The World As I See It

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. -CS Lewis

This is probably my favorite quote that I have found. It really speaks the truth in our life. Many times we don’t notice the things God is doing for us in times of happiness. We go about our daily lives and forget that God is always apart of it. When we come close to sin, we hear God speak to us. Still the small voice, and many times we don’t listen. We still fall away and choose a different path. Then the time comes when something drastic happens. In a time of hurting we hear God in full. We scream at him and ask him why, but then he brings us through to become stronger. We find out the true meaning for our pain. It was his “megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” His way of getting us to pay attention when we forget who he is. I feel that he “screams in our pains” not only to get us to pay attention, but at the grief he feels when we look away. This quote helps me remember that God is always there for us in the good and bad, and as much as we hate it during the time, it’s the bad times that shape who we become.

That’s why this is my favorite quote. What’s your favorite quote and why?

(photo by coffish)

Here’s the list of books currently on my reading list:

1. Crazy Love – Francis Chan (About halfway through)
2. Paradise Series – Ted Dekker
   • Showdown
   • Saint
   • Sinner
3. Put Your Dream To The Test – John Maxwell
   
4. Soul Cravings – Erwin McManus
   
5. Barbarian Way – Erwin McManus
   
6. Green – Ted Dekker
   
7. Alexandre Dumas Classics
   • The Three Musketeers
   • The Count of Monte Cristo
   • The Man In The Iron Mask
8. 10 Choices – James MacDonald
9. The Big Switch – Nicholas Carr
   
10. Obsessed – Ted Dekker
    
11. Skin – Ted Dekker
    
12. Adam – Ted Dekker
    
13. Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
    
14. Chasing Daylight – Erwin McManus
    
15. Uprising – Erwin McManus
    
16. Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
    
17. Lost Series – Ted Dekker
    • Chosen
    • Infidel
    • Renegade
    • Chaos
    • Lunatic
    • Elyon
18. Arabian Nights

As you can tell, I really like Ted Dekker’s books. I’m trying to mix new fiction, classics, and non-fiction so I can get a good mix. I’ll also probably throw in some Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway when I can. This list will probably last me a very long time, and it also will probably change as new books come out and school gets going again.

But enough about me, what’s on your reading list?

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. John 1: 35 – 37

The two disciples just followed Jesus. No questions asked. Nothing said. Just complete faith in John the Baptist’s words. In complete awe of the Lamb of God, they just leave the world as they know it behind. I wonder if we could do that today? Could I drop everything that I’m involved in to completely follow in Jesus’ footsteps? Could I leave my world behind at any moment? My computer, my schoolwork, my BlackBerry, my friends, my family, my whole life? Is all that so important that it comes before God? I know what the correct answer is, but can I actually live it?

What are some ways that we can keep God above everything else in our lives?

While I was reading in my Bible a couple nights ago (wishing I could get a reading bible), I came across this verse:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool… (Gen 3:8a)

This is written immediately after Adam and Eve first sinned, but it got me thinking:

What would it be like to walk with God?

One can assume by this verse that God had walked in the Garden before. Adam and Eve knew that it was God coming in the Garden, so they went and hid. Could you imagine what it would be like to not have to hide and walk with God in the middle of the Garden of Eden? To stand face to face with God and have a conversation with him? Many times in the Old Testament people have conversations directly with God. I’m not sure I’d know what to say if I talked to the creator of all things. One thing is for sure, it would be a moment of extreme joy to be able to see and hear the true God.

(photo by Powi)

The writings held in the Bible are amazing works of literature. They have been passed down for many years and the stories are very well known. The words are powerful and can completely change lives.

Today at Biltmore Baptist Church, Marquis Laughlin brought the book of Revelation to life. Marquis Laughlin has a unique gift of memorizing whole books of scripture and then reciting them in an intriguing way. He essentially acts out the story held within that book. It is amazing to watch and listen to him bring these books to life. He can be found online here.

For a while I have been wanting to have what I call a true reading bible, and listening to Marquis today reminded me of how much I would enjoy a bible like this. To me, a true reading bible would hold a true translation, but would not have any chapter or verse distinctions, section headings, or other notations. These notations are all helpful for studying and breaking apart a section of scripture, but I feel that these sometimes take away from the intent and the power of the literature in the Bible.

