The Prestige is either well-crafted and intensely intelligent, or the worst movie of the third millennium. Either its terrible science fiction or absolutely brilliant drama set in a historical time and location. It is one or the other, it can't be both.
I believe that the Church is losing out on millions and millions of dollars - potentially billions - every single year in licensing costs and SAAS fees. Thinking about this problem a little differently I realized that the Church has within its walls some of the most amazingly talented developers, designers and leaders in the world. Why aren't these world class developers using their talents to solve problems key strategic problems that the Church is curently paying large dollars for monthly and annually? Or better yet - why aren't these developers creating unique solutions that only the Church really fully understand? And better yet, why aren't these developers and leaders giving their time to the Church for free to help solve a problem world wide and not pillaging the bride of Christ with high usage fees and licensing costs? Right.
Too rarely do we see world-wide gambits of this sort undertaken because of the potential risk and exponential cost attributed. But I commend the guys of World Wide Open for giving it a go regardless of the outcome. It is this kind of big picture thinking that is severely lacking within the body of the Church right now. How are we globally thinking to solve world wide pandemics as Christ's Church is supposed to be doing daily?
See. This is what I’m talking about. This is a company out of MN that is throwing the gauntlet down....
What is keeping us from creating a non-profit company that develops and releases for free (or close to free) solutions without bias or agenda? Basically these solutions could be open-source wins for Churches trying to track relationships and giving with parishioners. Or maybe a solution for NGO's tracking and solving poverty or AIDS penetration rates within communities and impact of their efforts against this blight on society. The possibilities here are basically limitless.
Many companies today dive into web2.0 (blogging, twitter, viral media campaigns, social networking) experiments because others are. Not for any underlying reason. It is important to be intentional about our efforts within this arena. Go where your customers are going. Start the conversation where they want to have it... not because your nearest competitor may beat you to it.
Heck, they are so outside the box they occassionally redesign "the box" as exemplified by the above milk box experiment. Just love the solid coloring and evocative white on the face. The type is a beauty to behold and the splash at the front bottom just adds that extra something. Very nicely done.
37 Signals Has it Right - a truly phenomenal business perspective and model.
So I had a thought. What if the Christian Technical community came together and donated time towards a money making - for profit company whose sole purpose was to give money away? Hrmm.
Popcap Games recently released a version of their viral favorite Bejeweled to Facebook. This time the company took a new...
Malcom Gladwell's new book Outliers is a must read - because it turns the American Dream on its head... inside out and upside down. Good stuff Malcom. Keep it up.