Tag Archives: books

How Have You Been Celebrating National Library Week?

Posted on by

Happy National Library Week! This week, April 3rd through 9th, has been National Library Week.

Here’s my library:

That’s the North County Regional branch of the Charlotte Mecklenburg library.

It’s also my weekly destination for dropping off and picking up books I’ve placed on hold throughout the week.

Visiting the local library is a long-standing tradition with me. As a small boy, I remember with fondness the bi-monthly visits to the branch library in the next county. We were limited to checking out 20 books at a time, and it was a rare week when I didn’t meet that quota.

As soon as the car pulled in the driveway, I would race into our house and begin reading through my treasure trove of books.

In my early years, I would often have them all read in a matter of days. As I got older and the books got longer, it might take the whole two-week period to read them.

Then there’s school libraries, from middle school to high school to college to graduate school. More treasures of a deeper and longer-lasting sort.

When our children came along, I introduced them to the joy of reading and the local library. In each city we’ve lived in, one of the very first visits we made after moving was to stop by the library and pick up a library card. Since our four children were born four years apart, that’s a long time of library visits!

I’m proud to say that as they have grown up, and with children of their own, reading and visiting the library is still important in their lives. And of course, any grandchild visiting Nina and GrandBob is going to have a selection of the latest age-appropriate books from our library waiting!

Whether you visit in person or virtually, the library can help you access the resources and services you need. Libraries have been adapting to our changing world by expanding their resources and services. Through access to technology, multimedia content, and educational programs, libraries offer opportunities for everyone to explore new worlds and become their best selves.

You may or may not be in the habit of reading, and of utilizing your local library for research, pleasure reading, or other uses.

If you are, I know you are grateful for everything you find there.

If you are not, you are missing out on a vast, free resource. Don’t let another day go by until you “check it out.”

Advertisement

The Power of Brand Perception

Posted on by

Your BRAND is the perception of your organization that lives in the minds of your audiences.

Every interaction your audience has with your church or organization forms thoughts, feelings, and perceptions in their minds. In this understanding of a BRAND, everything speaks—business cards, website, words and posture, interaction with volunteers and staff. All of these things contribute to your audience’s perception of you.

With a strong brand, you communicate effectively and consistently across all communication channels.

The branding process is one way to fully leverage the hard work of getting clear about your vision, seeing it come to life in all of your communication.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Branding Faith by Phil Cooke

Have you hit a wall with your church, ministry or non-profit organization? In spite of a genuine calling, an exceptional team and solid investment in the vision, have you noticed that the spark never catches fire? Media and marketing expert Phil Cooke wants every ministry to ask, “Who are we?”

By identifying what makes your organization different from the thousands clamoring for attention, you can get your message heard. Cooke has consulted with many of the most recognized churches and non-profits in the world, and in Branding Faith: Why Some Ministries Impact Culture and Others Don’t, he shares his road-tested strategies for using media and marketing to make your mark on people’s minds and hearts. Whatever the size of your organization, his helpful hints and insider know-how will give you the tools to set your ministry’s strategies ablaze.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION – The Power of Brand Perception

The brand is what people think about your church. Your brand is what people think about your church, the expectation, the idea, they have. It’s not what you have. It’s what they have.

Branding, at its heart, is about making an emotional connection. If it’s what people think, we want to make that emotional connection there. People fall in love with brands. They trust them.

Brand is how people feel about us. There’s that emotional connection that’s built there.

Auxano Navigator Bryan Rose shares two two ways to think about your brand: “There are actually two brands, the big “B” brand, and the small “b” brand. Let’s define the two. The big “B” brand represents the impression that your church leaves in someone’s mind as a result of a total experience with the ministry. Brand is every interaction that occurs on behalf of the church. Person to person, environments, culture, the worship experience, social media presence, the posts, and their responses.”

All of those things come together as the big “B” brand. So, your church’s brand, the big “B” brand, lives in someone’s mind, lives in the people’s mind, and it’s a result of all these experiences. 

The key to effective branding is that a successful brand isn’t what you say it is; it’s what they say it is.

Telling an effective story about your church, ministry, project, or even yourself begins with understanding the power of perception. In a media-driven culture, perception can be even more important than reality because, with the advent of technology, word travels fast.

Whether it’s a simple email message that is continually forwarded exponentially to everyone in your address book, a viral video that’s distributed through the Web, or the convenience of cell phones, in the digital age, it’s tough to keep a lid on bad news.

The influence of the mass media in our culture is changing everything, and “perception” is the language spoken by modern media. In a world when sound bites heavily influence the political process, the unique characteristics of mass media now affect every aspect of our lives.

It’s not about facts; it’s about perception.

