We define the four-step POST process for creating strategies–people, objectives, strategy, and technology–and reveal why starting with the technologies is a mistake.

That is the advice I wish I would have read 6 months ago as I was thinking about creating the college ministry network Collective Muse.

I came across it in the must read book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

In it they have developed the acronym POST which stands for the following:

P=People
O=Objectives
S=Strategy
T=Technology

When creating strategies for social media this is the process they recommend. Most of us think about the technology first, rather than thinking about the people who may use it. At least I do that. Hopefully not any more though.

But to create a community one was must think about the people first, and what objectives and strategies will help you accomplish your goal. Will your people create content, or do they prefer to respond? Do they respond, or do they just like to read? Lots of things to think about. I just thought about technology because I love college ministry and wanted to gather college leaders from around the country…not taking into consideration if it was/is the right tool for them, and whether or not there is something already available for them.

With that in mind I also realized through reading this book that fostering online community takes time, of which I don’t have tons of with two jobs, a family and lots of interests.

So I have decided to move Collective Muse to a Christian site that is built around gathering people around their passions…ROOV. What is ROOV? ROOV is:

Roov.com is an online community that connects like-minded individuals around shared experiences and passions within their church and cities.

You can now find Collective Muse on ROOV by going to ROOV and searching for Collective Muse, or clicking on this link when you are logged in.

I hope by moving Collective Muse to ROOV several things can be accomplished:

1. I don’t have to be responsible for maintaining a whole network (coding, providing content, fixing bugs, etc.)




2. The network doesn’t revolve around me, but is decentralized on an already existing site. I will still have to work part of this out though as I created Collective Muse on ROOV. But for now, I suggest people just add Collective Muse as a friend and we begin to gather around our passions related to college ministry.




3. You will find lots of people interested in college ministry who never would have joined Collective Muse, and you will find other things you are passionate about.




4. We are joining a new and exciting network (ROOV) which is devoted to gathering Christians around their passions, and moving them towards action. So it’s a good base to start with.




5. By being a part of ROOV, hopefully it will be more than a group that people simply join because they are interested, but that our interests and passions drive us towards actions, and opportunities to gather.

Last, I know that there are many groups that you can join, and that by doing so takes time that you sometimes don’t have. So I apologize for moving Collective Muse off a Ning, a site which you spent time joining, but I appreciate your interest, and I know that in the long run that making this move is much smarter than staying on a site that is not very active.

Sometimes we so much want to create something new, but often there are already tools and sites that exist. And so sometimes it’s better to join those that are already doing a great work. ROOV is doing a great work and has a lot of potential. So those of us who love college ministry I hope we can gather around Collective Muse on ROOV as well as others who are passionate about this topic.

And hopefully, the more I do this, the better I get at it, and the less mistakes I make.

For a great step by step primer on Twitter, check out Matt Singley’s post.

Check out Twitter in Plain English series below:

Those are some great resources on Twitter. And in fact, lots of people are writing about Twitter so it’s not hard to find online some effective ways to use it. So what I want to focus on in this post is just a few ways how you can effectively use Twitter in your ministry…or as I say above, how it can catalyze your ministry.

Three Reasons to Use Twitter in Your Ministry

1. Humanizes the Leaders (i.e. pastors, directors, volunteers, etc.) and places them in a more vulnerable position of leadership. Not everyone will agree with me here, but I’m one who subscribes to Henri Nouwen’s vision of the vulnerable leader: “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.” -In the Name of Jesus, 1989. Twitter in a way does this, because your students get insight into your everyday life, not just what you present to them in person one day a week. Of course, Twitter is only as vulnerable as you want to make it, so if you offer little up about yourself, then why should they check it out. I think it’s fascinating to get insight into certain figures, and I think it gives students a chance to see you are human. Do you post private stuff? No. Do you “bleed” all over your audience, sharing every little detail? No. You must be discerning in this. But I think it’s a great contact point between you and your students.
2. Allows Leaders to See What is Going On with the students in their ministry. As a leader in the ministry you can log on each morning and see what your students are up to. You may see something that you need to pray about. You may see something that concerns you and spurs a conversation. You may see something that makes you laugh. You may see that a student is just down the block and may take that opportunity to go meet up with them. It just may give you some connecting points and information about your students that you may not have had before. When point one and two are used effectively, there is a great reciprocity in ministry between the leaders and students.
3. As a Catalyst to bring people together, especially in a moment’s notice. This is a really important and useful point. Let me give you a few examples of how it has worked for me, and how I would have liked to use it.

