Texting in Church!

So after trying to disprove last week that Twitter is sustainable, I had a fascinating experience with integrating technology into communication in a new way on Sunday.

My family doesn’t normally attend Westwood Community Church, but for a variety of reasons we went on Sunday. The pastor, used text messaging during the service. It was really well done. After a short tutorial, he encouraged people to text answers which were put up on the screen in real time. It was really engaging, and no I didn’t even text. My thumbs make me text impaired, but it was still fascinating and the positives far outweighed the negatives of a few folks by me who couldn’t figure out how to get their phones on “silent”.

The up shot is that it reminded me of something about technology and communication that seems to get missed. It is about the message first and the medium second. I know that is a theory not all people subscribe to, but the longer I work, read and think about communication the more I believe it is true.

As communicators, I believe that we need to figure out what the message or the story is first, and then figure out the best way to tell it. This point hit me two weeks ago when I rented the film “The Other Boleyn Girl”. It’s actually a pretty interesting story lost in a pretty bad movie. My estimation is that is because it’s not a movie, it’s a miniseries. There are far too many events and the motivations are too complex to cram into a little under two hours. It is a story that needs nuance and background, and without it you are left asking, “Now why would they do that?” about primary characters.

For what are probably a lot of sound commercial reasons they crammed the story into a movie format. It may make sense commercially, but if you care about the story it doesn’t make any sense.

Sustainability is a big word now for business. I’d apply it to communicators as well saying that commercial considerations may make sense, but the more sustainable option is to care about the message first and the medium second.