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Me 'n' Comcast: Social Media WIN

 We have basic cable. And when I say "Basic", I mean seriously basic- local stations, a few shopping channels... TBN just for kicks. You know, basic.

But the other day, I heard we could get that basic in HD for just a couple of dollars more. I called the cable company, and sure enough. They could even get a tech out that afternoon. 

So while waiting for the cable guy, I ordered an HD TIVO on Amazon, expecting to give away or sell our old one, and looking forward to the glory that is LOST and American Idol in HD so brilliant, you can see the hairs in Simon's nose or the food stuck in Hurley's chops. 

Cable guy came and did his magic, leaving a little HD box on top of our armoire as he left. 

So far so good- at least until the next day when the Tivo came. The HD box didn't have the right outputs to go to the Tivo AND plugging the cable right into the Tivo got me a message- you need two "CableCARDS" to make this work. 

Okay, thinks I- how hard could that be?

Incredibly. 

I called the cable company and was told- Sure- we have those- just go down to the service center and pick them up. Sounds easy I thought. 

The next day around lunch time, I head down, take my number, wait my turn, and get promptly DENIED. Not only was I denied, but I was made to feel foolish. "We don't do that" they said. Regardless of what the customer service rep told you- we don't hand out the cards (they actually don't- it's a tech install) and we don't give them out for anything under our basic extended package (two tiers above what I wanted to pay). 

Why not? "It won't work- technically it's incompatible" three separate customer service people lied to me. 

But I have a friend who already has exactly what I'm asking for. "No, you don't." 

Ahh- fine, whatever. Upsell me. 

So I left, angry and a lot lighter in the wallet than I wanted, determined to look at the DISH network. 

And that's when the magic started. On the way home, at a stop light and definitely NOT contrary to Oregon's newly passed anti-texting laws, I Twittered the following: "I despise the shifty, upselling, lie-telling tactics of @Comcast. "Sorry we just dont do that simple thing we already did for your friend.""

Within minutes I had a reply from @ComcastBonnie asking what had happened. In 140 character increments I told her just what had happened and just how I felt. SHe told me the reps were misinformed and that BY LAW they had to give me what I was asking for. 

That was all I needed to hear. I called Comcast and explained my situation to the first rep. Again, denied. We don't do that. I told him I was in touch with a customer representative from their headquarters who assured me they did. I got kicked up a level. 

This guy told me the same thing. We don't do that. BY LAW? No... there's no law. Who's telling you that? 

Uh... ComcastBonnie? On the Twitter? 

Yeah...

No. But we *can* do this with just the basic started package, one tier down from what they had sold me earlier- but still more cable than I wanted. 

Sigh- let's do that. 

I reported back to Comcast Bonnie what had happened and she continued to assure me I was in the right. In the meantime, I checked Google for this "law" of which she spoke, and sure enough- the FCC/Congress *mandate* that the cable companies provide these cards to whoever asks for them. This is to keep the cable companies from shutting out other devices besides their own- basically making you use their DVR. 

Comcast Bonnie asked for my phone number and a 1/2 hour later, I had a call from someone at Comcast, no doubt a few pay grades above the drones I had been being frustrated by all day. She assured me they'd work something out, and after checking and calling me back, told me that YES, they could do exactly what I was asking. Her exact words? "We don't proactively offer this to customers, but we do provide it when asked." 

Yeah. When asked repeatedly over the course of 15 different conversations with 20 different reps, you do. Otherwise...

But the thing that impressed me was this: While the traditional route of calling customer service yielded the expected results of frustration and run-around, simply Twittering my anger with them resulted in attention and service beyond anything I've gotten from a company like Comcast. Regardless of their other issues and the fact that they seem intentionally to be subverting the will of the FCC and their customers, they are getting customer service thru social media right. 

Kudos, Comcast and @ComcastBonnie. I appreciate this piece of my experience with your company. 

And if I have any other problems, I know now how to let you know :)

Review: Sim Church pt 1

It's really difficult for me not to come out swinging when a book I've been promised deals with real questions in an even handed manner begins with breathless statements like "Today a new community of the people of God has begun... A change is occurring in the Christian church the likes of which has not happened in centuries...This type of church is unlike any church the world has ever seen. It has the power to break down social barriers , unite believers from all over the world, and build the kingdom of God with a widow's mite of financing . It is a completely different type of church from any the world has ever seen."

