February 2010

February 26, 2010

Future Scenario: USA Inc.

John Robb has written an interesting little scenario of the future of America as a largely-privatized state.

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February 26, 2010

Realignment Day: Exodus 1

One of the activities LeaderSource has its folks do – which I’m getting used to, this being my first one – is that one day out of the month is a “Realignment Day.” You take it and spend time realigning… with God, with who God made you to be, what you’re doing, etc. LeaderSource makes a priority of intimacy with Christ. So I thought I’d blog a little here about some of the things I’ve thinking about during my Realignment Day. I’m reading through both Exodus and Mark right now. Today I began with Exodus 1. I’m using http://www.blueletterbible.org to [...]

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February 25, 2010

8 Trends shaping global missions

Eric Swanson interviewed 50 leaders of large churches and identified 8 trends: Mutuality, Partnering, Investing in leaders, combining good deeds with good news, and 4 others. Looks swarmish to me.

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February 25, 2010

Storytelling the Status of Missions

As many people know, I am now on staff with LeaderSource, an organization that equips churches to build healthy leaders by helping them design healthy leader development movements. It’s a great org, very swarmish, and I’m enjoying my first weeks with them. Later next month I will be traveling, participating in a couple of conferences. One of the presentations I am going to be giving, and which I am working on right now, is a “Status of Global Missions” presentation. I’ll have about 2 hours, but not really, because what I say has to be translated. And I won’t have [...]

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February 25, 2010

New Statistics: Twitter Traffic

Status updates per day is the most reliable measure of growth in social networking sites, since many are accessed via third party clients. Twitter grew from 5,000 daily in 2007 to 300,000 daily in 2008 to 2.5 million daily in 2009 to 50 million daily today. (Twitter Blog)

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February 25, 2010

Resilient Communities

Resilience, according to Merriam-Webster, is (a) the ability to withstand shock without permanent damage and (b) the ability to recover easily from misfortune or change. Resilient communities, therefore, would be communities of individuals that have within themselves the wherewithal to withstand shock and to recover easily. Such communities would: Be aware of and strong against vulnerabilities Be defended against attack Be immune (or at least have a healthy resistance) to illnesses (whether real-world diseases, or fast-propagating “mind-viruses”: bad ideas) Be self-sustaining–not dependent on someone else whose hostility might result in a loss of needed resources Be able to help others [...]

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February 22, 2010

The difference between an Impossible Goal and a Plausible Promise

In http://bit.ly/cvpSXq, the writer considers how Google believes in setting “impossible” goals each quarter and striving to reach them. “65% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary.” This approach is very similar to the idea of a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (BHAG). We’ve written here before about the idea of the Plausible Promise: something specific, measurable, agreed-upon, realistic, and time-bound. So, does Google not deal in Plausible Promises? Probably the key here is to consider what is ‘realistic.’ I think that in all actuality, Google’s “impossible goals” are actually quite realistic considering the scope of Google’s daring, brain-trust, [...]

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February 18, 2010

Sin Structure at Olympics

Prostitution at the Olympics (and other international sporting events) is a very common but sad reality. http://ow.ly/18O3n

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February 18, 2010

Hukou reform?

RT @ZG_Briefs: Is “hukou” reform really finally taking place in China? http://ow.ly/15oRz – an important part of China few know about!

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February 18, 2010

The Power of Zero: a compelling vision

I wasn’t at TED this year (obviously) but apparently Bill Gates gave an incredible speech. It was reviewed here. I found this review of the speech (I’m looking forward to seeing it on ted.com) to be fascinating on several levels which apply to swarms, leader development, debates, plausible promises… Here are some brief notes. 1. This is a classic example of articulating a plausible promise. Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions. If I said “my top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions,” it would not be plausible. I [...]

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February 17, 2010

Buzz: Google’s Game-Changing Instant “Crowd”

Recently, Google has launched “Buzz,” it’s new social networking platform. The response has been varied, but here are two articles I think capture why Buzz in my opinion will be a long term success. Google Buzz has completely changed the game: here’s how How Google went into “code red” and saved Google Buzz I am writing here about Buzz because I think it’s a very interesting case study of how an organization leveraged an existing install base (in the millions, in the case of Gmail) to launch a “crowd.” I do not (yet) characterize Buzz as a “swarm” because it [...]

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February 16, 2010

Swarmish Drug Cartels target Middle America

This is an example of a criminal organization using non-violent swarmish principles to push drug use (LA Times).

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February 16, 2010

Faux Followers

Seth Godin explains why “real” followers are more important than “fake” followers: they are more likely to pass a good idea on. Addresses how ideas pass through multiple generations.

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February 13, 2010

Persecution: counting the cost in India

Erich Bridges records the story of two men who lead a growing movement of Muslim-background believers in Mumbai, India, and the persecution they endure.

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February 13, 2010

Too poor to marry

A generation ago the majority of Middle Eastern young people would have been married by their mid-20s; today, almost 50% are single. World Vision Radio carries an article explaining why.

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February 12, 2010

Cote d’Ivoire political instability

The president dissolved the government & the independent electoral commission intended to lead to presidential elections; pray for a peaceful end to the crisis and the wisdom of God for all involved.

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February 12, 2010

Upcoming Leadersource Courses in April

LeaderSource offers several leadership courses designed to bring the “Aha” moment on a variety of leadership issues. We hope you will consider joining us for one or more of these learning experiences. We’re pleased to announce the 2010 ConneXions Intensive – a three-week immersion in our ConneXions model of healthy leader development, designed specifically for experienced Christian leaders from around the world who desire to consider new, holistic paradigms of discipleship and leader development. Discover ConneXions February 20, 2010: Lynchburg, Virginia Our one-day Discover ConneXions seminar will introduce you to a new paradigm for healthy leader development. ConneXions is a holistic, truly-indigenized [...]

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February 12, 2010

France and Islam

French Prime Minister intends to sign law to deny nationality to man who ordered his French wife to wear the veil. http://ff.im/-fNGan

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February 11, 2010

Posting hiatus

Sorry. I know I haven’t posted in quite some time. Haven’t published a February issue of Momentum either. We changed to a new job with SGA Leadersource and moved back in to our old house, and I’m presently traveling. I’m also exploring using Google Buzz, so you can follow me inside Gmail or at http://www.google.com/profiles/justinlong. I have not stopped posting, just gone on a bit of a break while I get things organized.

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