Big Is The New Small

Taking #FollowFriday to a Whole Nuva Level!

#FollowFriday is currently one of the most popular trends on Twitter.  The concept is basically showing TwitterLuv by recommending Tweeps to follow each and every Friday; using the hashtag #FollowFriday.  You basically go to searchtwitter use the keyword FollowFriday and watch the stream of FollowFriday lists come through by the second.  Because of the popularity of FollowFriday, it’s hard to keep up with all the lists or get any detailed information on the followers.

We are about to take #FollowFriday to a whole nuva level.  BigIsTheNewSmall.com is going to dedicate Friday’s blog post to the #FollowFriday community.  In other-words you can pimp your #FollowFriday lists right here.  The whole nuva level part is that in addition to the regular #FollowFriday concept, you will be able to: look at the stream of #FollowFriday lists in one place, get more detailed information, get aggregate lists before you tweet them, recommend yourself, copy and paste from lists…

I’ll go first: #FollowFriday @scottwilliams that would be me!  If you like the concept re-tweet this post!

Over a year ago I posted a blog entitled “Pimp Your Blog” in which I discussed the art of promoting your blog.  Today’s post has a little bit different twist; however it’s a distant cousin of the original post.  I’m encouraging each and every person who is reading this post to pimp their blog.  In other-words, if you have a blog post a coment and let the BlogWorld know about it.  You can share the blog’s niche, writing style, randomness or any other details.

You can pimp as many blogs as you want; so go ahead and pimp your Pastor’s blog, your friends blog, your blog, blogs you read that are really speak to you, funny blogs, unique blogs…“The BlogWorld Is Yours!”  Let me start of by pimpin’ my blog BigIsTheNewSmall.com; you can subscribe  to it by clicking here and if you have linked BigIsTheNewSmalllet me know so I can show you some LinkLuv and add you to my blogroll.

Everyone reading should check out the blogs that are being pimped; who knows you might find some new favorite blogs to read!  Get your pimp on!

I was recently talking with a buddy of mine who has a teenage daughter and he was talking about the crazy things kids are learning about sex at a very early age.  I was reminded of this video below which is freakin’ ridiculous, in a good way.  We have to be able to look past the satire, to see the unfortunate reality.  We used this video in LifeChurch.tv’s Satan’s SexEd Series about two years ago. 

Watch the video in its entirety (it’s only about 2 min.) Share your thoughts!  Where should we be addressing this issue?  Church, school, home… and at what age?  PG-13

I think the most popular Monday morning question for people to ask is “How Was Your Weekend?”  So what we are going to do this Monday Morning is answer that question; not only answer that question and but share any highlights.  I’ll go first:

• It Went By Really Really Fast
• My in-laws took my wife and I to see Tyler Perry’s “Madea Goes To Jail”
• We had 2,800 people attend the “n-dub” LifeChurch.tv NW Oklahoma City Campus; 21 People Committed their lives to Christ, God is So Good!
• Prayed over a family’s home in which the mother and daughter have been seeing demons
• My wife and I took our sons to the circus
• It was Really Really Busy…

How was your weekend?

1. Be Real- Be yourself, don’t try to act like some fake guru or millionaire.  If you want to talk about your day, share links, talk about your family, your whereabouts, be funny, be silly, get engaged in the dialogue…  whatever it is just Be Real.  If people want to follow you great; if they want to remove you, that’s fine also, that’s the beauty of Twitter.  “Do You!  It’s A Statement… Not A Question.”
2. Be Revealed- Share a real picture of yourself as your profile pic and not some weird avatar or some models pic that you swiped off the Internet.  If you have a catchy, professional, branded logo… they can be used as well.  Reveal yourself!
3. Be Responsive- If someone is @replying or DM’ing you with something that requires a response, take a few moments at some point in your day to respond.  Remember all DM’s and @replies don’t require a response; don’t get caught up in the unnecessary back-and-forth 2-way conversation.
4. Be Respectful- Don’t use twitter as a vehicle to have arguments, spew expletives, disrespect other twitterers… and take some of those extra, extra long 2-way conversations to DM.  Only follow those that you want to follow; understand that you can respectfully choose not to follow those that follow you.  Give credit to others, show some RT love. (you can start be Re-tweeting this post)
5. Be Relevant-  Have an understanding of the Twitter culture… In other-words: learn the difference between an @reply and a DM,  learn the processes and the systems, familiarize yourself with some of the tools and apps, use @Tweetdeck @Twitterfon or any other app you prefer…  Make Twitter relevant to you, your business, your purpose, your vision, your desire, your need…  

