Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock – New York Times

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock – New York Times

Nice to see someone has their head on straight.

Talkin’ ’bout religion

Moderates say Democrats shouldn’t be bashful on religion — Beliefnet.com

Here’s an idea for Democrats. Point out all those things from the Bible that Republicans don’t seem to be interested in while they’re concentrating on gay marriage and gutting Social Security:

-Helping the homeless.
-Helping the ederly.
-Helping the sick.
-Helping children.
-Making sure that Caesar and God are each given their due.

Talk about all those points where Christianity and progressiveness come together. Try it. Just might work.

The Religion War

The Dilbert Blog: 0Is The Religion War “Impossible”?

Nothing Adams’ outlines here sounds that implausible. In fact it sounds like just the sort of showdown most Islamic terrorists – and crazed Christian Evangelicals – are gunning for.

Someone recently said that the advantage in any sort of war always is with the craziest or most zealous side. In this case I think the non-Christian entity would take the cake and have that advantage. This is not going to turn out well.

What God thinks

Think Progress » VIDEO: House Conservatives Reveal What God Thinks About Gay Marriage Amendment

One of the major themes of the Bible class I’m in right now is that none of us, no matter hard we pray or think or consider things, is going to figure out God’s will. That’s because he’s, you know, God and we’re, after all, not. What insight we do have comes straight from the Bible and not through man. If we have any questions that’s where to turn because that was written by the Holy Spirit.

Apparently mine is missing the pages where He goes off against gay marriage. These GOP congressmen obviously have the more expanded edition.

Get your mantra on

There’s been quite a bit of posting being done lately on other blogs about their “mantras” or other things that you should never say or always find yourself saying. It’s basically been a big, funny opportunity for people who are obviously comedy writers at heart to have some fun while also embedding nuggets of wisdom. A little bit of sugar, as they say.

The first one I saw like this was from Mike Manuel, who passed on the good advice “If your best idea in a brainstorm meeting begins with “Let’s partner with X.” Don’t speak.”

Since then I’ve come across:
-Deborah Schultz’s list of things she finds herself saying over and over again.
-Jackie Huba adds, “”Your control over marketing was lost long ago.”
-Oliver Blanchard chimes in with, “What is the one thing that makes people love you and your products?”
-Brian Oberkirch makes a great point – in longer form – when he emphasizes that “It’s not about the tools.”
-I really like David Parmet’s advice, “Try to explain that to me in a way that your mother would understand it.”
-Ryan Anderson deflates a lot of egos when he points out to client, ““I realize that this is your corporate line, but that’s not a story anyone is going to care about.”

There’s not a whole lot I have to add to the great points these other folks have made. If there’s one thing that I find myself saying over and over again, it’s, “How can we empower the people who are most interested in this or already talking about it?” That’s at the top of my mind because I’m a blogger myself and I long for the people who produce the products I talk about to engage with me. Finding people who have already staked out a place for themselves by talking about your company are often going to be your target audience since they’re the influencers for a much wider audience.

Protecting marriage

Think Progress » Congressman: We Should ‘Prevent Those Who Commit Adultery or Get a Divorce From Running for Office’

I agree with Rep. Davis (D-TN) with his tongue-in-cheek commentary on protecting marriage. If we’re really going to go after the things that are hurting the institution of marriage then we need to stop using that as code for gay-bashing. Round up the adulterers and make divorce illegal. Those are two far greater threats to traditional marriage than homosexuality.

Take my corporate blog – Please!

I always like to sit back and watch big stories play out over a period of time. It helps with perspective, both in my own thoughts as well as gauging what other people are saying, not to mention letting all the facts and backstory come in.

The latest story that’s been cycling through my Bloglines feeds is that of Dell’s entry into the blogosphere. So many people commented on it it bordered on earth shaking. You’d think that God Himself had started a blog. After all, both He and Dell have been silent for many years. Both basically told their stakeholders how to communicate with them (prayer and customer service calls respectively) and told people if that didn’t help refer to the instruction manuel for further help.

There were two posts from the PR blog cul-de-sac that went beyond pointing out the initial shortcomings of Dell’s blog. The most constructive was, unsurprisingly, from Shel Holtz. He actually recommended taking a deep breath and not chiding Dell over what was, essentially, an opening night performance. He references a couple of A-lister type bloggers who demanded that Dell fit into their vision of what a blog from the company should look like. Holtz even highlights Dell’s policy on approving and posting blog comments. The policy is, in short, to approve anything that’s on-topic, delete the stuff that’s overly inflammatory and send specific problems or issues to customer service instead of dealing with it on the blog. That’s a sound policy. The blog is not the place to deal with everyone’s problems with their laptops. It’s inefficient and not setup for that purpose so trying to do so would only lead to problems. Besides, blog comments are – to my mind at least – places to comment. They are not places to recount past corporate misjudgements and ask for clarification. If that’s what you’re looking for, seek out the media relations person and get them on the record.

