April 2010

April 29, 2010

Iceland’s Volcano: a Black Swan

http://bit.ly/dvY2jI – John Robb on Iceland volcano as “black swan” and how we need to build resilience against unpredictable events.

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April 29, 2010

Remaining close to vision

Vision is a tricky thing. In my experience, understanding a person’s vision is key to understanding why they do what they do–but often it seems like either we don’t know what our vision is, or we find it hard to express it. Once we’ve gotten a vision, the vision itself tends to be “forgotten” or “not thought about” because we get so wrapped up in the daily “doing” of it. In this area I am reminded of the old rant–I think it was Stephen Covey who I first read ranting about this–that “busyness is a badge of honor.” This worldview [...]

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April 28, 2010

Vision useless if not acted on

http://bit.ly/asimoF – Quoting David Ogilvy: “…it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can sell what you create.” Applies to swarmish visions too. Execution is key.

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April 28, 2010

Perceptions of Islam among Protestant Pastors

http://bit.ly/b2B9Hu – Christian Post: 40% of American pastors believe Islam is dangerous and promotes violence. What effect on our willingness to befriend Muslims?

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April 28, 2010

Church planting in the United States

In Exponential and Church Planting Trends, Ed Stetzer shares the results of a recent Lifeway REsearch survey. 3% of Protestant churches started new churches in the past year. 14% financially supported new church plants. Fortunately more new churches have been started than established churches have closed: but “we have a long way to go.”

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April 28, 2010

Changing the future

On Black Swans and Futuristic Scenarios, Charles Hugh Smith writes: “The present is the perfect guide to the future, until it isn’t. Then we change.” (via FutureJacked).

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April 28, 2010

Color and Culture

Colours In Cultures is a visualization of the meaning of different colors in different cultures: what color is happiness in China, or anger in Eastern Europe?

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April 28, 2010

The power of relationships

Jon Gordon talks about his book Soup and about how life is more meaningful and rewarding when you take the time to create relationships that make life more enjoyable. Community is a key element of swarming. Could soup be a key element of swarming as well?

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April 28, 2010

Learning from failure–and success

Success or Failure, Examine What Went Wrong and Right [Mind Hacks]: a new study by a psychologist suggests that when reflecting on what went wrong, we shouldn’t forget to focus on what went right too.

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April 26, 2010

Biblical cases of swarming

At the last 1-day seminar for swarming, one of the feedback items was: need more Biblical case studies of swarming. So this morning I’m reflecting on people in the Bible who operated in a swarmish fashion. I’m going to do a few of them as in-depth case studies. Any suggestions? (or reply to same post on Facebook.)

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April 24, 2010

New Statistics: Infant Mortality

Counting Malaria Out has statistics for Kenya’s River Tana area, infested by mosquitoes: 11% of mothers die before childbirth, 20% of children die before 5 years of age due to malaria. 70% of adults are jobless. Casual jobs bring about $1.25/day, which cannot provide food for a family. A mosquito net costs $3.25/ea. Families cannot buy them and eat, but it’s hard to live without them.

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April 23, 2010

India’s urban chaos by 2030?

McKinsey Report Warns India of “Urban Chaos” By 2030

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April 22, 2010

Filipino unemployment nearly double by 2030

In the Philippines, unemployment is like a time bomb which is expected to dramatically increase to from 34 million to 52 million by 2030.

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April 22, 2010

Evangelizing Brazilians in the USA

Network aims to reach Brazilians in U.S. (Baptist Press). There are an estimated 1.3 million.

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April 22, 2010

For want of a leader

Paul Dzubinski: “If you can’t reproduce disciples, you can’t reproduce leaders. If you can’t reproduce leaders, you can’t reproduce churches. The best leaders don’t draw crowds, they reproduce leaders! (from @MySojourning at the Exponential 2010 Conference)” (from Facebook)

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April 22, 2010

Structure of Sin: Cybercrime

Web hit by hi-tech crime wave (in BBC). Huge numbers of attacks carried out every day, suggests a new survey.

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April 22, 2010

Effort to change blasphemy law in Indonesia halted

Indonesia blocks faith law change, offending rights activists. In BBC.

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April 22, 2010

Internet testing limits of debate in Indonesia

The New York Times notes how Indonesia is trying to regulate content on the Internet and a scrap is developing between it and Indonesia’s news media.

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April 22, 2010

Seeking other points of view

Do liberals read only liberal blogs? in Ars Technica briefly discusses one problem that the Internet and other forms of decentralization introduce: it is very easy to “tribalize” by introverting and lowering your horizon of information. You have to intentionally seeking out opinions and ideas from those who are not like you. Otherwise you can be blindsided. In swarming we call this curiosity, and it’s an important idea because swarms are fragile and easily caught unaware by changing situations.

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April 21, 2010

Begin with the end in mind

Recently I did an all-day Introduction to Swarming Seminar for about 20+ people. Toward the end we were all getting pretty tired. I was sharing about the idea of organizational death, and of being the seed planted in the ground that “dies” or “abides alone,” but I don’t think I conveyed what I was saying very well. The idea is that there are two kinds of ways to grow to a size adequate to accomplish one’s plausible promise. The first way is to recruit new members for your swarm until you have the manpower to achieve the goal. The second [...]

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