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Orlando...Austin...Atlanta.....and next, Uganda.

Ok, I'm diving back in to the blog.  It's been way too long.  My lame excuse: I've been running 200MPH since a few weeks before Easter with writing, travel, etc... and blogging just hasn't been that high on my priority list.  Sorry faithful folks.

So anyway...  Rather than try to knock out a bunch of amazing blog posts, I thought I'd throw out a few random thoughts of what's been happening over these past few weeks.  Here we go:

• Easter.  This year's Easter weekend The Orchard was a record-breaking weekend!  Our teams did an amazing job and I think my head is still spinning after a HUGELY successful Helicopter Easter Egg Drop.  All I can say is WOW.  If you missed the video review, click here.
  
  
• Orlando.  Had a great time at Exponential in Orlando.  Exponential is sort of a like a big family reunion (but without the weird uncle and the funky potato salad).  This is actually the largest church planting conference in North America and one that I would definitely encourage all church planters to attend in 2010.  Had fun teaching a session with Gary Lamb (did he really say "wanker"??) and then participating in some great conversations in the Exponential Lounge with guys like Erwin McManus, Francis Chan, Dave Ferguson, Craig Groeschel, Matt Chandler, and others. 
  
  
• Austin. After a couple of days home I found myself in the amazing city of Austin, TX to be a part of Q.  Q is one of my favorite gatherings of the year.  It's small and all about influencing and changing culture.  Think TED format.  Loved connecting with a bunch of friends - both new and old.  People like Kem Meyer, Mike Foster, Jeff Shinabarger, Tim Stevens, Alan Hirsch, Kyle Zimmerman, John Burke, Rick McKinley, Chris Seay, Gabe Lyons, Mel McGowan, Charles Lee, and a bunch of other amazing people. Next year, Q will be here - in Chicago!
  
  
• Austin II.  All I can say is - what a cool city.  And with a slogan that's all about keeping it "weird" what do you expect??  Check out a few photos I posted in Facebook.
  
  
• Jackie Huba.  Writer, Author, Speaker, Blogger, Marketing Guru-ess, co-founder of the Society for Word of Mouth.  Forbes calls her work "the word of mouth gospel."  Anyway....  Had a chance to grab lunch with Jackie while in Austin.  That was worth the trip alone.  If you don't follow her twitter you need to. 
  
  
• Atlanta.  Orange.  It's THE premier and the BEST family ministry conference in the flippin' universe.  Loved being a part of this and having the opportunity to share The Orchard's story and some thoughts/ideas on the topic of navigating change with a room full of Lead Pastors and Senior Leaders.  Just wish I could have stuck around for more than a few hours, but was glad to be able to hang with a few of our staff who were attending and introduce them to some killer Korean BBQ. 
  
  
• Uganda.  In a couple of weeks.  More on this later, but looking forward to getting my heart messed up by this trip. 
  
  
• Study.  It's what I should be doing right now.  So I'm done.  Hopefully back in the groove of blogging.  We'll see.  Thanks for the encouragement folks.

All You Need is a Good Idea!

I'm excited to introduce to you a new author by the name of Jay Heyman!   Jay is the author of a  new book entitled, All You Need is a Good Idea!. 

I had a chance to read Jay's book flying back from Orange County a couple weeks ago and I couldn't stop underlining, scribbling, and making notes all over the margins.  It's a great book filled with lots of practical stories and advice from a guy who has actually done it!

With that said, I recently had a chance to shoot a few questions over to Jay about his book.  There's some great insight here and I really appreciate Jay taking the time to respond! 

Jay - first and foremost...  Mac or PC?

Mac. I work with art directors and historically they much prefer the graphic capabilities of Macs, although the two platforms are getting more similar, as they pluck off good ideas from each other. I still get a kick out of installing software and seeing three pages of instructions for the PC and only three sentences for the Mac.

Who did you write this book for?

According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses make up 99.7 per cent of all  employer firms. My book is written for theses small businesses, for what I call the lieutenants of industry, as opposed to the captains. Smaller businesses often don’t have the resources and large staff to develop their marketing ideas. All You Need Is A Good Idea! will help them learn to create the ideas they need to stand out in the marketplace, build market share, get publicity, appear larger than they really are and make their competition nervous…while actually having fun.