• One day I was eating a burger with a student at The Counter down in Santa Monica. I sent out a Twitter, simply saying, “Eating with a student at The Counter in Santa Monica.” Within about 10-15 minutes, two other students, and one co-worker sent me text messages saying they were in the area and wanted to know if we could meet up. That story has been repeated a lot and is one way that it is really effective.
• Okay, so let’s play this out in some practical ways how you might use this as the leader in a ministry. I did not do this because by the time the idea came to me I was on my way out of my former ministry. If I was going into the 2008-2009 school year I would like to try this out with the college ministry. 1) Set-Up an account for your ministry. For example, I was the director of The Quest. So I would create an account/profile with the name The Quest. 2) I would ask the students in our ministry to “follow The Quest.” Not only “follow The Quest”, but make sure that anyone follwing The Quest received updates to their phone. 3) Give log-in access to the leaders in your ministry (choose 3-4 leaders to oversee this). 4) As the director, use your cell phone as the phone to enter Twitter messages via cell text. It doesn’t have to be you, but may be the easiest. 5) Anytime you want to get out important information to your students, or rally them at the last minute, use Twitter to send out a message to them. Now since they agree to receive your ministry’s messages to their phone, use it accordingly, as it can get annoying to receive phone texts from Twitter all day, and some students may not have unlimited text messages and your Twitters may end up costing them.
• So what does this look like: Some of the leaders are hanging out in Westwood, CA at UCLA. They decide, lets get as many students to come meet us for ice cream right now. So the leader sends out the Twitter, “In Westwood right now; meet us @ Diddy Riese in next 30 mins and will buy ice cream.” Within 30 minutes I guarantee you will have a large number of students show up.
• How else could you do something like this in ministry? You could call the students whose numbers you have, send out emails a day ahead of time. Try texting as many as you can as long as you have their cell. It’s just not easy and practical, but Twitter has changed that.

Try this experiment out, and let me know how it works. I would love to hear about it, and have you share your story.

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

By the time I got the nerve up to put us on MySpace, my students had already left it and were living online on Facebook. I still remember the Wednesday night in the Spring of 2006 when one of my student leaders got up to make an announcement at the end of the night. He announced how he had created our Quest Bel Air Global Facebook page, and I was thinking to myself, “What does that all mean?”, while I could hear the cheers from the audience as if saying, “Finally!”

Ever since then I have been a big fan and it has revolutionized communication in our ministry. And yet, there is more we could be doing with it, I just haven’t had the time and figured out the best ways yet.

So I have some thoughts, but I would also like to hear from you, and see if we can find out some even more effective ways.

Facebook for Pastors
To date, this is one of the more definitive, and simple resources to use if you are in ministry and what to really utilize Facebook. Check out the Facebook for Pastors profile, and then download for free the e-book, Facebook for Pastors. It is a quick and worthwhile read, and you can put the ideas into immediate practice.

5 Movements Towards Online Social Networking
Last year I spoke at GodBlogCon 2007 in Las Vegas on the topic of Ministry to the MySpace-Facebook Generation. The ideas behind that talk will be published in the upcoming book, The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ, where I have a chapter called Navigating the Evolving World of Youth Ministry in the Facebook-MySpace Generation. I can’t go into much detail here in this post, but I explore five aspects of social networking and why we should be utilizing tools like Facebook and MySpace. Below are just a few ideas that I ponder, with a question for each.

Online Journey

What is your online journey? How has it shaped your views of online social networks?

Identity Forming

When a student is in these communities for hours a day, how do we help shape and transform their identity, whether it is online, or in the personal time we get with them?

Leading Within

How does you or your church’s leadership style contradict/correlate with youth in a MySpace-Facebook world?

Intermingling Lives

Does the exposure of student’s lives intimidate, discourage or inspire you to want to engage with them online? Why or why not?

