendance was declining then everything else would eventually decline. The growing lack of dependability on attendance is a sign that the virtuous cycles that have sustained congregations since the end of World War II are collapsing. In order to sustain congregations over the long haul, new cycles need to be developed. Once that begins to happen, new measures can be identified.”
Interesting article that ends with a decisive call to parish leaders to move ahead in attempting to understand the changing nature of church attendance rather than keeping the status quo or firmly placing heads in sand to avoid the uncomfortable conversations that arise as a result.
As Pew Research etc have pointed out, the religious landscape of the United States is decidedly different than it was just 10 years ago, but especially 20-30 years ago when many of the models church leaders use for analysis, budget predictions etc were being formulated.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Churches being smart, nimble, and open to hearing the voice of God in the silence, in the whirlwinds, and even in the spreadsheets can mean the difference between keeping a historic sanctuary lit and being able to provide missions monies or having to sell the building to the YMCA.
Good tips here on how to get your nonprofit’s board behind a “social fundraising” campaign. I’ve seen directors struggle with this same issue numerous times, and I offer up similar advice:
The Nonprofit Marketing Blog: “Of course, the idea behind social fundraising isn’t new, but combining the age-old structure of board support and your fundraising assets with technology that makes it much easier to ask for a gift can amplify your outreach, resulting in more donors and more donations for your mission.”
Daring Fireball: ‘The Big News Sites Still Rule’: “My take is that if you’re going to go indie, you need to stay lean and mean. You don’t have to stay as lean and mean as I have — I have no employees, and to date, no one else has ever written a word for Daring Fireball. In fact, a one-person show might be too lean to get off the ground today.”
What do you say, Merianna? Baby Harrelson’s first baby food from Amazon? Have to get kids started young in their consumption silos!
You May Soon Be Able to Buy Amazon-branded Milk, Cereal and Baby Food | TIME: “The online retailer is planning to expand its private label lineup into groceries like milk, cereal, and baby food, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The newspaper also reported that Amazon filed for trademark protection in early May for more than two dozen categories under its existing Elements brand including coffee, soup, pasta as well as household products like razor blades and cleaning products.”
I’ve gone back and forth on the Google privacy debate over the years, but I’m really excited about them spinning out their Photos product into a standalone “app” that now basically undercuts Apple, Flickr, Microsoft etc and makes me very tempted to kill my expensive iCloud subscription that I keep for hosting photos…
Google Photos’ Unlimited Free Storage Could Clobber Apple’s Expensive iCloud | TechCrunch: “Google is often criticized for not ‘getting’ humans. But Photos ties together some its most powerful technologies so it doesn’t have to. Storage, editing, organization, and search all happen automatically. There’s no need for manually moving files, correcting colors, tagging subjects, or rifling through reams of pictures.”
Both my personal and work accounts are on Google Apps as well. I’m pretty much of the opinion now that Google software + Apple hardware = best prosumer experience possible.
Apple Watch sapphire screen cracked: Accidental drops can break screen | BGR: “My friend was actually more worried than I was that something might have happened, but I reassured him that everything would be fine, as this Watch model has a sapphire display that’s shockingly difficult to crack. Then I picked it up from the ground to show him that the sapphire screen has survived the drop unharmed.
I was listening to a podcast on my iPhone via Overcast on the way home (my pregnant wife needed a milkshake at 9pm after all). I plugged in my headphones when I got home and was going to continue listening to the podcast on my phone as I usually do when I try to squeeze in a few minutes of work at night before bed on my main computer.
I’ve recently purchased a new Macbook Pro in the last week or so, and I’m still discovering things that I had heard of but hadn’t realized yet. Instead of going to my desktop to work on some logos with Illustrator, I decided to try out the Macbook since it runs Adobe apps just fine.
When I flipped it open (with my headphones on and still plugged in to the iPhone playing a podcast via Overcast), I was surprised to see this small item in the Dock:
I was surprised to see Overcast using Apple’s much touted but overlooked new “Handoff” component to its ecosystem (as part of a wider initiative known as Continuity).
While I try to avoid lock in to one physical or software system (I still use and love my large Windows desktop for heavy graphics work and I keep my Moto X plugged in and try to use it at least once a day but that’s dwindling), I keep finding myself pleased by things that Apple is getting right on the hardware front. Their software and approach to the “cloud” is still behind but with things like Continuity, it looks like they are getting better and better at that in the post-Jobs era.
