Have you seen the new Nextel Blackberry commercial?  This commercial is brilliant.  It is not brilliant because it is made so well (although the production value seems good to me).  It is not brilliant because of the product (although I hear Blackberrys are great phones).  It is brilliant because of the story it tells.

Have you noticed all of the best or most memorable commercials tell a story.  There is the old Nextel commercial where people get married quickly utilizing their Nextel phones or the one where the businessmen cut a deal quickly because of their phones.  But this one is even more brilliant.

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I began this millennium ten years ago today, in St. Louis, on a youth group trip to some Y2K extravaganza inside the stadium where the Rams play. In the middle of Third Day’s set (Third Day!), some friends and I ran outside so we could see the fireworks and Y2K blackouts over the St. Louis skyline at midnight. I think we got in trouble for leaving, but we didn’t care. If the world was going to end that night, we were going to witness it first hand.

Nothing happened. And that’s all I can really remember from the year 2000—aside from the general chaos of the Bush/Gore presidential, U.S. History AP with Mrs. Ashley, Britney Spears on TRL, and the Sydney Olympics (vaguely). The decade didn’t really get started until 2001. That’s the year I graduated from high school, moved from home, and started college. And of course, there was that day in the second week of September.

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Jon Acuff on The Vietnam Project from CJ Casciotta on Vimeo.

It’s 2009 and we’re all wired.  A lot of people are terrifically proud of how connected they are 24 hours a day.  Call me old fashioned but I’ve decided to put a bit of brake on the fast lane of electronic life.  Read on and let me know if any of this strikes a chord with you…

 

Having just returned from 3 weeks without Internet, I find myself tiptoeing back into cyberspace rather reluctantly.  I’m incredibly blessed that my life and work here in East Africa takes me into places that are beyond the reach of the electronic world.  I’m also blessed that here at my desk in the city of Arusha, I generally do have access, when I need it.  (More or less!)

 

But do I want it? That’s my question as I gingerly open my inbox, my blog, my facebook and my twittering.

In our world of celebrity gazing and personal idolatry, it’s not surprising that a social networking tool such as Twitter (which feeds our appetite for immediacy) would be all the craze. If you haven’t heard by now, Twitter has officially jumped the shark and basically serves three functions for the typical user:

1.    Allows you to follow friends, strangers or celebrities (such as Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, Shaquille O’Neal, Stephen Colbert, etc.) on a hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute basis
2.    You can build your business, organization or your personal brand by following the right people or just following an ungodly amount of people
3.    You can create an identity by posting such profound or awesome tweets that you become a legend in the Twitterverse

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I had planned to post the next installment of the ongoing series today, but when I got to work, I realized that I had saved a previous draft of it (which instantly induced all kinds of anxieties about whether I had saved my revisions appropriately, anxieties that will not be mollified for another 8 hours!).

 Instead, I thought I would let readers know that I will be in Southern California this weekend for the Christian Web Conference, where I will be arguing (yup!) that while the church may exist and minister online, church congregations should not gather online (at least as a substitute for physical gathering).

I'd love to meet as many of you as possible.  The conference is being held at Biola (my dear alma mater).  If you are in the area, come on out and say "hi.

I wrote a new technology piece in Relevant magazine’s September/October issue, entitled “Short Attention Span Faith.” You can read the whole thing by clicking here, but here’s a short little excerpt:

Unsurprisingly, this frenzied, obsessive-compulsive proclivity toward being digital busybodies has deleterious effects on Christian disciplines like Bible study and prayer. How do we justify sitting down and praying for an hour when there are Hulu videos to browse, “What Ninja Turtle are you?” quizzes to take, and online “community” to cultivate? If we’re not wired, plugged-in, and communicating with the world at all times, it seems like such a waste of time…

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As a professor, I often try to impart life lessons, as well as subject-specific lessons, to my students. Many times, I think these are the most important parts of my job. It's not uncommon for me to have a "side bar" conversation that has nothing to do with marketing or management, but that I believe will make my students better employees in their future.

One topic of conversation has been an encouragement to monitor what students write (and let others write and post about them) on social networks. This is usually brought to mind when a student will send me a "friend request" and while I am happily their friend, I am  concerned with what they allow to be available to the world regarding who they are. I remind them that potential employers know how to "google" someone too, and that they want to make sure that their personal "brand" online is concurrent with what they hope to project. If they don't want potential employees to think of themselves as irresponsible partyers, its probably a good idea to remove those pictures that convey this. While it's commonly accepted that the Internet lowers people's inhibitions because there is the perception of anonymity, this facade is quickly shattered when people experience the very real damage that can come from a mismanaged online reputation.

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