The idea that Dell – or any other company – is going to hit the ground running with a blog that immediately meets all the expectations of people who have been blogging for years and learning as they go along is ludicrous. For all those who critized the first couple posts on the Dell blog, I’d like you to go back to the first couple posts you put up and see how much ground you really have to stand on. I’m actually embarressed to do that and so avoid at all costs telling people they’re not doing it right from the start.

BusinessWeek does a nice job of detailing both the Dell blog and corporate blogging in general. MediaPost also passes on numbers saying over three quarters of companies with corporate blogs are satisfied with them. The main advantages are increased web traffic and media mentions, both of which are good things in case you were wondering.

Starting a corporate blog can be scary for a lot of companies. The backlash against Dell’s efforts pretty much show that a lot of that fear is justified. Despite that the positives that can be had from establishing a presence do outweigh the bad. Blogging is a learning experience. Yes, you can draw on the lessons of others, but it still takes time to find an identity, a voice and a true mission for the blog. Work at, and be open about the process and it will likely work out in the end.

Oh, I forgot my other favorite blog post about Dell. It’s from J-Pepp.

Rocketboom 2.0 and the power of the vlog

We all heard that this past Monday was supposed to be the debut of Rocketboom 2.0 with new (if temporary) host Joanne Colan. Well Monday came and went, with the Rocketboom site being alternatively down or sporting a message saying the first show was going to be slightly delayed. OK, no problem. Things happen. We’ll wait.

Tuesday then came and, when I first saw the Quicktime box pop up I was hopeful. Finally we’d be able to see if Colan could hold her own and continue the brand name in her own manner. Except all that we saw was someone in a catcher’s mask careening past the desk. Hmm. This was accompianed by a message from co-producer Andrew Baron that he never realized just how much Amanda Congdon did to help the show get done and up for the viewing public. Self-actualization is so messy, isn’t it.

Finally yesterday Joanne Colan made her debut with a piece that contained mostly her and her accent walking around New York, attempting to trade items in much the same fashion as the One Red Paperclip guy. It was amusing in and of itself but I found myself being more disappointed than not with the show. That was not the fault of Colan, who exudes a self-confidence that, I think, is missing from so many other vloggers. No, my problems actually were in the lack of change in the show. I wished they had done something different with the set. The map-on-the-wall background is so very much associated with the former occupant of that chair it was almost distracting. I found myself wishing Baron and the others had spent some time rethinking the show from the ground up.

Then again sometimes I’m just cranky so that might explain part of why I had problems with it. Colan looks great and that accent is undeniable. And it makes sense to provide some brand continuity, but there’s a reason Sammy Hagar didn’t sing many of the David Lee Roth songs when he was with Van Halen. Each person in front of the camera or at the front of a band deserves to be able to set their own identity. Unfortunately with their desire to keep the look of Rocketboom they forget that the feel of Rocketboom would be completely different.

J-Pepp takes the Rocketboom saga – and a few other recent stories relating to vlogging – and wonders whether the medium is going mainstream. Driving right past his uncomfortable use of the word “manhandle”, Jeremy’s got a point. The most recent (by which I mean within the last six hours) story is the hiring of Irina Slutsky and Eddie Codel by Podtech, the company Robert Scoble just joined.

So does this mean that vlogging now has the potential to be big business? Could be. Maybe not. Things are moving so fast that the success they’re achieving might not last long as people’s attention spans move on to the next big thing. The good news is that the people doing this kind of thing are innovators and are incredibly bright, so the odds are good they’ll adapt. I think the point to remember is that it’s not actually important how “big” the business is and focus more on how well you’re serving the market you’re trying to and how easily you’re making yourself findable to people who haven’t yet found you. Therein lies success.

As an interesting sidenote, Tom “Two Screens” Biro told me he first learned of the signing of Slutsky and Codel by viewing the Flickr photo of Slutsky signing her contract. How’s that for an unlikely source.

TPMmuckraker July 13, 2006 09:00 AM

TPMmuckraker July 13, 2006 09:00 AM

Pretty much exemplifies the Christian ethics and values the GOP claims to hold so dear.

Center left making a push

Religion Taking A Left Turn?, Conservative Christians Watch Out: There’s A Big Churchgoing Group Seeking Political Power – CBS News

Check it out. There are more people out there than just me that think expressing Christian values in the political arena means more than just gay-bashing. This group actually thinks Christianity means helping the poor, protecting the environment and establishing a peaceful world.