Transforming Communication

What can you do in your student’s social network to help transform their environment and communication? How can you communicate Christ to your students online?

Some Thoughts on Using Facebook Effectively in Your Ministry

1. If You Aren’t On, You Are Missing Out: If you are involved in ministry, especially with anyone 35 and under, then you need to have your ministry on Facebook…otherwise you are missing out. This is where this demographic lives online. It’s one of the best places to interact and communicate with them. If you bury your head in the sand and keep with more traditional means, then I just think you are missing out on a huge opportunity.




2. Provide Information for Your MInistry, But Not Too Much: Facebook is a great place to put information about your ministry. For example, your vision/mission statement; calendar; speaking schedule; prayer requests, etc, etc. It’s a one stop place to get all the information they need. But don’t put too much down. I have found, and am curious if you have as well, that you need to keep the information to a minimum. This is especially true with a calendar listing. Anything more than a month out is too far out and overload, unless you it’s a big retreat down the road. This is so true of college students. It’s hard to get them thinking more than a month out anyways, so keep the information focused.




3. Communicate Regularly to Your Students, But Not Too Regularly: I send out a message to all of my students about once a week. Our worship service is on Wednesday night, so on Monday or Tuesday I usually send out a group email giving information for the upcoming week. This is a great tool, but don’t abuse it. There was a time when I would send 3-4 messages out a week until a student pointed out to me that people were dropping out of our group online and it was due to too many emails. So communicate, but do it sporadically and when necessary. Don’t abuse this privilege. You need to realize that each of your students probably has joined over 100 groups, and if they even get an email from 10 of those groups a week, that’s a lot. Your ministry isn’t the only group trying to communicate to them.




4. Don’t Be The Only Administrator on the Site: If you want Facebook to be used effectively, then control can’t be in the hands of one person, or even a couple of people. The more students you can give administrative rights over to, the more dynamic your site will become. The more people you have as well, the more guidelines should be present. You want to get everyone on the same page, so 10 of you aren’t sending out 10 different messages to the group, but one message.




5. Give Your Students Titles: This goes with administrator rights, but I also try and give my student leaders their appropriate titles online as well (in the right column). This way, when a student joins our group, or has a question (“I want to get involved in outreach, who should I talk to?”) then they can see on the right column who is in charge of outreach and can contact that person. This keeps the bottleneck of information from running primarily through the pastor or director.




6. Be Creative With What Facebook Group Pages Can’t Do: Facebook is still working on a lot of things that will benefit all of us. But for now, group pages are somewhat limited. I can’t download third-party applications to the group page (ex. calendar), so be creative and provide your own in the text section . A lot of groups are also moving over to Fan pages as well since they can tend to be more dynamic.




7. Interact With Your Students: I have found that forum discussions aren’t thriving that well on Facebook, depending on the group. But use other means to communicate. When you see a new photo, or birthday, or change in status, etc. on the news feed, message that student or write something on their wall so that they know you are thinking about them. It’s an opportunity for you to be meeting with them online, on their turf.




8. Be Cautious What You Post: If you are the pastor or leader in the group, keep that in mind. As the leader of the group students are looking to you to set a good example, and I think it’s your responsibility as the leader to model good leadership. So you need to think about what you want students to see. I’m careful about sharing too much family information. It’s one thing to share a story about my family in person, but to post it for everyone to see…I’m cautious. As the leader, you are more than likely over 21 and able to drink alcohol. But maybe it’s not wise to post those photos of you drinking some beers with some buddies over the weekend. This may also depend upon what age group you work with. I know some who work with high school kids and absolutely don’t do this. And others who work with adults and do do this. This is just a few issues, but I know you can think of many. What your student’s post can provide good opportunities for discussion, but you as the leader can help provide a healthy environment online in your group.




9. Upload a Variety of Content: To keep your group’s page from becoming static, make sure that you upload a variety of content. Besides providing basic information, you can upload interesting articles, videos, post photos from events, etc. This will keep students coming back to the page because they know the content is always changing and that it is valuable.




