Tamara Dull

Today’s Fragmented Church Needs to Fully Engage in the Activities of Social Media

Tamara Dull — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 07:25:59 -0700

...so that she can stay connected as a family and effectively reach each community in our postmodern world.

Do you agree with this statement? If so, why? If not, why not?

This is my working thesis statement - which means I might change it - for a case study assignment in my Transforming Contemporary Culture class at Fuller.

For this case study, I am supposed to select a cultural theme that is relevant to my current ministry, analyze the interplay between the two, and then propose an alternate, missiological approach. I will be analyzing how the church is currently engaged with social media, and then discuss how Semper Vita plans to engage. If you'd like to learn more about Semper Vita, check out the blog site at www.sempervita.org.

So what do you think about this thesis statement? Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Today's fragmented church needs to fully engage in the activities of social media so that she can stay connected as a family and effectively reach each community in our postmodern world.

Which Social Networks Do You Belong To and Why?

Tamara Dull — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:13:26 -0700

MySpace. Facebook. Classmates. MyYearBook. Bebo. LiveJournal. BlackPlanet. Hi5. LinkedIn. Tagged. Reunion. 360.Yahoo. Imeem. Friendster. Orkut. Flixster. Fubar. Tickle. CafeMom. Xanga. Yuku. Twitter. Ning. UrbanChat. AsianTown.

As of February 2008*, these are the top 25 social networking sites - and 84% of online consumers belong to at least one online social network. Needless to say, there is a whole lot of social networking going on.

Since I'm relatively new to the ConversantLife community, I would like to take a moment and learn more about your social networking habits, specifically:

Which social network(s) do you belong to?
Why did you join the social network(s)?
Which one(s) do you keep up with and which one(s) are gathering web dust? And why?
How valuable is social networking to you? If it all went away tomorrow, would you care?

So please jump in and share with us your social networking story. Next week, I'll share some more interesting social networking facts and trends.

Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great week!

* Source: American Marketing Association report, Social Networking: My Space, Your Space and Their Space: Connecting With Your Customers in Online Social Networks, www.marketingpower.com, July 2008.

Have Your People Call My People

Tamara Dull — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:36:27 -0700

Have you seen the latest American Express commercial with Ellen Degeneres and Beyonce? If you haven't, you can check it out below.

The ad centers around a common phrase from the 80's - have your people call my people - which clearly makes the ad more entertaining. I mean, who says that anymore? If you do, well...hmmm... Today, it's all about text messaging and social networking - directly - with our own network of BFFs.

When I think about technology and the church, many churches are still living in the Have your people call my people age, while the rest of the world is planning to cu@12. It's a crazy and exciting time we live in.

Hi, my name is Tamara, and welcome to my blog. I invite you to join me as we talk about the recent (and not-so-recent) kewl technologies that are out there. We'll also take a look at ways the church and faith community - perhaps your own - take advantage (or not) of these technologies. That discussion may get a bit spicy because there are clearly those that believe technology is a secular thing and should be avoided at all costs.

Let's start there and see where the conversation takes us. Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope to engage in some meaningful and fun discussions with you in the weeks and months to come.