Sometimes it takes me ages to get something to the point where I know what it is and where it’s going. My preparation for NYA2008 has been a bit like that.
The Church of Scotland’s Youth Assembly is in 3 weeks. It already seems to have consumed much more time than it really should have. I’m leading a team who are facilitating 3 two hour discussion sessions about Social Media. I think part of the problem is that the topic is too interesting for me. I’ve found myself off on all kinds of tangents but I think the main problem is I haven’t been able to see where it’s going. Not so much the presentations. I think the information about Social Media is is fine.
I know what I want to say, but we started with 4 topics which have kind of merged into 2. Now I’m not sure how to manage that! Oh well, more thought required. I think if we can nail the discussion points the rest will follow.
So, why is Social Media relevant to the church? Answers please…
John has blogged his thoughts HERE. Well worth a look as usual!
I’m still caught in the dilemma of whether it is relevant or not. I appreciate that social networking sites are ‘big’ and blogs are popular but I’m still not convinced they’re used in the way that that social engineering, web2.0 evangelist, blue-sky thinkers expect them to be. I have no data to back that up – it’s simply a gut feeling. I think ‘church’ can make use of technology but that it has to be a lot more imaginative that it is now. Powerpoint slides and downloadable services are not ‘using the technology’ – they’re ‘going through the motions’. Technology and media only becomes social when it is all-inclusive and more fully interactive. It’s still too ‘individual’ at the moment. Blogs are largely nothing more than cheap forms of vanity publishing (and that’s not a dig at you or anyone else). The focus is still too much on ‘me’. Church, on the other hand, should have ‘others’ as its focus. More to the point it is about bringing together ‘in community’. I don’t think the technology is quite there to achieve real community yet. At least, not to the degree needed for true community. Maybe I know some of the technology too well and see its limitations rather than its possibilities. Sorry, opinions, not answers, but I’d be interested to hear if you get any at YA.
I’m maybe a little more convinced John. I think the power of tags is going to provide some interesting applications and it will be interesting to see how open source develops now that anyone can be an iPhone app developer and symbian is going open source.
That said, I think your point about how social networking moves from being individualised to focusing more on others is well made but I’m not sure what you mean by ‘real community’. I’m sure some of the residents of Second Life would tell you they have a huge sense of community.
What has been interesting over the past couple of years is to watch the creative misuse of lots of apps. I think that’s where the interesting developments will maybe come.