10. Update Your Status Regularly: Most people already do this, and some of you have TwitterSync like I do, so the status is always changing. But I think this is a good way for students to get a little insight into who you are as a person, what you are up to, etc. Shows that you are human.

Obviously there is more that I could write on, but these are just a few ideas…and not very technical ones at that. And I mainly addressed group pages since we are talking about ministry. But remember to apply a lot of these to your individual profile page as well. So make sure you check out some of the resources I mentioned above. Bottomline: Just be creative, and empower your students to be a part of shaping the online experience in your Facebook group, etc.

What ideas do you have? What has been helpful for you?


Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

All it took was some encouragement from others, and a few links from other bloggers, and then the blogging bug just seemed to take over.

Lots of people have various reasons for why those in ministry should blog. Mark Roberts has 18 Thesis’ for why pastors should blog. You can view his Powerpoint Presentation, Pastors as Blogger, at GodblogCon 2007.

Mark is just one good resource.

There are a lot of reasons why I think those involved in college ministry should blog, so let me give you just 11 (yeah 11) that come to mind and that I have found helpful reasons for blogging:

1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: A blog is simply in many ways about communication. When you blog, you communicate to others on a variety of topics.
   
2. Reiterate the Mission: When you blog, you can continually communicate, and therefore, one of the important pieces of communication is to continually reiterate and blog about the mission of the ministry. It’s a good way to remind students and keep everyone accountable, focused, and on task.
   
3. Encouragement: A blog is a great way to encourage those in your ministry, whether it be other staff, leaders or the congregants. Devotionals, posts of encouragement, thank yous, and recognizing others are just some forms.
4. Sermon Interaction: Sermons are typically one way communicative patterns (pastor to congregation), and rarely ever interactive. Posting blogs related to your sermon (i.e. notes, reflections, resources, etc.), allows for more interaction among those in your ministry. This interaction can come in the form of Q & A, debate, dialogue, correction, arguments, encouragement, etc. In the end it provides great accountability and interaction between the speaker and listeners.
5. Engagement with the Culture: When you blog you are automatically thrust into an online world that you possibly never knew existed. You will be exposed to many different ideas, theologies, ministries, pastors, etc., often leaving you wanting to engage with others and their ideas. This engagement helps sharpen your own thinking, and keeps you from being isolated in your own little bubble each week as you prepare your sermon, mentor students and perform administrative tasks.
6. Improve Writing Skills: I can’t think of a better exercise in writing than blogging. A pastor is usually responsible for a sermon 3-4 times a month, and this is often a long, drawn out process. Blogging will improve your writing efficiency, which will help the process of writing a sermon. Some pastors have the luxury of 30-40 hours a week to write a sermon, while others may have only 5-10 hours. Blogging will help both, especially those who have less time and are responsible for other ministerial tasks besides preaching.
7. Network with Others: Blogging will help you engage with multiple networks that exist on the internet. A pastor can network with those in the surrounding community; those in the same denomination across the country; those with the same theological/ministry leanings, etc. These networks help a pastor expand your vision and will help you create friendships in ministry.
8. Interactivity with Students: Blogging is a great way for pastors and students to interact with each other. A pastor may have limited time in person, but that time is greatly expanded when it can be carried online. A blogging presence allows easy access between the pastor and students, and creates an open and vulnerable platform in the ministry for that interaction to take place.
9. Reach Outside Your Ministry’s Walls: When you blog you are instantly reaching beyond the borders of your ministry and engaging those outside. This keeps a ministry healthy, vibrant, and protects it from being isolated and self-absorbed.
10. Have Fun: A blog should ultimately be fun. If you don’t enjoy blogging, then it will never last. You may be able to blog for a few weeks, maybe even several months, but it won’t last in the long haul. So keep your blogging fun. Engage students on fun and interesting topics such as movies, music, dating, theology, travel, etc.
    
11. Provides Opportunities: A blog may ultimately open up other doors for you and provide new and exciting opportunities. You may be asked to speak at a workshop, write an article, or present a topic to your staff. It’s a great endeavor for creating new opportunities in a ministry, and keep you from getting stale or bored.

What do you think? Did I miss some reasons? What would you add or take away?

Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

There are a lot of topics that I could cover, and maybe 9 posts is too much, so I will try and keep them shorter than my last post.

Last week I posted Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed. Bottom line: You need to have a design and plan that is simple (easy to navigate/aesthetically clean from a design point of view. You also should keep the costs low which is easy to do with all the free and inexpensive tools out there. And speed should be taken into consideration, mainly from the perspective of how fast can you integrate new technology to meet the needs and wants of your ministry. Way too many ministries plunge lots of cost and time into a site, that they no longer can adapt to changes, but are stuck with it for years to come.

Today I want to post about The Purpose of Your Website.

What is the purpose of your website?

This is an important question to begin with. What do you want it to do? What do you want people to come to the site and see and use? What should they walk away with? Sometimes ministries just build websites because they feel like they should have one, but never stop to consider its purpose.

Is it for college students to retrieve information? Is it for them to sign up for Bible studies? Is it for them to be able to visit forums and dialogue?

With these questions in mind we also need to keep in mind that with all the tools out there (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.) a website shouldn’t have to do everything, unless it can do it better than those services (which I doubt it can do).

So here are a few pointers that I have found helpful:

1. Build a website that acts as a central hub for your online ministry tools. It should be the entry point to your ministry, but the gateway to all the tools that your ministry uses. Example: Joe, a freshmen at UCLA should come to your website when he is looking for a ministry. But at that website, he should find links, icons, etc., that will lead him to the tools of the ministry. Like your group’s Facebook page; your group’s Flickr stream; your group’s Twitter feed, etc. Let me give you a couple of examples of this: If you visit the website of blogger I Am Josh Brown you will come across a simple page that has all the icons of his online life. People can then access his YouTube, Facebook, etc. Or you can go The Gathering college ministry website, and by looking at the icons, easily identify where you want to navigate to based on what college you attend.
2. By creating a website that acts only as a central hub it does two things. One, as the college pastor you have made available to the students the tools and information that they need. You are in some sense in control of how the online ministry operates. Second, by keeping the website the central hub, and providing students with these tools, you allow them to be collaboraters in the ministry, and you free them up to control the flow of information and content within the ministry. Something a pastor can’t and shouldn’t do single handedly.
3. But building a website that acts only as a hub, you have just cut cost and clutter dramatically. One, your website can now become just one to two pages which costs nothing, and there is no navigational clutter to wade through.
4. When you build a website that acts as a central hub, what should be on that page. One, I think you need to have links/icons to the online tools. Second, there should be a basic information page about who you are, where and when you meet, and maybe a basic contact email. But do you need a small group sign up? Probably not…Facebook can do that for you. Do you need to posts photos? Why, when Flickr is great at photomanagement. Do you need to have a forum page? Good luck with that.

These are just some basic thoughts. But bottom line: Keep it simple, reduce work and cost. Creat a hub for your students that allow them to access the tools, and let them create and control the information. In the process you will have a much more collaborative and participatory online ministry, then if everything came out of a website that was in the hands of a few people.

Any thoughts on this issue? What have you chose to do for your ministry, or college ministry’s website?

Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Why You Should Be Blogging
• Part 4–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 5–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 6–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 7–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 8–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 9–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the “manifesto” Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don’t.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

• student participation
• the fast changing culture of college/university life
• finicky tastes/styles
• revolving body of students and leaders
• budget
• access/control
• etc. (these are just a few)

So because of these issues and many others, ministries need to keep in mind several things before they decide to develop and build a website, or some other form of online presence. They need to be asking the question of whether or not the investment in the product (i.e. time, finances, people power, etc.) is worth the end product? Primarily because the end product of what students want will often change very quickly, and most likely from year to year. What’s necessary, practical and cool to students in the Fall, may be out of date by Spring.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Now that verse wasn’t written about online media, but I think there are some important principles to take away, mainly:

1. What do you want to build?
2. Have you sat down to think about what it will cost? (time, money, resources, etc.)
3. Why are you building it?
4. With what you have, can you effectively accomplish what you are wanting to set out to do?

