day 1305: Hopscotch

"I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry."

One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, had this to say recently about the pace of how we we now work:

"We skip reading the whole thing, because it's easier to jump to what we assume the writer meant.
We skip engaging with customers and stakeholders because it's quicker to assert we know what they want.
We skip doing the math, examining the footnotes, recreating the experiment, because it might not turn out the way we need it to.
We better hurry, because the firstest, loudest, angriest opinion might sway the crowd."

Guilty as charged?  Sure, we all are, and we need to know the same about our consumers, customers and employees.  Internally, we spend time and energy on things that demand deep-thinking and reading the fine print for success to happen and then we are frustrated when our people say, "I didn't know".  This is not going to get better. With a 140 character, Snapchat, Instagram world, we are only experiencing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attention-span deficit and hopscotching through work and life.  What to do?  We must adapt without losing the ability to place emphasis where attention must be held.  It can be done and those who master this will win the day.  Consider the power of visuals, sounds and stories that make one think and ask follow up questions.  If you have read this far...the answer lies somewhere there.

Our God is not a hopscotch God, thankfully.  He doesn't cut a corner or abbreviate His love and patience for us, but He also in return doesn't let us off the hook with how we go about developing a real and vibrant relationship with Him. There isn't a 140 character way to deepen a relationship.  Just like when we need to get real we put down the texts and we look up and into a face of someone who matters, the same can be said about our relationship with Christ. We need to get real for Him to be real.  God's Word, prayer, fellowship with other believers and time in church are the touchstones that we can't skip over.  If you are feeling like a few "things" have been skipped and hopped over that have left you unsettled at work or home, consider that it might be that you are skipping over the critical and most important and it is time to go back to the basics that will always provide comfort, peace and direction.

Reference: Psalm 40:1 (New Living Translation)

day 1268: What is Hidden?

"The Lord’s light penetrates the human spirit, exposing every hidden motive."

I am sure there will be some who will write that they disagree with me, but it appears to me that at the heart of the now well-known Snapchat is the ability to send a picture to someone that no one has a record of being sent and the receiving person can't copy, forward or retain.  Consider for a moment what types of pictures one would want to send with those characteristics?  Kodak once had a marketing campaign that said, "A picture is worth a 1000 memories".  That would not be a slogan that Snapchat would want to use. Applications like Snapchat and the ability to surf the net privately all have rationalizations on why these are important and needed.  That said, those things that no one else can see, that there is no record of, do not normally lead people down a good path of action.  Facebook may have been given a reputation favor by Snapchat turning down their $3B offer.   If Snapchat were ever to build a business where they could go public, they will have to convince their investors that the content of Snapchat is something other than what it is today.

What we do when no one else can see or know may be the best indication of who we really are. This is not meant to be a bummer to start the day, but it is a cold, stark truth that we must face. Thoughts that we have, what we watch, what we read, what we do and say when no one else can see or hear...that is our default mode and it's who we are.  When we think of it this way, "Do we like who we are?"  The answer, not surprisingly, is almost always, "No".  This is because we are all flawed and sinful by nature, but that doesn't mean that we have to live that way.  This is the promise we are given through Jesus that His light can shine within us to expose who we really are so we can change to be more like Him.  Today, each of us will be faced with a moment(s) of choice to act in a way that is hidden, or to act in way that if everyone was looking, we and God would be pleased.  Our God is a God of forgiveness and redemption.  To Him, our sins are "SnapSins"...they happened, we sincerely repent, they are forgiven and gone forever.   What has been hidden can be exposed if we only open up ourselves to Him! Will we?

Reference: Proverbs 20:27 (New Living Translation)

day 1267: First Moves

"So Barnabas and Saul were sent out by the Holy Spirit."

While I was on vacation last week, I checked in online when I could (we had very sketchy internet) and I saw that SnapChat had turned down a $3B offer from Facebook.  Oh, to be a first mover. SnapChat popped up with the ability to send a picture and then it would disappear from the internet.  I've not figured out what real business can be built from this, but it is clear that they have captured the attention of lots of people, including Facebook, who is willing to pay three times more than what they paid for Instagram.  Being the first mover in a market is still worthwhile. While hard to know if you will be the one that sticks, getting there first still has its advantages. Like its' service, SnapChat could be here today, and gone tomorrow, but right now, they are first.  We all have some opportunity that when innovating we can find a first mover advantage.  Sometimes it may be that someone, someplace else has done it already, but this is the first time your consumers or customers will have experienced what you are offering.  Sit and think and consider what you have in the hopper that you can take advantage of being the first mover.

Through the lens of the account of Saul/Paul and his journeys, the Pastor at our church (cornerstone-sf.org) is exploring what it meant for Paul to be the first mover of the Good News outside of the Jewish community. There are many great lessons here, and I was reminded yesterday of the challenges and rewards that can come from having the courage to make a move forward. Paul was a first mover.  It took extraordinary courage and commitment for him to do what he did to move God's message to the Gentiles.  He is a model for us as without question we each have a "first move" to make our workplaces as it relates to bringing glory to God in all that we do.  It could be the change of a habit, a word of kindness, an hour of listening to someones concerns, stepping up for the job that no one else wants to do, the correction of a wrong, the day without a cursed word coming from your mouth.  Whatever it is, God is giving all of us a "first move" to make and He will be there to support us if we are willing to just move!

Reference: Acts 13:4 (New Living Translation)

day 1177: Ephemeral Messaging

“As surely as my new heavens and earth will remain, so will you always be my people, with a name that will never disappear,” says the Lord."

Communication that is here today and gone tomorrow seems to be the rage.  Ephemeral messaging like SnapChat and now the newest entry Secret.li are finding their way into the mainstream. For those not familiar, ephemeral messaging are texts or pictures that once sent and read/viewed disappear forever. At first glance we might think that those who use these apps have something to hide, but too many people are using these applications for that to be all there is to it.  It might well be that ephemeral messaging is just the ticket for those who are more carefree than the rest of us. I'm on the opposite extreme having been taught and trained to always be able to point to a "paper trail".  Although, in these litigious days there is more emphasis on not retaining than retaining for retrieval.  Ephemeral messaging skews young right now, but we should count on it aging with the rest of us.  We don't keep track of text messages and we are texting more today than ever.  What implications can we foresee from this?  Sharpen our memories?  Expect that there might be more, "He said, she said" going on?  Likely, but might we see also a return to more face-face-face communication? As we know, for every action there is a reaction and while it seems that we might be heading one way, the reaction might, and will likely take us somewhere else. As I write this I just finished a chat session with a customer service agent that would have taken many emails back and forth with maybe days in between.  Ephemeral speed messaging.

There is nothing ephemeral about our God and His love for us. He is not here today and gone tomorrow.  His Word and Spirit does not disappear.  All around us the world is ephemeral. In the larger scheme and history of the world, we are each ephemeral and once day we will be gone.  In the meantime, the more that we do to reinforce the everlasting nature of who it is that we serve, the more we are bringing glory to God in our work and calling.  As we head out the door this afternoon for a summer weekend, let's consider who is counting on us to be lasting in their life and job and what it is that we can do to give them assurance and security that we can be counted on to be there for them.

Reference:  Isaiah 66:22 (New Living Translation)