Image source: a_purple_turtle Gibraltar sports a town square officially called “John Mackintosh Square”. My grandfather's generation called this square “el martillo” (the hammer) in reference to the auctioneer's gavel, as this was the place where public auctions were held. El martillo was the place where my grandpa's generation would meet, and solve the world's problems over a cup of tea. We risk losing that in Gibraltar – the power of conversations. Words have power. Words can create a reality into which we step and re-frame our understanding of world-views, situations, challenges and crises. We have the privilege, and the responsibility, to change the world. We work towards leaving a legacy for a generation that we will never get to see – a better world, a life that is enriched and where the summit of our achievement becomes the foundation stone of the next generation's work. This cannot happen without conversations – without the power of words – indeed, it is contingent upon it. We face global challenges that require global conversations:

1. Global warming
2. Poverty
3. Aids
4. Abortion
5. An undermining of traditional family values in the West
6. Conflicts and wars
7. The merging of an ideology of terror that risks moving into the mainstream of certain religions
8. An increasingly disenchanted youth in the West that is resorting to a culture of knives, guns and violence

Solutions to these challenges will emerge out of conversations – paradigms need to be redrawn; insights into problems will be revealed; new solutions to challenges will arise when these conversations take place. It is good to talk – we need to talk. It is time to speak into many of these seemingly intractable problems and challenges. We need to recover “el martillo” in our generation, a place where conversations happen..... and lives are changed. Never has there been so much technology available for the propagation of conversations. Bloggers are becomingly increasingly influential in the political scene in the US, a testimonial to the power of words. They are now a force to be reckoned with, which any aspiring candidate ignores to his or her own peril. I love blogging, I love social media, I love conversations. Popular video websites such as Youtube have become a phenomenon and are uniquely placed to assist us in our endeavour (It has recently been reported that Youtube hosted 50 billion videos........this month!). I live for the day when these “new” media re-write the rules of journalism, television, education, and communication. I find it remarkable how a blogger can effectively shape the political discourse of a nation, tapping away on his laptop's keyboard whilst having a latte at his favourite coffee shop. The media is there, and the tools are there. Will you find your voice? Will you speak out? More importantly in any conversation.... will you listen? Technorati Tags: Blogging, Conversations, Speech, Words

I totally Dig Twitter!!! I am a Twittering fool. There, I said it. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows you to shoot out little and regular updates of what you are doing, thinking, etc. People get to "follow" you and your twitter updates (Tweets), and you "follow" others as well. Granted, a community will form around banalities, and I do not know whether that is a good thing or not - Tweets have recently included a guy live blogging about his airplane crash as it happened (link).

Twitter is a platform that is increasingly being used via 3G and via SMS texts, thus taking a "web" technology offline and onto the streets, where life happens. Your Twitter can also be integrated with other Social Media such as Facebook, BeenUp2, Myspace, and Plaxo, among others, so your tweets appear as Status updates on these other platforms.

Twitter will not replace blogging, it will save it. There is a certain Darwinian element to twitter whereby most of the junk that I am bound to spew out loud will find its way into several Tweets everyday, thus leaving serious blog content to find its way onto this blog. Whereas there is a slowing down in post-frequency, the content of these posts tends to be of a better quality. It weeds-out the rubbish, leaving the way clear for some serious blogging thought. I would not have it any other way.

Do you Twitter? If not, you should. Go here, open an account and add me.

Hi blogosphere! I'm back!

After having sported a polished premium theme for my blog for a few months, I am temporarily reverting to the stripped-down basic white theme that I used to have previously. The reason for this is that my blog's premium theme was so labour-intensive, with manual edits of several fields, and different image sizes need per post, that I stopped blogging altogether. It all eneded up like a massive website that needed maintenance all the time - not the sort of thing an overstretched guy like me wants. I need a cool, sleek, low-maintenance theme that I can just crank out posts and hang them there.