Share your thoughts on any of the 5 Twitter Basics!  Do you have any additional thoughts to add?  If you’re real cool you can add some additional Be’s that begin with Re’s.   ie. Be Renegade, Be Relational

If we look at the myriad of diversity in the world we can clearly see that God values diversity.  Diversity is not always about race or ethnicity; for instance  Jesus certainly expressed diversity in his choice of staff: tax collector, fisherman, physician, former prosecuting attorney, women…  He valued and placed an array of personalities, backgrounds and experiences around him in order to advance his work.   The story of Jacob and the “minority” sheep is another great illustration.   

The bottom line is most organizations and teams do not like to talk about or embrace diversity.  Teams like to talk as though everyone has the same backgrounds, experiences, Godly wiring… and act as though someone will be offended by a diversity discussion.  It’s even more taboo to acknowledge the realization that diversity in organizational teams should and in my opinion must exist.  It’s not like Jesus just said he took a “group of people” to be on his team; he articulated who they were and there uniqueness to give us a clear perspective of how he rolled.   In other-words; I know these peeps bring a diverse way to think and act to the table, but that’s the beauty about how we are going to get this work done.  In other-words, Jesus is saying that you and you and you and you… can be on my team with the unique differences, skills, thoughts and backgrounds that God gave you. 

Jesus embraced diversity at all levels; I personally think we need to be like Jesus and move from tolerating diversity to embracing diversity at all levels.

Fortune magazine states that “diverse groups make better decisions.  If everyone in the room is the same, you’ll have fewer arguments and worse answers.  Diversity is a distinct competitive advantage.” 

Share your experience and thoughts working in organizations that either embrace or simply tolerate diversity of any kind?  Race, Gender, Thoughts, Backgrounds…

Remember that old television show “Kids Say The Darndest Things…”  well I think Google should come up with their own show entitled: People Google The Darndest Things.  I will periodically check my referrals from sitemeter, in order to see how blog visitors arrive at BigIsTheNewSmall.com.   Let me tell you, people find my blog from searching the most hilarious, ridiculous, sad, normal, scary, stupid… things.  I’m not sure if it’s because of my blog title, controversial post titles or whether some people just randomly google the darndest things. 

Below are 10 random searches that I found in just the last 100 search referrals:   

1. i wonder if she thinks about me.com
2. do Bob Stoops’ kids go to church
3. advice for pastors what to do when someone confesses sex crimes
4. tithe off gross or net
5. Madagascar porn
6. attracted to my pastor
7. madagascar 2 quotes moto moto
8. christians make me sick
9. small porn
10. why pastoring sucks

Any of these searches get you attention, make you laugh, cry, say hmm…?   Share some of the darndest things that people have searched to find your blog. 

I was thinking about coming up with one of those creative, cool, leadership, controversial or challenging posts this morning; however I slept through my normal morning 3B-Time (Bible, Books & Blogs).  So what is a person to do: go ahead and push through, make up something, post a YouTube video, post a blog that someone else wrote, sharea link that says go check out so and so’s site, post some pictures… ehhhh not so much for me my friends.  That kind of thought process can lead to a people pleasing attitude and I am the furthest thing from a people pleaser; so my post today simply begins and ends with: “Not Today…” 

If you are having one of those days in whatever area of your life, feel free to simply say “Not Today…”  it’s better to say “Not Today…” then to sit around Fakin’ and shakin’ and remember “Not Today… doesn’t mean Not Tomorrow…” 

“Not Today…”  Transcend The Isms’

A TIME FOR EVERYTHING

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The bottom line is that there is a time and a season for everything, the key is to know what time it is… embrace it, live it, feel it, don’t let anyone one disrupt it, know it, mean it, don’t care what people think about it, be it, make it, hold on to it and freakin’ believe in it.

