Blogging

where is gavin these days?

September 29, 2010 By Gavin Richardson

i haven't been asked where i've been of late so much as "what i'm doing now?" which is an acceptable question since my leaving the paid staff church work back in july. the last few months have been a real ride emotionally and spiritually (not sure if those are completely seperate but for purposes of this sentance they are). i've run the gammet meeting/talking/chatting with people i respect a great deal on what they might see God's plan in my life. my general idea is that i was so close to myself that i needed help stepping back and looking in through the window. through this process i've identified some short term and long term places i'm putting my creative and passionate self into. thought i'd share those with you, so we can skip the "what are you up to now?" question.

All American Pest Control: this might be the most visible of the entities of late because for the past month or so i've been pretty chatty about my work with All American Pest Control. This is our family business and Erin has been working there for the last 7-8 years. We will eventually finish a purchase of the company in about 4-5 years from her mom & dad and we'll be sole owners. So, in the spirit of doing anything for the family, i've been crawling houses of late to help tend to our historical customers allowing our other employees to focus on some of our more current and up to date protection services. i am also helping erin our with promotions, marketing, and social media aspects of the company. you can follow the adventures of my life in pest control by following on twitter or facebook.

Sticky Sheep: this is one has been in the brewing for a year or two now. my buddy john ellis & i had spent a number or conversations talking up the mixtures of church & business, specifically marketing. we started writing a book on these conversations and we are still putting that together. in the mean time we figured it is time to start sharing these connections. you can engage in our little musings by hitting up the site or checking our twitter or facebook presences.

Proof Branding: this is an exciting project to be a part of. i'm joining in with long time friend sam davidson and a crew of others whom are especially creative in a full service branding company. my part in the team is to help translate and work with the church communities that wish to rebrand themselves. this would cover communications, marketing, design, creative directions, and more. i've been working independantly with with first presbyterian church youth in nashville before the launch of proof this past month and have had some real successes and enjoyable moments. you can follow the tweets of sam & matt via proof and the news on facebook.

YouthWorker Movement: is something that i'm really jumping into as my youth ministry passion. i am helping to put together a vibrant and transformational entity to help my beloved, and struggling, united methodist church & fellow wesleyan youth ministries. i've partnered up with charles harrison and a team of others i getting things mapped out and ready to roll next month. if you want in on the braintrust of a vast community of people you should get plugged in with the youthworker movement. in the short term we will have a new email list going out next week. a new website will launch in january (a temporary one will be available next week). in the spring we will be putting forth full service curriculum options from a wesleyan youth ministris perspective. through all this you can keep up on the 'movements' via twitter or facebook as well.

thanks a quick gist of me, if you want to talk further on any of these projects or hire me or my friends give a shout via email gavoweb(at)gmail.com is still my email. i'm pumped to get creative!

in another note: the company that hosts this blog is going in some different direction, so in anticipation of some crazy server issues. i'm going to be moving this blog over to my own hosting options sometime soon.. maybe when i have a minute not doing other cool stuff.

me speaking & talking : here & there for your amusement

February 25, 2010 By Gavin Richardson

next week i'll be doing some of that speaking thing that i do.

wednesday thru friday i'll be in and around the dallas area for the united methodist reporters communicators conference. i'll be leading a churchy discussion based off the keynote speakers thoughts on new media strategy. the possibilities of that conversation could be amazing, so i'm excited to get to lead that. the next day i'll sit on a panel with a bunch of social media geek / church nerd friends on, what else, social media. that will be easily enjoyable. hope we can bring some stuff to the table that challenges everyone in the room. that's the task i'm giving myself.

flying back on friday and then on saturday is up early to volunteer with podcamp nashville and put on my session of 'sex, lies, and social media.' that's going to be interesting & a whole lot of fun. vegas is betting my awkward statement and subsequent blushing will be an over/under at 4 (its just 20 mins of talking otherwise it'd be much higher).

unfortunately, if you are not already signed up for the communicators conference then you'll have to miss me this go round, but you can still sign up for podcamp & check out me and some of the other fabulous minds of technology and what they are thinking about.

