Innovation Quote #001

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

–Albert Einstein

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Can Business Help Wipe Out Homelessness?

Can business help wipe out homelessness?

On the surface, most of us would answer “yes”. At the risk of generalizing and over-simplifying, it seems pretty clear that business generally produces resources that homeless people lack.

You may be thinking something like “Businesses make money… Homeless people need money…”

But it’s hard to go much beyond that. We get stuck trying to think of ways to transfer those resources so that it would be both sustainable and universally worthwhile.

Internet Ministry Research

I have been working with the Christian Leadership Alliance and Monk Development to develop new research that looks at how ministry organizations plan and execute their web strategy. The goal of the research is to identify best practices, trends, and case studies in the hopes of providing clarity, guidance, and new opportunities for ministries online.

In addition to interviews with different Internet ministry thought leaders, we have developed two research initiatives that will provide a broad picture of the current state of Internet ministry.

• The ...

Church Social Media Strategy – Researching Your Audience

When churches begin thinking about how they can use social media and the internet to do ministry online, it can be hard to know where to turn for valuable advice.

There are plenty of resources that talk about the ins and out of social media, how to use tools like Twitter and Facebook. I honestly think that more people go hungry in this country than those who go without hearing about social media. But it’s hard to know if you can trust the advice you’re getting from so-called social media experts.

It Depends

I’ve noticed that there are two types of strategic thinkers out there:

There are strategic thinkers who hold on very tightly to a preferred approach.

When these strategists are asked their opinion on what a business or church should do, they launch in with the same answer again and again. They are the ones who flood the Internet with tweets and articles chocked full of words like “every”, “should”, and “must”. The act as if their universal truths are the secret to unlocking the potential of the universe. Occasionally they will attempt to justify their approach, drawing weak conclusions from even weaker evidence.

Kingdom Quote #001

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

–Albert Einstein

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Are You In Hell? I’ve Been There, Too. (Thoughts On Suffering)

In 1793 Andrew Fuller, Secretary of the first Baptist Missionary Society of England, commenting on the need for missions efforts in India said, “… it seems almost as deep as the center of the earth. Who will venture to explore it?”

To which William Carey replied, “I will go down, but you must hold the rope.”

I love that.

I love the idea of standing up and volunteering to go bring the Gospel to people who are suffering. The imagery of Isaiah 6...

Business as Mission Metrics – Measuring Effectiveness (part 2)

Business as Mission Metrics – Measuring the Effectiveness of BAM Efforts (part 2)

What the Business as Mission movement does not measure

If the Business as Mission movement does universally agree that a particular metric is not indicative of BAM success, it does is not mean that metric isn’t valid. Of all of the measures tested by the BAM survey...

How To Do Strategic Segmentation – Step 2: Understand Customer Motivations

We’ve covered how strategic segmentation can help you develop effective strategies for appealing to specific customer groups in a way that is both profitable and sustainable. At this point you’ve identified key audience characteristics that allow you to both classify subgroups of your audience and inform ways that you can relate to those groups with your products and services.

The next step in the strategic segmentation process is to understand the different motivations that lie behind their decisions and behaviors.

Understanding Customer Motivations

In Strategic Market Management...

Strategy Quote #002

Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

–Winston Churchill

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