RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

This is a phenomenal video. Absolutely loved the content and the delivery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

The Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

Tremendous video to be used in the debate of the power of Social Media. Keep it in your back pocket.

The Power of "Time Shifted Events"

At Ignition Garage (www.ignitiongarage.com) we have the pleasure of working on new ideas every day. Some of them are incubated in our minds and some of them come from our clients, that we get the honor of helping to bring to the light of day (and market).

Time Shifted Events are a powerful model for the future. In the era of shrinking budgets across every spectrum of life (personal and work), there is the need to harness the increase of information ingestion while tailoring to the need of real-time connection for a fraction of what it takes to pull all the participants into one place, at one time. Enter the concept of time shifting events.

What fundamentally we are doing is calling out the content, be it real-time presentations, secondary announcements, or human-augmented media shouts and enabling audiences to participate with the subject matter experts (SMEs), ideally the author of the aforementioned content. The landscape of the marketplace has tectonically moved - where the business models that worked before are in tremendous jeopardy and industries are fighting for survival (publishing, music, network broadcast). The evolution of these industries is fast moving and there will be deaths along with new births (with new models) that create and convey the same or greater value, at a blistering pace.

Time shifted events respects the human in this blitz of value transfer. It will be to everyone's benefit that the SMEs are there, approachable, and interacting with them - even if the information is not presented for the first time. Indeed, it is a powerful augmenter to something as tried and true as a book - when the author is able to interact across mediums (print, web, media, slide show, story) again, again, and again. It is not about the teller of the story, it is about the hearer.

Ironically enough, while this is happening at lightening speed in social media, it is putting the content creators in a pickle. How do they promote themselves and keep up with the expectations of realtime communication? How many times can an author respond with direct messages (DMs) or replies (@replies) in Twitter, in a 1 to 1000 manner? When the content creator quickly gets to the chaos threshold, they will grab for anything to keep up the appearance and regain some sanity - which often results in outsourcing their authenticity. When the fans get word of this, beware the backlash. The expectations have created levers of power that are enormous billy clubs, wielded by potential mobs.

Time shifting events can act as the emotional shock absorber for the potential billy-club masses. The artist must manage their time, voice, and interaction with their adoring fans. They can do this by being live, while "on" camera, even if they are in their jammies via broadband web communication. It is still authentic, personal, and terribly satisfying.

The era of the enormous, mega-event for product promotion is over. The caveats to this are the avenues of successful entertainment (hearken to U2's 360 tour for financial numbers to prove this assertion). However, for an original content creator to build the audience that they need - time shifting their events can be one of the best tools in their promotional toolkit. And one day, they will be able to create their own spaceship and cart it around to venues around the world. Heck, maybe they will fly theirs.

Africa 2010 - Heathrow - The Journey Home

March 1, 2010

The mission trip was successful, and seeds were planted (physical and spiritual). We have done our roles, and the Lord shall do His. We had a side mission trip to Uganda, met several influential people, and were able to deliver the teaching on Stewardship to two distinct groups. The nation is one that is still recovering from its past and struggling to find its future. There is an abundance of natural resources but it appears that the nation is still experiencing tensions from within and without.

So now, en route to home. Miss it terribly and ready to transition to normal life again. The Lord has blessed our company and it is calling me to dive back into it with full energy. Significant events are opening up on the Mission Igniter side of the company - unanticipated and unmerited opportunity, quite a blessing. Mike has done a phenomenal job keeping the balls rolling forward and supporting us from the home base.

Kenya, may you prosper and grow in your strength and knowledge of the Lord. You are in my heart. Brett, out.

Africa 2010 - Never, ever drive in Africa at night

February 11th, 2010

Leaving from Siaya, we tarried far too long. We had a long drive ahead of us, probably 2 hours. The thing about Kenyan roads is that potholes can be the size of small cows, trucks win because they have mass, don’t care, and are driving to some obscure deadline (ironically), and there are no lines in the middle or the side of the road. Compounding that terror, pedestrians, goats, cattle, human-driven carts, donkey-driven carts, motorcycles, bicycles, and any contraption in between ALL SHARE THE ROAD. This happens day and night. And at night, since there are no streetlights, and the African people have an automatic night-time camouflage, the drive is utterly terrifying.

It was obvious that we were getting into hairy situations when the sun was setting and we were only halfway to home. We bobbed, we weaved, we slammed on the brakes numerous times, we jockeyed, we prayed and eventually we made it home. When we saw the shore of Lake Victoria after the last rise, we broke into song- Malcom and me perhaps moreso than Rose and Paul, for whom this kind of driving is normal. Egad.

Africa 2010 - See-Eye-Ah

February 11th, 2010

One of the bishops, George Barrack, gave us a key to Siaya to remember the region – See Eye Ah. This is a fertile place, an hour outside of Kisumu, where Paul grew up. When we arrived to a tiny, clean, steel-roofed church, the children began by singing to us in Swahili. We were treated with honor and it was obvious that we were the first white people that some of the children had ever seen.