Key Ingredients

Simplicity: What you set out to design should be simple. We live in a culture that says more is better, and so you find products with tons of bells and whistles that not only will no one ever use, but they don’t even know how to use it. Students don’t need an owners manual to access your online ministry and use it effectively. Keep things simple. Think of the i-Pod/i-Tunes, Facebook, Tivo, etc. Because of their simplicity they have won over the market in many ways. The best web sites are simple. When you go to that page you know how and where to navigate. Simplicity can be from an aesthetic design viewpoint, to keeping things simple with less tools, buttons, forms, coding, etc. One of my favorite church websites is Mars Hill in Michigan. Simple, clean, easy to navigate.

Flexibility: Your website or online tool must be flexible. I cannot stress this enough. You need to build something that has a strong ability to adapt and be flexible to changing trends in technology. What is cool with a website one year, can be totally out of date the next. Or, why spend tons of money on a site, that once it loses its effectiveness and everyone moves over to social networking, it no longer has the ability to adapt and meet the needs of those in the community. For example, our college ministry spent a lot of money on some websites early on in my time here, and I created things on the site that I though students would love. But when students migrated to MySpace and Facebook, our website wasn’t flexible and adaptable enough to meet the demanding needs of the group. We didn’t even have the capability to integrate these new tools on our site because we weren’t thinking ahead. Also, when it comes to this issue, are you building a site or presence that allows others to use it effectively? Does your coding or template allow you to change the data, or does it require bringing in a designer everytime you want to tweak it….slowing everything down, limiting the access to most of the group, and driving up costs.

Cost: The best thing about the new media and web 2.0 is that you can find hundreds of online tools and platforms with little to no cost. So should you spend $3,000 on a website, when you can get the same functionality or better with an online free platform? A question then arises about good stewardship. I’m a big fan of good design and coding, so I think they are worth paying for to a degree. But at the end of the day a ministry needs to ask themselves questions regarding what they need, and is it wise to spend money on it. In my 7 years at Bel Air I have seen the evolution of cost. We started off paying a top of the line designer for a website that was out of date about a year later. We then moved to a free template and I paid a student to code it. We now find ourselves operating almost exclusively on Facebook. I’m not against paying for good tools and design….but there are alternatives. I paid for someone to code and design my blog, but I have the freedom to change it.

Speed: How fast can you change things on your site? Do you have to call up the programmer, or do you have immediate access? Can a student put in an announcement whenever they want, or do things have to go through you? When tasks are funneled through 1-2 people, speed is slowed, and information and participation among students drops off. Have you designed a site, where if you wanted to make some major overhauls, you can do that very quickly? Or are you tied to high costs, bulky tools, etc. I know that the needs of my college group this year will probably be different next year, so I need to have the speed to adapt to that.

There is a lot I can talk on, but I just want to begin there. Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1–Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2–The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3–Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 4–How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 5–Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 6–Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 7–Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 8–Opening Up Your Ministry’s API

If you have ever been to Ascent I would love to hear about it. And if you are going, please post at this site and fill us in on what was the highlight of the weekend.

For now, I just have a couple of questions for all of you involved in college ministry:

1. What is the best thing about working with college students?
2. What is the biggest need in college ministry?

If you are involved in college ministry and are interested in becoming a regular contributor to this blog, please let me know.

The contributors to this blog represent a variety of college ministries spread across the country. We hope that through our experiences and writing, we can all contribute in our ministry to college students. If you would like to contribute to this blog, or advertise an event, or ministry, please contact us.

The network’s purpose are the following:

Connect
We desire to connect those serving in college ministry.

Engage
We desire to engage those involved in college ministry on issues regarding theology, ministry, praxis, etc.

Collaborate
We desire to collaborate with those serving in college ministry on projects that bring innovation and new ideas to the study and practice of this field.

Innovate
We desire to be a community that creates and welcomes innovative ideas in the field of college ministry.

Gather
We desire to gather together in order to form relationships and grow from our interactions with one another.

Prayer
We desire to be a people that continually seek the direction of college ministry through time in prayer.

Diversity
We desire to be a community that spans the breadth and depth of Christianity, interacting on this site with those involved in serving in college ministry in the various denominations, non-denominations, and traditions of Christianity.

Resource
We desire to be a resource for those serving in college ministry, as well as students who are a part of college ministry.