In the Wall Street Journal, Andrew LaVallee takes a closer look at how churches are taking advantage of new technologies such as social networking sites to attract young new members. While Andrew focuses specifically on churches that are using sites like MySpace and Facebook, it’s easy to see how the same practices are transferrable to the business world as well. Looking to add a few new customers, especially those in the desirable 18-to-34 demographic? It might just be as easy as setting up a page on MySpace:

“Rev. Patrick Gray, a 35-year-old Episcopal priest at Boston’s Church of the Advent, was sold on MySpace by a congregant whose rock band had used the site to attract listeners. While most MySpace users create pages to promote themselves or a band, he posted a profile for his parish. It includes reminders for Sunday services, audio files of its choir and announcements for “Theology on Tap” gatherings at a local bar. “It’s a way for us to say, ‘Hey, come and see,’” said Father Gray, who created the MySpace profile in January. “It gets our name out there. It puts us on the mental map, the emotional map.”

Technology, quite simply, has become a way for the church to project a different sort of image. Back in the day, going to the church meant wearing a lot of uncomfortable clothes and listening to a lot of sermons. Today, though, churches are using blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites to change all that. If it’s Napoleon Dynamite and rock’n'roll that they want, then that’s exactly what they’ll get:

“In a bid to attract new members and shed their persistently Luddite image, churches across the country are embracing technology and Web sites like MySpace. Blogs and podcasts have become part of religious leaders’ communications with congregants, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr are increasingly used to depict a fun-loving, casually-dressed community of churchgoers. Churches with an evangelical bent often lead the way when it comes to harnessing technology, though some traditional congregations are also experimenting — even the Vatican has podcasts.”

Tags: MySpace innovation marketing

Tom Watson, one of the original leaders of the Web 1.0 movement in New York City back in the 1990s, reports on the excitement surrounding Web 2.0 in New York: “Investment follows innovation and acceptance (and sometimes, profits)… It’s happening again – what happened in New York in 1994 and 1995 and 1996 . Innovation (and I hope, not an overvaluation bubble).” Anyway, Tom provides extensive notes and commentary from a DIY Media Technology presentation hosted by the NYSIA, highlighting the types of companies and individuals who are giving birth to the “prosumer” movement in New York. According to Tom, “prosumerism” goes “way beyond blogs and RSS,” to include technologies such as GPS and voice recognition. Along the way, the line between media and technology continues to blur, giving rise to new opportunities for innovative companies:

In New York, especially over the past decade since the advent of the commercial Internet, we talk a lot about media technology without ever really defining it. The problem is, I think, one of separation. We approach the question with the notion that media and technology are separate things—separate disciplines, separate industries. But in fact, media — movies, television, video games, books, magazines, recorded music — can’t exist without technology. Media is nothing more than the commercial exploitation of the creative arts. And the process of turning a creative work into a commercial media product is entirely dependent on technology… A Grateful Dead concert isn’t necessarily media. But a CD recording of that concert IS.

Tags: innovation media technology NewYork

Is Google’s 20% rule broken?

At Google, employees are allowed to allocate 20% of their time to thinking about innovative new projects. That fact has often been cited as the “secret ingredient” in Google’s amazing ability to innovate faster and more effectively than just about any other company. Google News, for example, was one of the byproducts of this 20% rule that encourages innovative thinking. According to ValleyWag, though, things are getting a bit chaotic at Google HQ these days, with too many people pursuing too many projects. In fact, it looks like the 20% rule might be coming up for review at Google, if this insider tip is accurate:

Here’s some fuel for your fire: a couple weeks ago, at a regular engineering all-hands, Larry Page went on a half-hour rant that left the entire engineering team wondering if he’s gone nuts. He spent a long time lecturing everyone about how we’re not smart enough to pick the right projects to work on, and he singled out a couple of projects (in front of hundreds of engineers) to complain about because they weren’t using shared infrastructure components.

Then he announced that he doesn’t want people to use 20% time to work on new ideas — yep, Larry has suddenly decided that the only good way to use 20% time is to work on someone else’s project. So don’t expect to see any products like Google News coming out any time soon.

Anyway, it’s all hearsay from ValleyWag, so don’t go out and start selling your shares of Google anytime soon. However, the story about Google being disorganized has been picked up by VNU Net. Apparently, Google’s top brass is concerned that engineers are only spending 60% of their time improving Google search results at a time when competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo are quickly closing the gap in search quality.

Tags: Google innovation

[image: The Economist]