Steve Fogg: Clear and Simple.

Twitter Chat with James Leggott

 
#cmsucks Twitter chat is where we can collectively get together on Twitter and talk about communications, creativity and anything else that you can think of! James Leggott is a web designer from Hillsong and is our special guest this week.

Who is it for?: Pastors, Not for profit leaders, communications peeps, designers, creatives, web designers

Date: THIS Friday in Australia, THIS Thursday everywhere else!

Time: 
Australia
Melbourne: Friday 11am; 

USA
Los Angeles: Thursday 6pm; 
New York: Thursday 9pm, 

Europe
London: Thursday 2am (sorry!)

The conversation will be 1/2 hour in length, feel free to hang out afterwards.

Topic: All things web. James will be fielding your questions and we'll talk about anything else you want to cover. Comment below! Once I get the feeback I'll host the chat and the questions. 

Hashtag: #cmsucks

Got questions? Comment below

 

 

 

Lessons From Cultivate11: Authentic beats professional (but wait there's a catch)

I blogged last week about my first experience on arrival in the United States of America. This week I want to write about another lesson that I learnt at Cultivate11.

This one is a big Cultivate11 lesson. 

Authentic beats professional. 

Well with one catch.

I've noticed for about the last three or so years young adults really want the church to communicate in an "authentic way". In communication land this means they want the communication to feel honest; not overly produced (feeling slick); feel unscripted or unstructured (even if it was scripted); normal looking not nose job, shiny white teeth and stunningly good looking. Bottom line real, not fake.

But here is the catch. There is still an expectation that the communication's production value doesn't feel as though it was done by amateurs. The sound quality needs to be good (not perfect), the vision shouldn't be too shaky (a little bit is OK).

Bottom line is that poorly executed communication is still looked down upon. In fact it will be a barrier for many young adults to move towards the goal of your communication.

One great example of the contrasting communication styles that I experienced was at HillsongOneDay in Melbourne yesterday. Most of the conference had a BIG feeling to it. It was in a stadium after-all. But then in a remarkable contrast to the BIG feel Joel A'Bell preached about 'The Scarlet Thread'. The BIG stage became small through selective use of lighting. Joel's speaking style was informal and he sat on a rather plain chair. The video part of the communication was brilliant and earthy in feel.

What examples of 'authentic' communication have you seen?

Lessons From Cultivate11: First Impressions Last

It's been a little over a week now since I was at Cultivate11 in Huntington Beach in SoCal.

I met lots of fantastic and friendly people in the four day whirlwind tour. Here is one principle that I've come away with that I wanted to share.

I arrived at LAX after a 13 hour flight from Australia. Tired and looking forward to stretching my legs and the drive to Huntington Beach. After departing from the plane I walked quickly so I could get ahead of most of my flight in the immigration queue. 

Only to be confronted by a very long queue in the 'aliens' queue. The Americans had their own queue that wasn't really that long.

After being in the queue for quite some time those of us in the 'aliens' queue all talked about which immigration officer we would like to process our fingerprint scans, our facial scans and our interrogation about our identity. There was one guy who was especially slow and seemingly very grumpy with everyone he dealt with.

Around one and a half hours later after shuffling about 20 metres in a zig zag pattern I finally got to an immigration officer. 

Guess which one I got?

That's right. The grumpy guy. Here is the very first impression that I got of the United States of America, grumpy, let me do my job, no personal engagement, no eye contact, no smile. Wow.

I was so glad to leave this experience and leave LAX airport. Frankly, this experience sucked.

I was so fortunate that every other experience was positive, full of welcome, polite, smiling, happy, engaging people. If the immigration had of been the only chance the United States of America had to make an impression on me then it would of been as my eight year old son says, an 'epic fail'.

Here's the thing, churches can have the same issue. (I've blogged about the fact that you never get a second chance to make a first impression before)

1. We'll put a non-people person in a people person job.

2. We'll create an environment that stiffles rather than engages a new person.

3. We focus on the process and get the person to fit our process and systems no matter what the cost.

4. We put our best people on the inside rather than on the edges.

When designing your systems and processes at the 'front door' of your church, place the right people around the right process. I'm not saying that the immigration administration process sucked. It was the experience around it that switched me off.

Everything we do communicates something. Ask yourself what is your church communicating currently through the people you have in these places?

 

I'm Going To #Cultivate11 - Are you?

I'm so excited, in just over a week's time I'll be leaving on a jet plane to fly to LA and to Cultivate 11. It is a 16 hour flight but it will be worth it!