Kudos to Marco Arment on Overcast. It’s a battery hungry app, but that’s because I use it so often on my iPhone. It’s a beautiful piece of software, and little surprises like being able to handoff podcasts between my phone or iPad to my Mac without skipping a beat is pretty magical. It’s the little things.
“Though imperialism is now held in disrepute, empire has been the default means of governance for most of recorded history, and the collapse of empires has always been messy business…Back then it was states at war; now it is sub-states. Imperialism bestowed order, however retrograde it may have been. The challenge now is less to establish democracy than to reestablish order. For without order, there is no freedom for anyone.”
Yes, western imperialism and colonialism helped cause this mess. Surely there’s a better way forward than re-establishing such hegemonic (and veneer thin) powers in the region.
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of whether Jesus was a terrorist, the beatification process, Muslim responses to climate change, how to fix Genesis, and why changing your Facebook profile picture makes you feel better.
Source: Thinking Religion Podcast: Religious Slacktivism
Our weekly podcast episode on Religion and culture is live. I think it turned out pretty well!
Clean, safe drinking water that flows freely out of our faucets is a feat of engineering that humans have been been perfecting for two millennia. It is a cornerstone of civilization. It is what our cities are built upon. And over the years the scientists and hydrologists and technicians who help get water to our houses have also become our environmental stewards, our infrastructural watchdogs, our urban visionaries. Drinking the water these people supply to our homes is the best possible way to protect future access to water worldwide. Companies that package water in a single-use bottle are not concerned with the future. They are not invested in the long-term effects of climate change on an endangered watershed, nor are they working to prepare a megacity for an inevitable natural disaster. What they are interested in is their bottom line: Marketing a “healthy” product to compensate for the fact that people are buying less of their other products that are known to case obesity and diabetes—and selling it for at prices that are 240 to 10,000 times higher than what you pay for tap water.
000 – General works, Computer science and Information
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Pure Science
600 – Technology
700 – Arts & recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History & geography
In some ways yes, in some ways no. Cataloging knowledge has been a human pursuit since the beginnings of writing in Sumeria. I wonder if we will keep turning that over to the algorithms or if whatever some kid in a basement is working on now that will eventually replace Google will return us to human curated cataloging of knowledge?
Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s 1993 Greatest Hits album was the first CD I ever bought with my own money (big day). I was in full blown “Grunge Sam” mode at the time listening to mostly Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice In Chains etc, but this Tom Petty CD was always on the player.
In 1994 when Wildflowers came out, I had to go buy it. I’m glad I did… just relistened to the album for the first time in a while and I could still sing almost every word. It’s funny how certain albums stick to your mind.
It’s great that we live in the world of Spotify and Pandora streaming almost any song we can think of, but it’s sad that we don’t buy whole albums and commit them to memory.
Or maybe I’m just getting old.
Oh well…
“Excuse me if I have some place in my mind where I go time to time.”
As I wait, I sympathize: So many things distract them — the gym, text messages, rush week — and often campus culture treats them as customers, not pupils. Student evaluations and ratemyprofessor.com paint us as service providers.
There’s plenty wrong with higher ed, no one’s doubting that, but don’t miss the target. Don’t distract from the real work that needs to be done by pedantically lecturing at the people actually doing it. Don’t begin with an idealized example and then scorn any deviations from it. Life is messier outside the campus fence; teach the students you have instead of pining for the ones you want. Use your privileged position and voice for what we really need in order for professors to matter: condemn the adjunctification of higher education. Hell, treat your own adjunct faculty with fairness and dignity
One of my favorite memories during my oh so short time at the “Kingdom of the Just” (copyright Prof. Ben Dunlap) otherwise known as Wofford College was the interactions I frequently had with amazing professors such as Prof. Mount, Prof. Cobb, Prof. Bullard, Prof. Bayard, Prof. Barrett, Prof. Revels both inside and especially outside of class.
Wofford made me the person I am. Those interactions shaped who I am. Professors matter. Much more than professors will ever know.
Thomas does a great job breaking down the current efforts by our intelligence community to use hyperlocal and big idea marketing to counteract the spread of ISIS related media.
