Communication implications for those who “live their lives on mobile”

From the Quote & Commentary Series:

Quote:

"Entrepreneurs in places like Cairo live in chaos and therefore, are not afraid of chaos. Out of that often comes innovation, she says. "Secondly, kids in many of these countries don't have much broadband, so they bypassed computers and live their lives on mobile. I expect to see great leaps in mobile coming from those places. "From Marco della Cava, "A not-so-crazy goal to find, nurture talent" USA Today, 7-16-2013

Commentary:

Though the immediate challenge is for missions and how they can use mobile technology to communicate the gospel, following are four implications for all church communicators.

Implications of increased mobile/smart phone use:

1. Realize the computer-based communication is often ignored. If it isn't a text message, it may not be read and it doesn't matter who it comes from (this means pastors and other church leaders—you position matters little in online communication). For people who communicate primarily through their mobile phone, sitting down to a computer, turning it on, finding and reading email through the sea of spam that floods email in boxes,  is something they rarely do. And this isn't all age-related—it's more a technology preference, so check with your audience to see what they prefer.
2. No-brainer: make sure your website is mobile-friendly. This doesn't mean you can see a tiny site on a smart phone and can pinch it to make it bigger. Your website has to be responsive, which means it automatically optimizes for reading on any device used to use it: phone, tablet, laptop or desktop.
3. Consider creating a content-rich, minimal to no graphics, mobile-friendly site with WordPress. Most WordPress templates are already optimized and need no more work on your part to make them accessible on any device. Even if your main church site is a complex, graphics –intensive one that you don't have the time or money to change now, start a blog on a WordPress site and link to it. Even if you don't publish it to the world or link it to your church site—this is a great way to practice creating a site and it's all free at http://www.wordpress.com.
4. You can talk directly to people through podcasts on mobile phones. Podcast listening is dramatically increasing especially on smart phones and experts predict continued growth.  Create podcasts to niche ministries in your church—encourage workers, challenge youth, read to the homebound. You may need to show people how to use them, but the one-to-one potential impact is worth the effort.

We're in for another big shift in communications and our God who sees the beginning and the end and is surprised by nothing in-between is still ready to give us wisdom and strength in the mobile communication world.