A popular thing to do is to try and the read the Bible in one year. I think having a Bible without any extra notations would provide an interesting read and allow people not to be distracted when trying to purely read the Bible. There is a time and a place to dig into a section of scripture and to use the extra resources that Bibles today provide, but I think that having a reading Bible like this would provide a different perspective and allow us to have a different kind of insight into the way the scriptures were originally written.

So what do you think? Would you enjoy a Bible like this? Would you use it often?

(picture by almoko)

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I received an invitation yesterday to test out Lazyfeed. First off:

What is Lazyfeed??

Lazyfeed is new web application designed to help people discover new RSS feeds in realtime. The user can insert their Twitter, Delicious, and Flickr accounts. You can also connect any RSS feed from anywhere. Lazyfeed will then extract any tag/hashtag you have in any of your accounts and give you a list of feeds/posts based on those tags. This appears on the bottom of the page. In the middle of the page, there are the top 10 trending topics which update automatically. Above that is a search bar where you can search any topic/tag that is interesting to you. This will give a list of posts that have that tag. You can then add this tag to your topics to check back later. These topics are updated automatically. It is a very simple website and very easy to jump right into it.

Things I LIke About Lazyfeed

The first thing I like about Lazyfeed is the fact that it all is in realtime. Everything updates automatically, so there is no need to refresh anything. Of course this means for more popular tags (music, technology, business, twitter) it will be updating almost all the time, although, I’m not quite sure how it updates. It seems that it says there is something new, but the latest is from hours ago.

Another thing I think is great is how it searches through your profiles to find the topics that you talk about. This makes is personalized. Obviously, the more information you have tagged, the more information you will get in return. I also like being able to discover new blogs and information in the topics I want to learn more about. Lazyfeed makes this very easy, and I believe is the main part of the site.

What Can Be Improved?

There are some things that can be improved, and I’m sure will be as Lazyfeed grows. The first is the organization. You can bookmark tags and pages, but they both go into the same sidebar. I would like to see a way to separate those. I save a page for a different reason than I save a tag for. I mostly save a page in order to go back later and to share it with other people. I also would like to see all of your feeds in one place.

There is no share feature throughout all of Lazyfeed. In today’s day and age, sharing information with your network is huge. It already takes information from your Twitter, Flickr, and Delicious account, why can’t you add more information to those accounts?? I think this feature needs to be added soon. I know I can click through to the site and then send a link, but I think a feature to post to all of your networks directly from the site would increase the value of Lazyfeed.

Overall, I think Lazyfeed is a great way to discover new blogs and information based on the topics you are interested in. It consolidates searching for multiple topics into one place. I can’t wait to see what features get added into the future.

The First Question: What is a Social Controller?

A Social Controller is a program that allows the user to not only manage their social networks but to also publish information to those social networks. This would include many social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, etc.

The Second Question: What do we have now?

Twitter Apps

There are a couple very good programs that help manage your Twitter followers. Tweetdeck, Twhirl, and Seesmic Desktop are powered by Adobe AIR. These all allow users to create groups, find tweets where you are mentioned, direct message, and search Twitter. Twhirl and Seesmic Desktop allow the use of multiple Twitter accounts. Tweetdeck allows users to update their Facebook status at the same time as their Twitter status. Seesmic Desktop can pull data from your Facebook profile and display it alongside of the Twitter feed. These programs all do a great job of making Twitter easier to manage. They allow a way to manage and publish to Twitter.

Social Aggregators

The most well known social aggregator is FriendFeed. FriendFeed pulls information from many other social networks and displays them on one feed. The networks that can be used include Twitter, Pandora, Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Google Reader shared items, any blog with an RSS feed, and many others. You can also post messages on FriendFeed. Anything that comes to your FriendFeed can be automatically sent to Twitter as well. Some people swear by FriendFeed, and some people do not. I personally am one who does not. The downside to me is the lack of publishing ability and the fact that the aggregation process is very slow. I might share a feed in Google Reader and it will not show up to FriendFeed until much later that day. I can post the same thing to Twitter and (barring any server issues) it will be sent to all of my followers immediately. A discussion can take place immediately, not many hours after the fact.