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with discussions of the physicality of resurrections, how to read the Bible in a short period of time while in D.C., pledging allegiance to the Christian Flag, and what Muhammad has to do with the First Amendment.
Thomas and I do a podcast every Wednesday that I particularly enjoy. It goes back to our days in seminary together (2008 or so) and although we kept trying to make it a regular thing, it’s only become a standard weekly part of my life in earnest over the past few months.
I wouldn’t think of putting off the recording of an episode now. It’s my weekly chance to nerd out about religion, politics, history, and have a civilized conversation that is “deeper” and more reflective than my usual fare. We certainly don’t always agree (this episode is a good example of that), but we do always end up learning a bit from each other… well, I learn from Thomas mostly.
The other thing that I’m beginning to really appreciate are the show notes. We spend a good deal of time pulling those links together and then curating them down into something that can be reasonably thought of as a standard podcast length show. Every week, we come up with dozens of links, so the selection process before the show has also become a highlight of my week.
It’s become a good show. It’s only getting better. Hope you enjoy.
Comedian Stephen Colbert announced Thursday that he would fund every existing grant request South Carolina public school teachers have made on the education crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org.
With the mass hysteria around the Serial podcast at the end of 2014 and the continued excellence of other NPR shows such as This American Life or RadioLab, it’s no surprise that the press and media were eager to claim a “return of the podcast” early in 2015.
Podcasts are nothing new and have been delivering content to folks like me for over a decade since they were first implemented by Dave Winer and Adam Curry. Podcasts have, for better and for worse, always been seen as something of a geeky pursuit. They were never difficult to actually make or listen to, but it just felt as if the technology for mass adoption wasn’t there. We lovers and makers of podcasts sat by while the music industry was transformed first by Napster then iTunes and now streaming, and then the visual media industry was transformed by YouTube and Netflix. We watched promising companies like Ev Williams’ Odeo pivot from podcast transformer to Twitter parent company. We knew we had something good and our time would come.
However, it felt like 2015 was going to be the year of the podcast in terms of mass adoption. It makes sense… technology has finally caught up to the medium. Almost everyone has a mobile device of some sort, more often than they have computers in 2014 and beyond. Most of those mobile device owners are comfortable enough to find media and apps via Netflix or Spotify. There’s been a growing acceptance of the notion of “on demand” media consumption whether it’s House of Cards or the latest comic book on Comixology. Data rates have gotten faster and cheaper (somewhat) and people are more comfortable with downloading or streaming media rather than having it delivered passively by TV and radio. Serial was the siren song of podcasting’s new era. A time when podcasts stopped being just about tech and finally ventured into other mediums. We have Adam Corolla, after all. Surely, if you make “good stuff” and put it out there in your niche, people would find and start listening in 2014. Right?
Short answer: No.
It’s not anymore difficult to make a podcast than it is to make a blog post or even a Facebook post for those willing to trade their digital souls for even more comfort and supposed eyeballs. However, it is still difficult to find an audience for your podcast that makes you “feel” like it’s worth doing.
I have this conversation often with clients who are interested in podcasting as a form of marketing their church, product, startup idea, service etc. “Let’s do this,” I say, “but be aware that this is not going to make it onto any iTunes top charts and you’ll be lucky to have a dozen consistent listeners after a few months if you make it that long.”
That’s because it’s hard to show up week after week (if you’re doing a weekly show, which is what I’d recommend since that’s the accepted format at this point) for months at a time and record yourself talk either solo or with a group, do the post recording work of either editing but definitely uploading, posting it somewhere, and attempting getting the word out only to see that you have 11 listeners to a show four months in. Clients, like all of us, want fast results whether they say it or not. It’s human nature. It’s why we like using Facebook instead of a personal blog to post details of our lives or businesses… people “Like” us there and we get tangible feedback for our time or work or thoughts. “I am important because people listen to me!” is Facebook’s psychology 101.
Podcasting is different. There is little in the way of the gratification machine at work to tell you that you’re doing a good job, even months or perhaps years, into your show. Excellent podcasters like Dan Benjamin will tell you to show up and keep showing up. He’s right. But what about if you’re just starting out. “Is it really worth all that time, then?” my clients ask.
