Thoughts about Nothing*com

Question: within the past two weeks, what is the best blog you have followed?

Mine: Down Hill Both Ways
http://downhillbothways.com

This is Abraham Pipers second blog project (he still has twentytwowords.com which is a great idea as well).

In DHBW, Abraham takes us on a journey through the streets of Minneapolis and writes about his experience along the way. If you want a great introduction to his writing, check out this post. If you want to be completely inspired, check out this post.
I love the way he writes, his stories are very clever, and he has a very unique way of engaging his content.
You should definitely check this blog out right now.

What say you? Currently: What is your favorite blog?

*kyle

Today I am changing the name of this blog to Umbrella of Grace, because today I need you to lend me that umbrella and have it cover this post.
First off you have to understand that I am not married, and for that matter am very single (dangit) and so I do not claim to have any of this figured out. You will see why this is important in a minute. Mainly I just like to ask questions, prime the pump a little bit, and then stoke the fire.

Let me muse with you a little bit here…Twitter is powerful, there are some really cool people that I have met, that you have met, and that we will continue to meet. I mean pretty much everyone that is reading this now has come to find out about this blog through twitter. You literally can have friends in every state and even out of the country.

There are some downsides of twitter. One of the biggest is spam. Porn spam, Phishing spams, and even tuna spam (that stuff is nasty tasting) have all hit us at one time or another through DM’s and followers. This is an obvious flaw of twitter, but there is also another thing that I find interesting/concerning about twitter: Inappropriate Relationships.

This is not coming from personal experience, more through observation. I can see twitter being used as a new tool of relationships that move to far. Maybe it is through DM’s or how others are perceiving these relationships on twitter. This seems to be a big gray area and I have not heard a lot of people talk about it. You do hear the discussion about the dangers of inappropriate emails or even facebook messages, but twitter seems to fly under the radar (pun intended).

For me I do not think twice about who I am talking with. But the more I started to think about this the more I realized that if I was married would my wife have a problem with me caring on a conversation through DM’s or through @ replies with a lady, and for that matter a lady that she does not know. I let the situation run even further and thought about how easy it would be for me to hide this. Knowing that I have my own account and have my own little world on twitter things could get out of control pretty quickly, and yet everything started out so innocent.

Couple of things that I would like to hear from you on:

Have you noticed this as an issue?

Is this a big deal?

What is the line of appropriate Twitter Relations?

*kyle

Sorry for the up the noise look, but I had this idea and recorded this qik video.

Check out Tony’s post here

What would it mean for you to unplug from things that zappppp your energy?

*kyle

You would think silence would be a welcomed break from the noise that is life, for me it is the opposite, it is unbearable, and I hate it.

But the very thing that I cannot live without, Noise, is slowing zapping all my energy out of me.

What is bringing you down right now?

*kyle

I am making a big assumption here, maybe the first question should be along the lines of “Is leadership conferences failing?”
It depends on how you define failure. Failure for me at times is over stimulation. I can read blogs or watch TV with the best of them, but when it becomes a failure for me is when I become so over stimulated I am overwhelmed. There are times when I have to put myself in “time-out” from media just because I have exposed myself to so much stuff. I almost feel like I was abusing the tools because I was absorbing so much. In this context for me, failure is over exposer and mass quantity.

In this context leadership conferences are failing. Do you become a better leader because you have memorized every word of John Maxwell or because you have put what you have learned into practice? Or how about this, are you an expert on blogging because you read blogs all day or because you have taken the time to blog and have grown an engaging blog community? I would say the second option is true in both circumstances. So why do we equate more with success? Its like trying to open up a grocery store next to a super wal-mart, you have no shot at winning or being successful. Or to bring it back to church world, its like starting a church plant a block away from another church, seems to be kind of working against each other.

Perry Noble announced that his church, New Springs, will be hosting a one day Leadership conference featuring these speakers:

• Steven Furtick
• Mark Driscoll
• Judah Smith
• Francis Chan
• Jud Wilhite
• and me!  (Perry Noble)

Now that is a serious lineup, and to be honest I would love to hear all of these guys speak. I would be there if I could. But when it really comes down to it all this is not the only conference or for that matter leadership conference going on in the next 5 months. If someone told me today that I could go to these conferences and they would pay for me (hint hint) I would definitely go. But in all reality that is not a reality and therefore I am left at home hoping to be a better leader and grow in my leadership. Where the failure seems to be happening is the flood of conferences and the disconnect between young leaders and current leaders.

I do feel like (and I have heard others say this as well) conferences are starting to become out of date. Look at Willow Creek, that place was a conference machine. Now they are down to about two conferences a year. This trend is starting to be noticed by others as well. Not a coincidence that online conferences are starting to appear as well.

With this announcement of another leadership conference that I will not be able to attend I am feeling left out and wondering what I am missing. You know, like when you don’t get invited to a party that everyone else is going to?  Difficult thing for me is that I feel like I am missing a chance to learn, grow, and network, unfortunately it will cost me close to $500 to do all of this, and that is just for one day.

Are Leadership Conferences failing?

*kyle

Last night was the 82nd annual Academy Awards,
or The Oscars.
As millions sat at home and watched about two thousand (complete guess sounds good though) people filled the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. The separation was obvious not only from the screens that separated us but the movies and culture that we were watching. As I sat there watching these awards and trying to figure out how I had never seen 75% of the movies that were up for awards I could not help but think one of two things:

1) Either I am very uncultured
2) There is a huge disconnect between hollywood & America

The answer is probably both, but an industry that has only people to thank for taking them to where they are today has became out of touch with common people.
Continue Reading…

Sunday provides us a day to relax, reflect, and refuel. On Sunday’s I like to sit back and ask a couple of questions. Maybe it sounds a little like those awkward games you play with people you do not know so that you can get to know each other better. Lets just call Question(s) for You.

You can answer them all or just one….

1) When was the last time you watched Saturday Night Live for more then 30 minutes and laughed?

2) One book besides the Bible that you could not live without?

3) And the Oscar goes to….who will win best movie tonight at the Oscar’s, Hurt Locker or Avatar?

Answer them all or just one….these are questions for you.

*kyle

Just enjoy this genius kid. Don’t like all of his song choices (on other videos) but man is he creative.