Malcolm preached a 2 hour lesson, about Stewardship and Sacrifice. He felt moved, prior to speaking, to ask for the blessing of one of the obvious elders in the village. He was shakey from old age, but had a steely gaze and a warmth about him. Malcolm knelt before this man who laid hands on Malcolm’s head and prayed for him in Swahili. After a short, powerful benediction, Malcolm got up and hugged him and the man hugged him back – as brothers in Christ, from 2 sides of the world. Paul was sitting in the corner just smiling. He exclaimed “that’s my father!”. We all were astonished and deeply thankful, and truly had no idea that this man Malcolm felt led to ask, was related at all. The Lord was marvelous and lifted up during that teaching.
After the teaching, we were invited up to the village to a feast. It was authentic Kenyan meal, fried liver, maize, rice, cabbage, soups, and rolled flat bread. It was delicious and we were treated like kings. There was also enough food for 20 people. So when we were finished, some of the men of the village came and took the food to the other houses. I later learned that when Africans have visitors, they show them incredible hospitality and have a saying “When the visitors come, the whole village eats”. Perhaps that is why we had so much food put before us.
We left the village, after a happy send off, including my showing the kids how to juggle their “soccer ball”. The ball was built of dozens of grocery bags bundled up and kept together with rubber bands. They thought it was a hoot that this Mizungu (Swahili for “white dude”) was pretty good at soccer. Every time I muffed and kicked the ball away, some beautiful kid would scamper off and pick it up and throw it back to me. What a treat.

Our next stop was to Paul’s mother’s home, only a mile away from the church. She was sick and her feet were causing her much pain. Paul said it was arthritis. We arrived at a clearing and walked about a hundred yards along a hillside trail. We came upon mud and wattle homes, with thatched roofs. In one of the older ones, a sweet woman was sitting in the dark. No electricity, no plumbing, only a single room with a bed stacked in the corner. Her face was lined with worry and wrinkles from a hard life. She was authentically African. I shall never forget her face. Malcolm and I prayed over her and asked the Lord to reach down and heal her body. We chatted with her for a while, all the while worry lines crossing her brow and her mouth. We eventually left to head back to Kisumu.

Prologue: The Lord did not heal Paul’s mother. Indeed, the answer was different than anyone was expecting. This precious woman died two days later. It was a hard hitting fact for both of us that life is so indeed out of our control to manipulate, stretch, or breathe into. I actually snuck two pictures of Paul’s mother and one picture of her feet beside Paul’s. I don’t know exactly why I did this. I didn’t want to intrude on the sacred moment of prayer with my camera, but I felt that it was important. Those 2 pictures were the last pictures ever taken of this woman, who is now pain-free in the arms of Jesus. Of that, I am sure.

Africa 2010 - Kisumu

February 10, 2010

We flew out on the third day to the working town of Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria (interesting factoid – Lake Victoria is huge, 2nd largest freshwater lake in the world). After the typical small hop jet flight, we landed at a tiny little airport where our bags were taken out and carted to the chainlink fence we were standing by. The waiting area was a covered concrete porch structure. Bishop Paul, a dear friend to Malcolm, and soon to be mine as well, met us with his lovely wife Rose. They picked us up and took us to our hotel, Kiboko Bay (famous for its hippos – Kiboko in Swahili means “hippo”). It was a lovely stay and every day we were refreshed by the water off of Lake Victoria and the fantastic staff.

Bishop Paul oversees several churches and in the morning, he took us to his primary church near his house, in the slums of Kisumu (the Lelonga district), to the “Revival of Salvation Ministries” church. It is a fair sized building, with dirt floors, corrugated steel roof and walls. It seats about 100 or so Kenyan souls with a concrete pad for a stage. The first thing I felt was that these are my Kenyan brothers and sisters – and the Lord loves his church. It was to be my amazing experience that these desperately poor people (majority living below the poverty line of $2 US per day) were wealthy in spirit and grace. We were received with honor and dignity and treated like family. Several times, there was worship, in an authentic Kenyan/Swahili style that was rhythmic, chanting, and utterly praising of the Living God. I was so deeply moved to be in among them, bald head, pasty white kid from the Pacific Northwest, Washington. As I was to learn along this trip, perhaps the greatest natural resource that Kenya has is an indomitable devoted Christian Spirit. It is palpable, transformational, and life-giving.

We taught about Stewardship in Kisumu for 3 days, the first session being for 40+ pastors, who came in specially to hear what we had to say. These are men and women who are actively laying down their lives for their little, or big, flocks. It was an honor to be among them. The next two days we were in the church speaking to both the church folks plus pastors who came in from all around the Kisumu area (and were staying with people from the church). It was incredibly hot inside the steel-roofed church, I had to keep a fan on my laptop and the projector. But the electricity kept up, the preaching kept on, and we drank lots of water.
The main lesson for our African brothers and sisters about Stewardship is Faith, Sacrifice, Success. Many travelling preachers and westerners will come in and try to impress them, or admonish them, then leave. Our mission and calling was to teach that which the Lord had asked us to preach- that their relationship to the Lord, with regard to business, is personal, intentional, and sacrificial. And in fact, that the way out of poverty is not to allow themselves to get into the ever-widening trap of donations by outsiders, but rather by sacrificing of their own resources into their common good (local business, local church, local shared efforts) and to listen to His leading. We were there to help convey some of the very basics of business, but more than anything to encourage their spirits in the resources and value around them, that can be leveraged to feed their own families and communities. This is not something that has never been preached and Malcolm did a great job engaging the communities in the message. Indeed, the reception by the pastors, business people, and congregations was touching.

Lord – allow this seed to grow, that your people might increase in health, in spirit, in prosperity in learning to shrewdly apply your resources so that they might not only simply live, but might transform their very identities. From identities of poverty, to identities of God-Directed Stewards applying existing resources and energy to the benefit of your church and communities.