I should have a good answer to that question prepared given how much I hear it and that I’ve ran a podcast network called Thinking.FM since 2011. I came up with the idea in 2009 after I started podcasting in 2008. I did a 22 minute daily show for almost six months. When that show ended, it had a few thousand listeners. “I’m important because people listen to me!” I thought after doing the very hard work of not just talking about something I thought interesting for 22 minutes every day, but also the pre and post work that was required to do a daily show in 2008 (not to mention I was working from home with my newborn daughter who ended up being a frequent guest on the show inadvertently).
Podcasting is still figuring itself out and the mass majority of consumers are still figuring out the medium as well. Sure, there’s an Apple Podcasts app that comes pre-installed on all iPhones now but how many people ever tap on “Tips” or “Newstand” either?
My answer is yes, you should podcast. It is fun. It is hard. It is cost and time intensive. Eventually, it does pay off in ways not measured by Likes or retweets.
For example, my friend Thomas Whitley and I do a podcast called Thinking Religion. It’s an amazing show (I can say that because I’ve been listening to podcasts for a while and we talk about amazingly interesting things from two different perspectives). Our latest show (29th episode) was by far our best:
Prof. Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson attempt to bring some thoughtfulness to the topic of religion again this week with a discussion of presidential politics and religion, metaphysics in the public sphere, ISIS and the antiquities black market, and whether we can recover lost texts.
You can listen by clicking on this player. Go ahead.
After doing the show weekly for almost thirty weeks now, we’re lucky if we have a few hundred listeners. Most times, it’s much less than that.
“But Sam,” you say, “it’s a podcast by two history / religion dorks talking about God knows what for 90 minutes. Why would anybody listen to that?”
Good point if you’re looking to get huge CPM advertising deals from Ford or use your podcast to market your church or your service or your products to millions!
But that’s more than likely not realistic. Moreover, it’s not the best use of your time, money, and resources to go for that goal. Instead, think long term. Think about possible connections and implications of your recorded word and the effects they may have on someone interested in you, your group, your product, your church etc. Think about how you can make someone’s life better, give them hope, solve their problem, or make them dream.
It pays off. Trust me.
Millions of listens and huge advertising payoffs are not the intent of Thinking Religion or Thinking.FM in general. It’s also not the point of any of the podcasts I help my clients do and promote. Instead, quality means more than quantity. That’s the reason I personally despise Facebook as both a personal medium and as a marketing medium for churches and non-profits and startups… it reinforces the notion of immediacy when it comes to Likes and feedback response. It’s a Skinner box (that’s a podcast I did with my wife, Merianna) with no sense of permanence or longevity. In my practice of marketing, permanence and longevity mean everything.
Honestly, most of the sites that are going to be adversely affected by Google’s algorithm change to favor mobile-friendly sites don’t rank well already.
I see it everyday in my work with churches and non-profits whose sites date back to 2006 or 2007 and are mostly using static designs or a host that charges extra for mobile-friendliness. They don’t rank well in Google and want to know why.
So, do your due diligence and you’ll be fine…
THE timing is awkward, to say the least. On April 21st Google, the world’s biggest online-search engine, will start implementing another major overhaul of its mobile-search algorithm. This is likely to penalise many websites, which is why some have called the change “mobilegeddon”. This comes less than a week after the European Union accused the firm’s search engine of systematically giving favourable treatment to Google Shopping, its price-comparison service.
This could be the year. Seeing the team rush the field after a hard fought 11th inning win and hearing the fans singing “Go Cubs Go” is huge this early in the year!
“Last year and the year before, we lost a lot of games like that,” Castro said. “We played a lot of extra-inning games and lost. We play more than nine and we keep fighting and try to win.”
via Cubs walk off on Starlin’s single in 11th | cubs.com.
Your Pregnancy | 16 Weeks: “Get ready for a growth spurt. In the next few weeks, your baby will double his weight and add inches to his length. Right now, he’s about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long (head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces. His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it has been, and his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head. His ears are close to their final position, too. The patterning of his scalp has begun, though his locks aren’t recognizable yet. He’s even started growing toenails. And there’s a lot happening inside as well. For example, his heart is now pumping about 25 quarts of blood each day, and this amount will continue to increase as your baby continues to develop.”