welcome you umc.org peeps : a little history

February 19, 2010 By Gavin Richardson

i want to welcome you folks who find this little corner blog in the interwebs via the umc.org website. i was somewhat dumbfounded when i saw my face on the frontpage of my tribes denominational website. you see, when a more mainstream/mass media interface acknowledges us fringe blogger types it gives us some semblance that we are legitimate. like an internet pat on the back.. or a digital trophy..

well, for newbies here (i guess there could be many). i've been part of the methoblogosphere for, well, since the beginning. this blog has been somewhat dormant in '09 so most of the readership are hiding away in rss feeds. so if you find the post navigating away from the post you found your way here with, you'll notice my stuff lately is kinda campy, satirical in nature. that in part because over the last five years or so i ran out of stuff to say.. it feels that way anyhow. but within these links and many connected through the methoblog you will find a lot of commentary challenging & commenting on the state of our church we live our faith within. i encourage you to check that stuff out.

so long my friend : nashville no longer talking

February 10, 2010 By Gavin Richardson

noticed today that nashville is talking is ceasing to exist as the blog portal for the nashville blogging community.

truth be told, it probably ceased to be the main portal some years ago when brittney left and the whole chaos ensued at nit & music city bloggers was birthed for a short while.

i enjoyed that community of folks at that point, some of the people i'm still in conversations with today. {in fact, have to thank newscoma for tipping me off to this.} back then you looked for the 'fresh rolled blogs' and knew when your site got linked because hits & comments would take off (well, for someone small time like myself). i remember going to the first barcamp cause all my blogger friends were planning on going, which was the first time i met many folks.. remember sitting next to rob robinson & recognizing him immediately because his hat & outfit was exactly like his thumbnail pic on his blog (yes i teased him about that one). met kate o in line with john carney (john whom i've known for years) we were all first in line (well, kate was actually first).

fast forwarding: that medium, that town square, we all met & built our friendships and community on ceases to exist. since those days of nit i can safely say that twitter, facebook, or anything since has garnered the loyalty & passions that the nashville is talking site did for us some four or five years ago. (gosh, has it really been that long?).

i would love some new place find some of that community. but alas, not all good things are forever & nashville is talking served a great place in my cyber musings life. so much so that it impeded into my real life, which i was more than okay with (it just took some explaining to the wife). so long my friend, nashville is talking. (i want to say some 'long tail' ulogy comment, but its just not quite there, so assume i said something clever & smile)

we’re all gonna die : so who is your digital executor

October 20, 2009 By Gavin Richardson

saturday i spent my day at barcamp nashville 2009. barcamp is one of my fav days of the year. that along with podcamp are when i get to really hang with the geeks of nashville’s tech community. one of the sessions i took in was dave delaney’s session titled “we’re all gonne die!”

i like dave’s presentations because they are never quite what i expect them to be and his gift is that he doesn’t try and cover everything in his braintrust. i say that’s a gift. anyways, i recorded his session for your viewing pleasures with my notes & thoughts to follow.

Dave Delaney : We’re All Gonna Die : BarCamp Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

my notes:

what is going to happen to our content when we die?
when die what to do with email, paypal, websites, domain names, web hosting fees, facebook, etc.
facebook will close off profiles to new friends when someone is confirmed as having passed away, but will keep the account live for friends to visit.
need a “digital executor,” someone who knows all your stuff to keep your digital footprint going
i see this necessity as much as leaving a ‘digital legacy’ much like the last lecture was from a dad to his children.
facebook/myspace/blogs become a new place of mourning for a loved one or friend as they pass away. taking the place of the makeshift memorials on roadsides, fences, building walls, etc.

this was an interesting chat with erin after this, exploring the ‘digital executor’ idea. i’d thought of what might happen to all this stuff i do if i were to pass away. erin knows my passwords that i use and could figure out how to get into each account should she feel that need. however, her expression was, if you died i wouldn’t want to mess with that stuff, so it’d be better to have someone to handle that stuff.

so i’m contemplating that.. who would you put in charge as a digital exector? friend, family member? someone you are close to or someone that is close to your wife/family who they are comfortable talking to?