If you are in church communications this is THE conference to get to. It has a line up of great speakers but even better there are break outs where church communications peeps can get together and talk about what is going on in their world.

If you are creative, strategic, and responsible for influencing how your organization communicates, there is a chair waiting for you.

Of course the cherry on top of the delicious cake which is Cultivate 11 is that you can get to meet me - I know, an honour ;-) If you want to book some time, I'm very open to talking over a latte. You can find out more about Cultivate11 here.

Now I would like to meet as many people in my four days in the US. Yes, only four HUGE days. I'm flying in and out so quickly because I want to get back for Mothers Day here in Australia to be with my wife.

If you are going drop me a comment below and I'd love to catch up with you while I'm there. I'm also on the look out for some accomodation near the conference and I'm happy to room with someone. Drop me a comment below if you have spare room!

 

The Power Of Words

Church communicators all face this challenge - to say thing what we want to say in a way that effectively cuts through the noise and gets noticed.

As the woman says "I said it the same, just in a different way."

 

Thursday Afternoon Rundown - Some exciting things on the go

It's been a busy couple of months here at Crossway. Here is what has hit my world this week:

I'm smack bang in the middle of a identity plan review for our church. Finishing off focus groups, now into reporting phase.

Really excited about a new online pilot project due to launch just after Easter in partnership with Lee Insko and the gang at Details Communications who are doing the web/mobile work for me. Watch this space. It will be available for all churches to use ;-)

ChurchShield logo was the "Logo of the day" award winner. Nice job.

I'm coming to Cultivate11 in May - If you want to hook up drop a comment in. It's a pretty quick trip in and out of the USA so my time is VERY limited.

Watched this video called Follow from Igniter Media. If you don't have Easter in the can from a creative point of view, this would be a good addition.

Read Elevation Church's Annual Report. Really well laid out and concise.

I've been reconnecting with my design roots over the last two months. It's been fun to refuel that passion for all things design.

 

 

 

Does Your Church Have A Mission Statement - Or Are You On Mission?

One of the biggest issues I've observed since working in the church world is our obsession to develop mission and vision statements. Hear me right, I don't think that having a mission or vision statement is a bad thing. But often those statements don't reflect the reality of what is really going on in the church. They are just words, without much action.

To put it another way churches can place more emphasis on preaching/teaching the mission statement, rather than simply living it out. In some messages there is no practical application or spiritual direction to do something.

Some churches are telling their congregations, rather than simply leading by doing. There needs to be less talk and more action.

In marketing speak we would say that the brand positioning isn't reflected in the brand promise.

I read this great post from Harvard Business Review today which reminded me of this. Well worth a read.



Do You See/Hear What I See/Hear?

I was in our all staff meeting this morning. We had a very special guest presenter who was talking about Occupational Health & Safety.

A dry subject. But a very important one.

The presenter brought up the slide below on the screen and asked us what we saw.

The visual made me think about how we in church communications attempt to help a person see something in a certain way or get them to do something through a piece of communication.

However sometimes the hearer or seer receives the information in a completely different way.

Here's a little 'test' for you. Who do you see in the picture below? Comment and I'll post the right answer tomorrow!

 

 

Why I'm A Recovering Information Overload Addict

Hi,

My name is Steve and I'm a recovering information overload addict.

Seriously.

I love information. I can't get enough. My mind for full of really useful useless stuff. I am the factoid king.

I'm in recovery. I no longer check my analytics for this blog seven times a day (no joke). I no longer consume information for the sake of consuming. I don't answer every tweet. Every Facebook comment. Every blog post comment (I will answer your comments if you have something to say other than anything cliche).

Faking it - Automated Love x 3

I just had the 'noise factor' land in my letterbox courtesy of American Express.

I ordered some American Express rewards as I have over the years accumulated quite a few points and decided to treat my wife for her birthday (shhhhsssh she doesn't know yet ;-)

I ordered the 3 items from the same person over the phone which was fine, but today I received 3 letters from American Express. The 3 letters were exactly the same and were designed to make me feel special for ordering the rewards, but because Amex's system obviously wasn't designed to cope with ordering multiple items it sent me the same letter (with the product individualised) 3 times.

What was meant to make me feel special made me feel like they were faking it and had the complete opposite effect. #FAIL

I think all of us who serve in churches have to pay special attention to any responses (automated or not) and systems we have place, because while our goal is to connect and help someone take a 'next step', often because someone is slightly outside the box we stuff up which makes them feel like we are faking it to them and don't really care.

 

What communication pieces have you seen out there that don't connect?