And that's just the first page. 

Despite the stated purpose of Sim Church being to counter the "fluff pieces- pretty pictures, nice ideas but little substance" that the author identifies as so far making up the discussion on virtual church, I can't help but feel like, based on the first few pages, that's exactly what I'm I'm in for. 

Let's lay aside (for the moment) theological considerations of just what it is that breaks down barriers, unites people and builds the kingdom (hint: it's called the Gospel!), I think this book already suffers from the main problem of most books looking at issues of virtual church, video venues, etc, that is, begging the question. Assuming that "God is in this" and it only remains to work out the details. It IS church (the refrain throughout the opening chapter is "Today a new community of the people of God has begun"), now we just have to figure out what kind of church. 

And I say, hold on. It's not that simple. 

"Church" is defined by certain markers, the presence of certain elements, without which it may still be helpful, still be worthwhile, and yet not rise past the level of para-church. AA does a lot of good things, builds community, meets needs- but it's not Church. The Masons do most of the things Church does. Service? Check. Ritual? Check. Gathering together? Check. Funny hats? Double check.

But it's not Church. 

I'll get more in depth into what is and what isn't Church as I interact with future chapters (particularly chpt 2 where the author, very briefly, takes up the most critical question: What is Church and does Virtual Church qualify) , but I wanted to do two things by way of intro- push back against the initial first-line-of-the-first-paragraph assumption of this book that Virtual Church is Church and say- that's the very question you need actually to wrestle with, not tip your hat to and move on. 

And second, to point out this. The author makes this statement in closing chapter 1: "The Christian church is engaging far less than 1 percent of the seventy million people who are active in the virtual world. This means the virtual world is by far the largest unreached people group on Planet Earth... We have great work to do."

The obvious flaw in that reasoning is this: the (mistaken) assumption that these people are "unreached" in real life. They may have no credible Gospel witness in their lives, and virtual efforts at evangelism may be worth pursuing. But... it is seriously doubtful that, in missiological terms (and that's exactly what "unreached people group" is)  these folks are online and logging in to Second Life and are "unreached." This feels like a calculated attempt to draw parallels between virtual environments and real ones and play off our emotions regarding unreached people groups who have never had even an opportunity to respond to the Gospel and to bring a sheen of missionary respectability to efforts at building virtual churches. And again, that begs the question. Not an auspicious beginning. 

If you are new to this discussion you can catch up by reading my article There Is No Virtual Ecclesia here (part 1 part 2, Doug Estes' response here, and my response to his response here

Dust Up at UR over Virtual Chruch!

Last week, Doug Estes, the writer of a new book called Sim Church posted on Out of Ur what was essentially a response to my thoughts in previous Ur articles regarding the idea of Virtual Church. He wanted to avoid responding to me by name, but there were too many pointed comments to avoid the conclusion. 

You can check in out here: "In Defense of Virtual Church."

I wrote and sent a response that was pretty quickly made superfluous by the (now) 87 (and counting!) comments on the original post. 

I reproduce some of it here. I hope you'll read it (and the original article that inspired it) and come back here to answer this question: What do you think of this debate? 

It's my contention it's an important one to have (in fact, I think I need to write a post on why!)- but I'd like to know what you all think. 

Here's my response to Mr. Estes:

October 27, 2009

Virtual Church is STILL a Bad Idea

Online churches are missing a few essential ingredients.

by Bob Hyatt

**Editor's Note: I apologize for the lack of posts in recent days. We've been experiencing some technical difficulties. -Url Scaramanga**

I was disappointed to read Douglas Estes’ piece last week on Ur, for a number of reasons, but chief among them is this: it fails to deal substantively with a single serious critique that has been raised regarding virtual church. In fact, Mr. Estes not only fails to address the critique, but he seems to fail even to understand it.

So in a spirit of Christian love and good dialogue, let me respond point by point!

First, Mr. Estes asserts that critique of virtual church can be boiled down to “Internet campuses and online churches are not true churches because they don’t look like and feel like churches are expected to look like and feel like (in the West, anyway).”