In today’s media-saturated culture, who you are becomes less important that how you’re perceived. When researchers study the process of communication, they realize that the message being sent is not always the message being received. For a variety of reasons, few communicated messages actually arrive with the same intentions, information, and impact.

The art of perception can be also be used to promote positive projects, people, values, or ideas. In spite of its abuse, the power of perception can be utilized for good if we know how to activate it in our lives. The way to do that is to consider your audience before crafting your message.

Phil Cooke, Branding Faith

A NEXT STEP

Because it’s not the message you send, it’s the message that’s received that counts.

As author Phil Cooke states, “It doesn’t matter how brilliant your sermons are; if your attention is misunderstood by the listener, then you’ve failed to communicate.”

He recommends that leaders start at the receiving end first to make sure your message has the best chance of being received properly.

In other words, don’t begin with your message; begin with your audience.

In advance of your next speaking opportunity, consider using questions like the following to help understand your audience:

  • Who is my audience? You have to think like an audience member – what would they want to receive from a speaker?
  • What are their stakes? Do you know why they are present? Chances are the outcome that they are looking for is not connected to your goals.
  • How can you repackage your presentation? Without changing your core message, what can you revise in order to align with your audience’s needs?
  • How can you redefine the expectations of your audience to meet yours?
  • What language and visual style is your audience expecting?
  • Why is your core message interesting for your audience?
  • What is the best medium for your core message to come through? Are you better off talking without visual aids, or are they appropriate?
  • What “gifts” can you give to impact your audience? Your presentation happens, and then? A strong core message may be remembered, but wouldn’t it be better if your audience changed their behavior by integrating some of the knowledge and ideas from your presentation in their daily lives?

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 109-1, released January 2019.

 

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

You Can’t Read All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning

Posted on by

Part One of my “Reading Week” at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020

One of my greatest passions is reading.

I developed this passion at an early age, and have continued to strengthen it over the years. In addition to being my passion, reading is also an important part of my role as Vision Room Curator at Auxano. In that role, I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix every two weeks. SUMS Remix is a modified book excerpt in which I develop a solution to a common problem faced by church leaders from 3 different books. So, preparing SUMS Remix in 2019 alone means I have gone through over 100 leadership and organization development books to arrive at the 76 used in producing 26 issues this year.

Other parts of my role requires reading current trends books, used for social media posting and content writing.

Then there’s my passion area of Guest Experience, in which I am constantly researching customer service books for application for churches. I’m building The Essential Guest Experience Library.

And, as many readers know, I am a Disney Fanatic – which extends to building a Disney library, currently over 405 volumes and growing!

Finally, there’s just the pure pleasure of reading – an almost nightly hour or two in the late evening reading a wide range of books, both brand new and classics, fiction and nonfiction.

Add those 5 categories all together, and by the end of 2019 I will have added 268 books to my library, and brought home another 110 books from the library. 

First, a disclaimer: I did not read all 378 cover to cover. With such an immense (and pleasurable) task in front of me, and knowing there is more to my job than reading, I have to resort to some method of finding out what an author is trying to say without reading the whole book. There’s dozens of that total in which I only read the “highlights,” following the methods below.

To get the most out of a book in the least amount of time, try this strategy:

  • Read the title.
  • Read the introduction
  • Read the Table of Contents
  • Flip through the material, scanning the chapter titles and subheadings. Note the words that stand out as bold, different colors, underlined, or italicized.
  • Examine the illustrations, captions, charts and diagrams. Read the pull-quotes and sidebars.
  • Scan through the index looking for buzz words that interest you.
  • Read the first chapter.
  • Flip through the book and read the first sentence of each paragraph in each chapter. In a well written and edited book, the most important sentence containing the topic is usually the first sentence of the paragraph — but not always.
  • Read the last chapter. If there is an executive summary, read it.
  • Read any other information on the cover or dust jacket.

If the book captures your attention after doing the above tasks, then by all means dive right in!

The converse is true: if a book doesn’t capture your attention after a few attempts, stop reading it. Pick out another one on the topic – there are always more waiting for you!

With that caveat in mind, my “cover-to-cover” reading for 2019 was 213 books.

For the curious, like picking your favorite child (I have four), I don’t typically make a “Best of” list for the year. I find some value in almost every book I read, and for me, that’s good enough.

I talked about that in a recent podcast with Bryan Rose. You can listen here.

While the knowledge gained from reading is important, the real benefit is from the habit of reading. When you are continually reading, you condition your mind to keep taking in new knowledge. Your thinking remains fresh and sharp. Your brain is always churning on new ideas, looking for new connections it can make. Every day you pour in more ideas, which your brain must find a way to integrate into your existing knowledge base. Frequent reading fires up your neural activity, even during the periods when you aren’t reading.