What is “It?”  It can be: things, life, stuff, situations, decisions… “It” may be you! 

There is a Time For Everything; Do You Know What Time It Is? 

With the growing Twitter frenzy comes the identification of various Twitterquette.  There are plenty of twitter faux pas that tweeps commit on a daily basis and these are continually growing as the number of twitter users increases.  I could go through a long list of Twitter No, No’s: millionaire or guru in your profile status, profanity laced tirades, avatars that don’t look anything like the twitterer, always trying to sell something… 

Here is a list of 31 Twitter No, No’s from the Twitternation:

1.  tonycobb ummm….people who have an “agenda” when they tweet!!!!!!!!
2. vinceparker tweeps who ask other tweeps to always share about tweeping. 
3. jt  When people have polls.  
4. Adamlehman posting nothing meaningful or engaging. those people get dropped quick 
5. Anna_Meadows tweeps who tweep too often! 
6. chriswhill when people retweet inside jokes their not in on 
7. 1stAngel Don’t D me a link I havent asked for. Share what you have for sale but not EVERY tweet! Retweet me often LOL 
8. joshshea people arguing over twitter. even debate. it’s just annoying. 
9. mburleson  I get more replies from real “stars” than I get from “church stars”. You aren’t that important to give some @replies  
10. JoeBoutte I ignore things I don’t like in the twitter world…unless they need my input 
11. jwmoss when someone posts more than 4 @ replies in a row to the same person. use DM’s!
12. christcentred ppl who never @reply, DM or RT and ppl who exist only to post links (and do so 100 times). 
13. Murphy24p Twitter no-nos: Profile pic should be you, not your kids. LONG conversations should go “off-line” 
14. steveharrison idiots! like me who confuse direct messages, @replies, & text messages..oops can’t believe I sent that too him instead of 
15. GeoffSurratt I can’t stand endless streams of sarcastic commentary on nationally televised political events. 
16. datingdad Those “thanks for the follow,” impersonal auto-DMs drive me nuts. Not conversation-starters. Annoying, especially the promos. 
17. jenvasil cell phones . . .sorry that’s Rl. it crossed over for a minute there. : ) 
18. jasoncurlee friends not tweeting often enough…like going a day or two with only one tweet  
19. Joshsur No picture is a big time no no. Also, long conversations using @ replies instead of direct messages is a pet peeve as well! 
20. spaulds1 Someone goes out of their way 2 help answer imp ? & then person ignores! Bad manners!! 
21. seanmurphy07 Twitter No No’s… people who follow just to sell me on something or who seem to be little more than an ad for their business 
22. AmandaSims Over-inflated bios about being a web genius or mega-millionaire. 
23. leigh_shea when argue is what bothers me. It makes me wonder if they know other are seeing it. Makes me uncomfortable just reading it 
24. Johnwsnyder People who repeat the same tweet in a matter of an hour, and people who follow you, but don’t reply to you when you @ them 
25. DavidTCopeland Tweet just to sell me something or talk all day about themselves w/o ever making any effort to know anything about me. 
26. AD_hoc Twitter No No – using twitter as your personal email. If you do more than one @ reply in a row, you might check yourself. 
27. craighepburn having public tweet conversations which have no value to the wider community – always try to add value in some form 
28. manymeadows self pimping….over and over and over. Except for myself, of course  
29. jeremydbaldwin twitter population contest 
30. zachking I would have to say things like “twitter fist bumps”, “twitter pimp slaps” and any sort of twitter handshakes..JK Scott!
31. clarksonkh my biggest pet peeve is when people who don’t understand Twitter, ask “isn’t it just like facebook statuses?”

 Any of these No, No’s resonate with you?  Add to the list be sharing some of your Twitter No, No’s!