“Sometimes helping is not throwing money at a problem”
A couple weeks ago we convened the third gathering of the first Global Connections Leadership Community. At each gathering we try to drill down on topics that are common to each church that helps them make not just incremental but exponential progress in their global missional efforts. This gathering we focused on partnerships and financial... Read More
Gamification 101
This week I attended two days of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (www.gdconf.com) to learn more behind the ideas of game design. Why game design? Let’s start by defining a game. Jane McGonigal defines a game as “unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle.” So think of golf. The objective is to put the... Read More
The Splendor of Cities
My buddy in Long Beach, Eric Marsh sent me this link—an op-ed by David Brooks in the New York Times. He highlights the benefit of cites from a new book by Edward Glaeser called Triumph of the City. Parenthetically, these same principles are found in To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City ... Read More
Nine Game Changers for Global Missions
A couple of months ago, Leadership Network released the first “Concept Paper” from the Global Connections Leadership Community, called Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions.” The paper outlines some prominent changes in the face of global missions. In previous times, global missions effectiveness was measured by the number of missionary pictures and the yarn that connected... Read More
200 Countries…200 Years….
Check out this amazing video about “the rise of the rest.” Hans Rosling uses thousands of data points to track the health and wealth of 200 nations over the past 200 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo. Watch what happens to China…India…Japan…the US. What data would you be interested in? A cool app for your desktop that employs the... Read More
Happy 63rd Anniversary Mom and Dad
On December 26, 1947 Boyd and Violet Swanson joined hands and said, “I do.” And after all these years…they are still full of life and full of love for one another. Thanks Mom and Dad!
What’s your online presence “Klout?”
I just got off of www.klout.com , a cool site that rates your online influence–a useful tool in the area of social media. Simply type in your Twitter user name…or the Twitter name of another you are interested in and Klout will indicate your influence. Klout not only gives you a numerical rating based on... Read More
A Good Story…Well Told
This young preacher builds a pretty good case for a 7 minute sermon! http://vimeo.com/16404771
Veterans Day 11-11-10
Today we honor all veterans and I want to my honor my son Jeff and father Boyd who served so faithfully. Dad served in the Pacific and was in the second landing party to enter Hiroshima after the dropping of the Atomic Bob. Jeff served in Baghdad
Chance Favors the Connected Mind….& Leadership Network
For the past several years Leadership Network (100X) has structured our gatherings… Leadership Communities, Innovation Jump-start Labs, etc.) around the premise that there is exponential creative value of bringing leaders into a single space over an extended period of time. It is through the cross-polinization of people and ideas where the breakthrough ideas happen. Good... Read More