The First Social Controllers

The first social controller that I tried was the web browser Flock. This web browser is made by Mozilla and attempts to create a social network sidebar while being able to surf the web. You can connect Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, RSS feeds, e-mail, and more in the left sidebar. There is also a web-clipboard that can hold links and pictures. Another feature is a simple blog editor based in the browser. Only one Twitter account is allowed to be signed in at once and managing the single account is very difficult as well. Publishing is fairly simple, but managing seems to be very difficult.

Another social controller that I have recently found is called EventBox. EventBox is a native Mac program that supports Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, RSS feeds, Flickr, Digg, and Reddit. It appears to only allow one Twitter account and you cannot create groups with this. Like Flock, EventBox is very easy to publish to these sites all in one place, but managing is not simple.

The Final Question: Where is the Ultimate Social Controller?

The Ultimate Social Controller would be a single program that streamlines publishing and managing of multiple social networks. This would include managing Twitter with groups, searches, mentions, etc. It would also be able to support multiple Twitter accounts. The home page of Facebook would be displayed here where the user could see and comment/like on the feed. Users would be able to upload pictures from Flickr/Picasa, and they could see pictures others have uploaded. Videos could be uploaded directly to YouTube and users would be able to view the videos they subscribed to. Users could see their RSS feeds and share/comment on posts directly from the program. Blogs could be written and uploaded directly in this program.

This would be my Ultimate Social Controller. Some people believe that Google Wave might revolutionize internet communication and could become the ultimate social controller. I, for one, cannot wait to see what becomes of this.

What would you like to see in your Social Controller?

Psychology in Marketing: Emotions

People experience emotions every day.  People are happy or sad.  They’re content or disgruntled.  They can be pleased or angry.  People also use the act of reason to try to understand something, but reason cannot be used for everything.  “The function of emotion is to make up for the insufficiency of reason…Reasoning tells consumers a great deal about the features of a product, but it is the link between reason and emotion that decides the actual trade-offs that are made” (O’Shaugnessy 27).  If the marketing gives a positive emotional experience to the consumer they will likely take notice.  The question now is how to stimulate emotions. 

“Anything that concerns us has the potential to arouse our emotions and, as Margalit says, emotions engage us with their objects in such a way as to make them lose their neutrality:  they become marked by being lovable, disgusting, exciting fearful and so on” (O’Shaughnessy 27).  Every person has a set of values determined by their background and their personality.  Someone raised in the United States will likely have very different values than someone raised in another part of the world.  “Knowing what potential buyers desire, fear and envy…enables advertisers to tailor message for maximum effectiveness” (Day 21). 

These values in your target audience must first be understood in order to create a positive emotional response to the product.  “Values open up a little-understood Pandora’s box of the human mind…values are one of a handful of customer ‘hot buttons’.  If you can identify and ‘press’ them in your promotion and service, you will gain competitive advantage” (Alder 56).  These hot buttons create different ways to touch people and to market a product.  Alder lists these as sensory, aspiration, cause, belonging, and family.  These hot buttons will be discussed further in an upcoming post.

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The human brain is divided into two hemispheres: the right and the left.  The left hemisphere mostly controls logic, reason, and linguistic abilities.  The right hemisphere more controls emotion and facial recognition.  Many people try to label people who are more logical as “left-brained” and those who are more artistic as “right-brained.”  In reality, psychologists say that both parts of our brain are important and one side is not more dominant.  This is also very important in marketing.  Harry Alder explains this best, stating:

Successful advertising happens when the consumer is influenced to buy the product or service.  If we consider what goes on in a consumer’s mind in making purchase decisions, there are two important elements.  First, the person must have a logical or rational reason to buy what is being offered.  Second, he or she must be motivated actually to buy it.  So if you want to influence the buying decision you have to appeal to both the left and right sides of the brain.  Traditional left-brain advertising can easily adapt to right-brain appeal by stirring up emotion and providing added motivation to buy: “It’s only half the price and the sale ends tomorrow – I’d better rush out and get it before it’s too late.”  Urgency adds emotion.  In fact research seems to confirm that most consumer decision are based on emotion rather than logic.

Knowing that most decisions are based more on emotion, we must find the best way to cultivate those emotions.

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