Reading is a gift that you can unselfishly give yourself, one that truly keeps on giving. Why don’t you bless yourself and those around you by reading a new book in the first weeks of 2020, and sharing its wisdom with others?

Me? Well, I’m visiting one of my favorite bookstores later this week, I’ve got three books lined up for delivery by the end of this week, and I’m headed to the library today to pick up another couple on reserve.

After all, you can’t read all day…

…if you don’t start in the morning!

 

Part Two of my “Reading Week” at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020

 

It’s Hard to Go Wrong When You Follow the Advice of Dr. Seuss

Posted on by

One of my greatest passions is reading.

I developed this passion at an early age, and have continued to strengthen it over the years. In addition to being my passion, reading is also an important part of my role as Vision Room Curator at Auxano. In that role, I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix every two weeks. SUMS Remix is a modified book summary in which I develop a solution to a common problem faced by church leaders from 3 different books. So, preparing SUMS Remix in 2018 alone means I have gone through over 100 leadership and organization development books to arrive at the 79 used in producing 26 issues this year.

Other parts of my role requires reading current trends books, used for social media posting and content writing.

Then there’s my passion area of Guest Experience, in which I am constantly researching customer service books for application for churches. I’m building The Essential Guest Experience Library.

And, as many readers know, I am a Disney Fanatic – which extends to building a Disney library, currently over 400 volumes and growing!

Finally, there’s just the pure pleasure of reading – an almost nightly hour or two in the late evening reading a wide range of books, both brand new and classics, fiction and nonfiction.

Add those 5 categories all together, and by the end of 2018 I will have “read” 191 books, pretty much following the advice of Dr. Seuss:

First, a disclaimer: I did not read all 191 cover to cover. With such an immense (and pleasurable) task in front of me, and knowing there is more to my job than reading, I have to resort to some method of finding out what an author is trying to say without reading the whole book. There’s a few dozen of that total in which I only read the “highlights,” following the methods below.

Here’s how I did it – and, of course it starts with a book!

How to Read a Book

Literally – that’s the name of a classic book by Mortimer Adler.  The first lesson of reading is to learn that you don’t need to “read” each book the same way. Here are Adler’s 4 levels of reading:

  • Elementary Reading – What does the book say?
  • Inspectional Reading – What is the book about?
  • Analytical Reading – What does the book mean?
  • Syntopical Reading – What does a comparison of books on the subject reveal?

Some books are only meant to be read at the first level; others are meant to be digested at some of the other levels. Know which is which!

To get the most out of a book in the least amount of time, try this strategy:

  • Read the title.
  • Read the introduction
  • Read the Table of Contents
  • Flip through the material, scanning the chapter titles and subheadings. Note the words that stand out as bold, different colors, underlined, or italicized.
  • Examine the illustrations, captions, charts and diagrams. Read the pull-quotes and sidebars.
  • Scan through the index looking for buzz words that interest you.
  • Read the first chapter.
  • Flip through the book and read the first sentence of each paragraph in each chapter. In a well written and edited book, the most important sentence containing the topic is usually the first sentence of the paragraph — but not always.
  • Read the last chapter. If there is an executive summary, read it.
  • Read any other information on the cover or dust jacket.

If the book captures your attention after doing the above tasks, then by all means dive right in!

The converse is true: if a book doesn’t capture your attention after a few attempts, stop reading it. Pick out another one on the topic – there are always more waiting for you!

With that caveat in mind, my “cover-to-cover” reading for 2018 was 127 books.

For the curious, like picking your favorite child (I have four), I don’t typically make a “Best of” list for the year. I find some value in almost every book I read, and for me, that’s good enough.

While the knowledge gained from reading is important, the real benefit is from the habit of reading. When you are continually reading, you condition your mind to keep taking in new knowledge. Your thinking remains fresh and sharp. Your brain is always churning on new ideas, looking for new connections it can make. Every day you pour in more ideas, which your brain must find a way to integrate into your existing knowledge base. Frequent reading fires up your neural activity, even during the periods when you aren’t reading.

Reading is a gift that you can unselfishly give yourself, one that truly keeps on giving. Why don’t you bless yourself and those around you by reading a new book in the first weeks of 2019, and sharing its wisdom with others?

Me? Well, I’m visiting one of my favorite bookstores tomorrow, I’ve got three books lined up for delivery via Amazon by the end of next week, and I’m headed to the library today to pick up another couple on reserve.

After all, you can’t read all day…

…if you don’t start in the morning!

 

 

How To Experience a Bookstore With All Your Senses

Posted on by

Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. – Plato

For me, reading is not an occupational afterthought, but a vocational necessity.

