day 1391: A Hack for Life

While I am on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I have asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING.  Enjoy! - Rusty

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"He makes me lie down in green pastures"

In Silicon Valley, everything is subject to being “hacked”.  Silicon Valley folks love to make anything they can get their hands on smaller, smarter, faster, stronger, or less expensive.  I have friends working to build everything from a driverless car to a monitor that tells you how many calories your dog burned while you were at work.  Wired, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Engadget, RE/Code, and a host of other magazines and websites have created an entire industry dedicated to reporting the latest and greatest innovations in technology.  The need for instantaneous news updates and social connections have created billions of dollars in market value for companies like like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Apple employees go to work at 1 Infinite Loop and Facebook employees at 1 Hacker Way in case they forget the goal is to always innovate and move forward.  

But, could it be possible to go too far too fast and for too long?  The same media outlets listed above are also filled with stories of burnout, questionable business and personal decisions, and intellectual stagnation made by the same companies and employees that had been previously praised as the best and the brightest.  How does this happen?  Should the employees work harder or smarter and figure out a new hack for management and work style?  Should companies replace their management or board periodically to bring fresh thoughts and energy to the front lines?  How can we engineer our way out of the inevitable future obsolescence?

My suggestion is that every manager and employee stop and think about one key word in the Verse 2 of Psalm 23 - “ He MAKES me lie down in green pastures.”  God doesn’t suggest, prod, or offer that we take five every now and then for a quick touchbase.  He tells us specifically that we have to stop and spend time with him in his green pastures and by quiet waters.  Only when that happens deliberately and regularly are we fully available and able to have God refresh our soul (v.3), guide us along the right paths (v.3), live life with confidence (v.4), nurture and heel us (v.5), and bask/share in his eternal glory (v.6).  

The Bible is filled with verses and examples of people stopping and seeking God and the promises of Psalm 23.  Jesus is described as stopping and seeking God at all times of the day, on land and water, in public and private, and alone and in groups.  Sometimes He took hours or days to be with God.  Other times, He is quoted saying simple, straight forward prayers during the rush of the day.  

I encourage you to stop what you are doing and "hack" your calendar to regularly stop and just spend time with God.  No need to send an email invite or set up a video call.  Prayer and time with God is the original killer mobile app and is available anytime and any place.  

Reference: Psalm 23 

Kevin Miller
Coitcom

day 1247: What's New?

"History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new."

Why do we read trade magazines and online "news" like TechCrunch, Mashable, etc?  Why do we try and keep up to date with innovation?  Why do we Follow on Twitter those that get to the news first?  Our culture is obsessed with what is new.  And, even in the sharing economy we still are curious to know what is being developed and what is on the horizon.  We don't have to look any further than the lines of people who wait for the midnight delivery of new technology or new entertainment.  Our culture rewards those who are there first and who can rush out and tell everyone else their experience.  Technology has given us instant access to share, so our perceived rewards to being there first has been heightened.  When was the last time you delivered to your consumers, customers, or employees something so new that they rushed out to tell everyone else?

God is new to us every morning but always the same!  Read that again.  He is new every morning but always the same!  The newness is what we can receive from Him in our lives.  But, as we read in Ecclesiastes, nothing is really new. Why that is important is that every day in the world we live someone is pitching something new and in that pitch trying to pull us away from our walk with God.  We are challenged in our work to create new products, services and offerings.  That is fine.  But, we are not to try and create God anew in our image of what we think He should be.  That is the way those around us would like it to be.  We are to stand firm today and call upon what is not new, but instead what has been and will be eternal.  Today we start a new week.  Let this week be one where our commitment and courage is renewed!

Reference:  Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New Living Translation)

 

 

day 1156: Working From Where?

"They said, ‘Whenever we are faced with any calamity such as war, plague, or famine, we can come to stand in your presence before this Temple where your name is honored. We can cry out to you to save us, and you will hear us and rescue us.’"