Respectfully, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my concern about internet church is that it’s too much like what we expect (and want) church to look and feel like (at least in the West).

Video venues and internet church are the logical next step to the celebrity and consumer culture of America, and they represent a threat to both the overall maturity of the Body of Christ and our counter-cultural mandate. Celebrity elevation of pastors who have begun to franchise themselves and their “brand” around the nation should concern us for a number of reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere—they draw down people and resources from other church communities and they are unable to do mission-critical activities.

I’d say those are pretty substantial concerns.

Second, this article repeats what I see as the major scriptural argument in favor of virtual church—“Nowhere in the Bible does it preclude online church.” The argument from silence, as we all remember from high school debate class, is the weakest. And in this case, I believe the Bible isn’t silent. Let me ask very plainly...

READ THE REST AT OUT OF UR 

The Personal Firewall

More and more I'm discovering- the more connected you are, the more distracted you are. And the less you can get done. 

There's zero doubt- Facebook, Twitter, cell phones and Wi-fi- they all serve us in various ways (even if just connecting to lost friends or allowing us to work out of the office). 

The problem is that the more we connect to social media, the more obligated we feel to feed them, keep up with them, check in on short micro-breaks... and so completely derail any momentum we may have gained in getting things done. The same goes for both the benefits and the hazards of constant connection through cell phones and internet. Most of us no longer have an admin that safeguards us from phonecalls and other drop-in distractions. 

It's up to us to set up our own safeguards. 

Thus, the "personal firewall." 

No- it's not always on. But when I need to get things done, I also need to recognize that checking my email, answering a phone call, dropping a twitter update may feel like a small distraction- but in reality, it's a derailment that it will take valuable time to recover from. 

Here are some ideas or your personal firewall-

1. Email- If you haven't disabled the "ding", do so now. That thing is evil. A little sound that demands your attention, that grabs your consciousness, that expects you in true Pavlovian tradition to interrupt whatever you are doing for the latest FYI, forward from your friend with too much time or spam email. Just say no. 

In fact, when you are working, consider turning off email completely. If you need think of an email you need to send, rather than interrupt what you are doing, just make a to-do for when you eventually do open up the email again for batch reading and writing. Why risk the distraction that will inevitably be lurking in your inbox just to get a message to someone 30 minutes sooner?

2. Internet- consider a second browser, one dedicated to fun, and one to work. Trying to get things done on a browser that has a LOT of fun stuff bookmarked on it is tough.

COnsider even switching off the wi-fi a few times a day. Think about how much time you lose every day to misc. surfing, reading news that won't matter tomorrow, following links that lead nowhere... save yourself the time by just shutting it down or working with a distraction-proofed browser. 

3. Phone. Silent might be good enough- but "off" is even better. I know, I know- what if there's an emergency? I just want you to remember that 10 years ago, you probably didn't have a cell phone, and ten years ago you didn't spend every minute studying or working in a coffee shop or library in utter panic that your family would drive off a cliff and no one would be able to reach you. 

It's okay to turn off your phone for an hour or two. And if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least switch off the ringer and refuse to answer for anyone but your spouse. Seriously- if it's an emergency, they'll call back. 

No one will make your firewall for you. You can't buy one, have one installed and these days- you just can't get by without it. 

Being connected is wonderful. Disconnecting occasionally is necessary. 

Agree or disagree? Other ideas for your personal firewall?

Virtual Community: Problematic, but maybe not how we think...

I love social media- Twitter, Facebook, etc. I use and enjoy them, and plan to post on some of their positive uses/effects. But for now...

I was there at NPC when Shane Hipps somewhat famously declared that virtual community is "one but not the other", that is, it may be virtual but isn't real community, igniting a flurry of blog posts and comments... 

I know I'm late to the party, and really wanted to jump in on Out of Ur, but this all came down during a blog-slump, and though I had some thoughts, it felt as though others were carrying on the conversation just fine. 

But looking back, I'm not sure anyone quite made the point I wanted to, and I'm rethinking all of this in light of an interview I'm doing tonight with a public radio show on Social Media.

I absolutely dig where Shane is going here and his concern about virtual community- that it may be virtual but it isn't community. My concern however is a little different- I'm pretty sure it is community, and that it's not simply virtual... and therein lies the problem.