As Vision Room Curator for Auxano, books are a daily reference point in my work life. The primary use is for our book summaries. I am currently in our sixth year of releasing a book summary every two weeks. The first two years focused on a single book each issue, called SUMS.

For the last four years, SUMS Remix has been focused on a single problem statement, with three solutions from three different books, along with a practical Go Ahead action for each, designed for church leaders to put into immediate action.

With a four-week production cycle from initial research to shipping the finished issue, I am typically engaged in six to twelve books for SUMS Remix at any given time.

But there’s more…

As Digital Engagement Leader for Auxano, I am responsible for providing content for multiple accounts across three social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. On an average day I will post about 25 different items, many connected to current books I am reading, focused on vision clarity and leadership.

In my role as Guest Experience Navigator, I am constantly searching for resources to help churches provide exceptional Guest Experiences. One of my primary resources is the world of customer experience in the corporate world, easily adaptable to use for Guest Experience resources. From those sources, I maintain the Essential Guest Experience Library.

Finally, believe it or not, I read for pleasure. Most nights I will read several hours on topics ranging from Disney to all kinds of history to how things work to science fiction to biographies to thrillers – and more.

As I have written before, my passion for reading was instilled in me by my father, who modeled it for me from an early age. He was self-employed as an owner-operator of a Gulf gas station. Working 12 hours a day for six days a week, he often spent a couple of hours each evening looking through a book about WW II history or travels across the U.S.

So where do all these books come from?

Amazon and I are on a first name basis, and have been since 1998, with my first book order being The Power of Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf. Things have accelerated a bit since then, with my patient and ever-smiling mail carrier now delivering 2-3 packages per week.

I maintain a huge wish list on Amazon, and family and friends looking for gift ideas soon roll their eyes at the choices they have!

Because I read and write so much about books, I’m fortunate to receive many complimentary books from authors before their publication.

As an Amazon Associate, I benefit from purchases from my two websites. All the funds received are turned right around and used to purchase more books.

Then there’s the weekly trip to my local library, picking up a couple or more books that are new releases.

While all these are great sources, what I really love to do is browse used bookstores.

Within a short drive from my house, I have two Goodwill stores and a Habitat Restore, all having a good selection to browse through. In the greater Charlotte area there are several more that I try to visit every couple of months or so.

That takes care of local bookstores, but what about others around the country?

Give me an hour to kill and I will most likely head to a bookstore. When I’m in another city for work or pleasure, the first thing I search for is used bookstores (the second is the local’s favorite doughnut shop).

So it was not at all unusual for me to schedule a couple of hours to visit bookstores while in Detroit recently.

On the recommendation of a friend who lives there, Greg Gibbs, I left early for the airport, and headed through downtown Detroit with an address and a sense of anticipation.

Greg had just told me the minimum – a legendary used bookstore that had been around since the mid-60s with “a lot of books” (I should have known he was up to something by the grin on his face).

What I found was a bibliophile’s dream.

John K. King Used and Rare Books occupies an old factory building. Since 1965, it has been built upon in-person service. The books are not on a database or listed online; if you are looking for something in particular, you need only inquire.

Unpretentious and plain on the outside, it houses a treasure inside:

  • Four floors in an old factory in downtown Detroit
  • Over 1,000,000 books
  • Every imaginable subject
  • No computerized inventory
  • No air conditioning
  • Hand drawn maps, matching hand-lettered signs on every floor, every aisle, and every section
  • Super-knowledgeable staff who could answer my questions without a blink

Nirvana.

John King’s Bookstore is best experienced with all senses: upon entering you first encounter the smell of old books. Some people are bothered by it, but I find it absolutely mesmerizing.

The creak of old wood floors conveys its own feelings: whether five years or fifty years old, the books speak to a source of knowledge all-too-often unappreciated today.

Walking up the stairs to the first level and turning the corner, your eyes take in rows upon rows of books, crammed into shelves, from floor to just within reach of an outstretched arm.

Taking the offered hand-drawn map of all four floors, you can start anywhere your dreams take you. There is at least one staff member on each floor, and a telephone that goes to the front desk as well.

For me, it was the art section, followed by the film and theater shelves. A few finds: a December 1940 Atlantic Monthly magazine with a feature article on Walt Disney that I had seen referenced in several WD biographies; a beautifully illustrated 1940 promotional magazine for the release of Fantasia; several other hard-to-find Disney books.

I was only able to spend a couple of hours there, but I did speed walk all four floors and every aisle, pausing at length at more than a few.

All too soon I had to leave for the airport. As I paid for my purchases and headed out the door, I was grateful to thank John King for his perseverance, passion, and pure joy in the written word.

Somewhere nearby, you probably have a used bookstore. It won’t be anything like John King’s, but in some ways, it will be just like it.

What are you going to read today?