Yesterday's TechCrunch covered the new irobot and Cisco In-the-office-out-of-the office-work-from-home-telepresence-robot-thing. We've seen these things in the GE ads where the robot-thing can allow the sick children to attend school, even though they are home or hospital bound.  But, this puts a whole new spin on things. Are we getting closer and closer to the autonomous worker?  My friend Fred says, "You must be present to win".  Is this being present?  What will Marissa Mayer do with this?  What is clear is that our ability to be where we are, even when we are not, is getting more and more technologically advanced.  We need to monitor, experiment and see what works in our environment, and then judge.  But, one thing is for certain, we must try what is new and not ignore the future as it rolls through our front door.  The generation behind us is watching to see where we will land as it relates to where and how they will work.

                                                           (picture courtesy of TechCrunch)

Where two or more of us are gathered, He will be with us also.  When I first saw the picture above, I was struck by how God is with us in our work as well and if we could have him present like this iRobot, all the time, how cool would that be.  But, see that is the promise and blessing we have. He is and all we have to do is invite Him along.  If in all that we know and believe about what God can do for us, then why do we ignore Him and leave Him out of our work? Ask God to inhabit your cubicle today and to be present with you at all times.  He will.  God has shown through the generations how faithful He is and how He like to work on the big problems and challenges that only He can fix.  Bring Him along and watch what He does. It's how He works!

Reference: 2 Chronicles 20:9 (New Living Translation)

day 1145: Two-Factor Authentication

"For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them."

Lots of noise all of a sudden about who owns the patent for two-factor authentication that many services like Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc. use.  In case you don't know what that means here is how it is explained from TechCrunch article: "For the unfamiliar, two-factor authentication is a mechanism intended to make it more difficult for hackers to access accounts that aren’t their own. When a user attempts to log in to a service from an unrecognized computer, the service sends a one-time password to an alternative device (like, say, a cell phone) known to belong to that user. At least theoretically, hacking a user’s account would thus require access to that device in addition to their password."  Two-factor authentication is what we do in the analogue world everyday.  We verify and check with others before we say something, make a decision or use information as a proof point. Well, at least, that's what we should be doing.  Too many times we leave things to a one point authentication, usually our own, and as we know that can get us into real trouble when things aren't really the way they seem.  Doubling back and getting that extra authentication and verification can be the difference between credibility and embarrassment.

God gives us our own two-factor and more authentication.  We are promised that when two or more of us gather in His name, He will be there also.  How cool is that?  When spending time today with another believer, in the office or out of the office, be sure and validate with each other that you have invited Christ into the conversation.  I know with full certainty that He will authenticate and be there with you.

Have a great three-day Memorial Day weekend.  Purposed worKING will be back bright and early on Tuesday May 28th.

Reference: Matthew 18:20 (New Living Translation)

day 1030: Happy Birthday SMS and Merry Christmas

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”

From TechCrunch:

"On December 3rd, 1992 in the little town of Newbury, Berkshire, a UK programmer sent his best mate a few lines of greeting using a unique new technique called Short Messaging Service. The programmer, Neil Papworth, was a test engineer for the Sema Group, and sent the message via PC to the phone of Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone employee. The message was “Merry Christmas.” Vodafone intended the service as a fun and easy way to communicate internally. That obviously wasn’t the case. It took seven years after that first message for texting to take off, but now nearly 8 trillion messages cross the air every year. Adults 18-25 send 133 messages a week each.  SMS was, at least in Europe, popular for a number of reasons. Before inexpensive service plans, a single ring to a person’s phone from yours was used as a sort of signal that you had arrived or that you wanted to chat. This gave way to texts, which were often cheaper than “phone impulses,” relegating voice calls to the back burner. SMS began with pagers which, in turn, got their start in telegraphy and telex. Messages like 911 and 07734 (read it upside down) were ways to send quick notes to friends. This led to “text pagers” and the first BlackBerry, a two-way pager launched in 1999, with its “druplet” keyboard. Text, in many ways, became the preferred mode of communication in business and between friends."

It struck me that centuries and generations later, a soon to be standard way of communicating world-wide and the way many of us stay close and personal, all started with two very important words:  "Merry Christmas".  And as we know, Immanuel who came, for whom we celebrate Christmas, means that "God is with us". As we start this day and the rest of the month, how uplifting and powerful could it be if we started all of our communications, with "Merry Christmas" as a reminder of why it is that we celebrate this special month and that He is with us, even closer than that next text message.

Reference: Matthew 1:23 (New Living Translation)