My book provides a (hopefully) comprehensive guide from generating the first fuzzy notion to creating the final good idea. In a phrase, it is designed to help small companies learn to make their business conspicuous.

Your book is entitled, All You Need is a Good Idea!  Why "good" and not "great" or better yet... "PERFECT"?

While you are waiting for the “world’s greatest” idea, you will stand frozen in apprehension, immobilized by anxiety. You will find yourself conscientiously discarding all the ideas you create, judging them as not being good enough, or a little trite, or not quite clever enough. You will never satisfy yourself sufficiently to actually use one of them. Even President Obama recently commented “We will not let the pursuit of perfection stand in the way of achievable goals.” And he may not even have read my book.

Jay, you make a great point about how a good idea doesn't necessarily require a large marketing budget.  In fact, you even take it a step further and suggest that having a good idea backed by a huge media budget could potentially be a problem.  Why is that?

Too often a hefty advertising budget means you may be tempted to settle for conservative and safe communications, in the hope that the weight of the media will help the message break through. A good idea backed by a huge media budget would actually be wonderful. It is the absence of an idea, the reliance on the clout of the media that is a waste of dollars. (And you can name your own Super Bowl commercials that unfortunately fit this description.)

What do we need to be very clear about before coming up with a good idea?

Being clever for the sake of being clever is never the right approach. You must first thoroughly analyze whom you want to be talking to (your target audience) and what you are trying to convince them of (your strategy). If you are not clear about your destination, how will you ever know you have gotten there?

What are some common enemies to coming up with a good idea?

Committees. Settling for your first idea. Falling in love with a headline. Left-brain management types with colorful charts and imposing graphs that use quantitative methods to make qualitative judgments. The fear that you do not have all the information you need. (Just relax and memorize the Albert Einstein quote I put in the front of my book. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”)

Jay - thanks again for sharing some great insights with my readers!  

Buy the book here.

Visit Jay's blog here.

Thanks for the reminder Bob!

Made to Stick

In case you haven't noticed, I've had the book, Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath on my "Currently Reading" list for a long time now.  I've started and stopped, started and stopped and started and stopped.  Hate that!

But now, I've started AGAIN and have not stopped.  (And don't get me wrong, I wasn't stopping because the book was bad or boring.  Actually, quite the opposite.  I wanted to devote some solid time to reading through the entire book instead of trying to fit it in little by little.)

So with that said, let me say LOUD and CLEAR that this is a book that EVERY communicator/pastor/teacher/leader/CEO/marketer/and anyone else who has a message that they believe needs to STICK with people, should read!

The book examines why some ideas seem to STICK and SURVIVE and others don't.  The authors expound on these six principles of sticky ideas throughout the book:

Simplicity - Creating ideas that are both simple and profound.

Unexpectedness - We need to violate people's expectations.  For our idea to endure, we must generate interest and curiosity. 

Concreteness - Ideas must be explained in terms of human actions and sensory information.  We tend to gravitate towards ambiguous to the point of being meaningless.  People remember concrete ideas and data.  Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it.

Credibility - Sticky ideas have to carry their own credentials.  We need to find ways to help people test our ideas for themselves. 

Emotions - People will care about our ideas when we help them feel something.

Stories - Hearing stories help motivate people to act on our ideas.

As I'm reading the book I can't help but think of Andy Stanley's book, Communicating for Change (Me, We, God, You, We.)  See my review here.  The parallels are amazing.  Both should be in every communicator's library. 

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Made to Stick Blog

Communicating for Change by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones

Andy Stanley's Blog - Oh wait...He doesn't have one.  C'mon man....

I like Ikea, but...

Mark Malkoff Lives in Ikea for a week.

He also visited 171 Starbucks in less than 24 hours in NYC.

I want his job. 

Will It Blend?

Blending an iPhone.

A sin?  Pretty close.

Clever marketing?  Absolutely. 

And oh yeah, be sure to watch the EZ Cheese.  Yikes.

Compliments of the folks over at Blendtec - commercial quality appliances for your home.

Confessions of a blue jean wearin', Starbucks addicted pastor

It's our new series launching Easter weekend at The Orchard. 

This is the front of the marketing piece that will be hitting 25,000 mailboxes sometime between now and Easter weekend.  This year we are doing four weekend gatherings (Sat. 4:30pm & 7pm; Sun. 9am & 10:45am) with a HUGE Easter egg drop (via a helicopter!) on Saturday at 6pm.  Can't wait!

Now I just have to find something to confess.  Might be hard... 

Not. 

And oh yeah!  Special thanks to a couple of authors (Craig & Mark) for the inspiration behind the title.

Thanks too to my friends, Kenny Eicher and the blogless Dan Andersen, for the collaboration and great job on the photo/design. 

How to Hit A Moving Target

BusinessWeek recently gave five guidelines for creating competitive advantage in an article entitled, "How To Hit A Moving Target."  Some good stuff to chew on for both church and business environments.

Here are a few of them with a little "Scott Hodge Commentary" added in:

1. DON'T JUST GET BIGGER, GET UNIQUE.
   Love this!  It's easy to copy and imitate.  What is it that makes YOUR church different from every other "community church" around town?  Do you have a unique culture or are you just a franchise?
   
   
2. WHY COMPETE?  CREATE NEW MARKETS.
   This is good...  Already commented on this recently, but worth being reminded of the fact that there really shouldn't be a whole lot of competition amongst churches - especially if we're all attempting to create environments for people who are not currently in church.  Seems to me that the churches most concerned with competition are the ones chasing after churched people...
   
   
3. OBSESS ABOUT CUSTOMERS, NOT RIVALS.
   In our local paper there is a weekly "church" section where they feature the bio's of local churches in the area.  Part of the feature is each church answering the question of what they consider to be "most valuable".  The typical answers:  "God's Word", "The Bible", "Great Fellowship", "Our rich history", etc... 
   
   Sadly, I don't recall seeing one church claiming PEOPLE as their most valuable priority.  HELLO!?!?  Perhaps this is why our community is 70%+ unchurched.   
   
   (I know this has nothing to do with rivalry, but I'm pointing out what feels like some really messed up priorities.  Afterall, what is the PURPOSE behind the Bible to begin with??  Just to have it and feel good about it??  Doesn't it all come down to spreading God's message of love and acceptance to PEOPLE?)
   
   
4. GET PERSONAL.
   Does your organization feel more "professional" than it does "personal?"  (And I'm not talking about operating in a "small church mentality"...) 

The constant question for every growing church is, "How do we create smaller environments while continuing to grow and reach more people?"  For us, the obvious answer seems to be small groups.  For you it may be something else.  But how do we continue to give a "personal" touch while still expanding and reaching more people?

Thanks to John Moore at Brand Autopsy for the article link.

Passionate Story Telling

I'm sitting in Starbucks eavsdropping....er umm...overhearing a manager sharing Starbuck's story and strategy to a new employee. 

And I love what I'm hearing! 

She is talking about how Starbucks is all about serving the best coffee available and how their goal is to create a great environment in hopes that people will make this their "third place."  She's also telling a condensed version of the Starbucks "story" - even quoting founder & CEO, Howard Schultz.   

No empty rhetoric here.  Pure passion!  No doubt about that... She obviously believes in this place and the story behind it. 

This is the type of conversation that I hope is happening today all over offices, homes, schools, neighborhoods, etc... as people from our church community are passionately telling their friends about The Orchard and the types of environments that have helped them step forward in their journey of following Jesus.

I'm reminded that a church can have the best marketing, the most clever advertising campaigns and the greatest sounding mission statement and still not be the type of community that people want to experience.   But add passion and a great story into the mix and you've got the ingredients for something pretty incredible. 

What are people saying about your church or organization?  Are they passionately telling their story - and YOURS?

itchy boogers

Who thinks of this stuff?

Saw this downtown Chicago while doing a video shoot the other day.  The sad part about it is that it actually made me laugh.  God help me...