So....until such time as I find this uber-cool theme - or until such time as I employ an assistant that can maintain my premium theme for me ;) I will be using free and simple blog themes. Over and out.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="143" caption="Blogging"] [/caption] This post is only going to appeal to hardcore nerds out there so feel free to skip is if your concept of keeping up with the times is to have a cellphone. After having sported the minimalistic "all white" theme for my blog for some time now, I have redesigned the blog using a wordpress theme called Revolution. I am slowly learning how to edit all the different sections of the site so please be patient with me. This theme actually gives me a whole lot of lattitude to play with so I can start to plan stuff that I have been holding-off on this site for lack of "umph". I really want to start exploring with the use of audio and video, maybe having a video podcast and audio interviews etc. It's the digital generation we should be pursuing, stupid! Anyways just bear with me and you should be seeing some interesting stuff appear shortly on the blog.

Taking a cue from the "Master Schmoozer" himself I went ahead and had some business cards made for myself / my blog that followed his own words of wisdom:

For once, a business card that cuts to the chase and is readable. Hallelujah! So I asked him to make business cards for me. Take a look at your business card: Can people really read the 8 point type?

Ladies and Gentlefreaks, I present to you exhibit A....Guy Kawasaki's business card: And now for the Pièce de résistance my very own blog business cards: I wanted a simple business card that I could use in order to connect with people and redirect them to my blog.

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Blogging is a passion of mine. I believe that this is the writer's hour. With the technology that we have at hand, a regular guy, sitting at Starbucks with his laptop can change the world. Such is the power of the written word. I can influence 30 to 40 people speaking from my pulpit on any given Sunday morning, and I can influence a whole generation writing through my blog. Both have their place, but you cannot ignore the impact and reach of the resources that we have. I am committed to blogging, and to honing my writing skills (The Apostle Paul would be a blogger nowadays, really, and I committed to imitating my heroes). The cost of blogging and writing. Having said that, writing in general and blogging in particular, comes at a cost. The cost is time. You really have to invest time into writing, into building up an audience, into research, and into a myriad of nerdy-geeky administrative tasks that enable your writing to reach others. Time is something we all have 24 hours of every day, so the real question is what value will you give to writing or blogging. Are you ready to put-in a couple of hours every day at the very least? Blogging phenomenon Mark Hadfield of "Made to Praise Him" fame has shut down his blog this week, citing a leading that he has had. In his own words:

I grew up with a child's TV programme which always started "why don't you switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead?" I feel Jesus calling to me to switch off the computer and stretch my legs in the mountains at this point in life's adventure. Who am I to argue?

Mark, if you ever read this, your words do resonate with me, although your blog will be missed! If you decide to resume blogging, you have a reader here. My own blogging "lean cows" season. I too have been going through a lean season of blogging. The reason being that I am putting in the hours into my job, I am studying to become a Chartered Valuation Surveyor (an appraiser), I am getting my house ready for baby No. 3, and I am also pastoring Living Waters, leading three meetings a week and attending to all the leadership and pastoral issues that this entails. A typical day for me looks like this:

• 06:00hrs - Wake up. Wash up. Have gulp down coffee. Have prayer & soaking time
• 07:30hrs - Wake boys up. Prepare breakfast, get kids dressed up etc.
• 8:45hrs - Head out for school, drop-off boys and go to work.
• 9:00hrs - Arrive at work. Check emails and plan day, and start going to meetings, preparing reports and certifying legal documents.
• 13:00hrs - Grab a bite to eat at my desk, update church admin stuff and accounts, catch-up on calls, run off to bank to deposit a cheque for the church.
• 14:00hrs - Back at the office researching material on property appraisals, studying, etc.
• 18:00hrs - Still at the office - prepping for bible study tonight
• 19:00hrs - Rush-off to store to buy a few groceries - negotiate traffic!
• 19:30hrs - Arrive home - help Annabelle with Dinner, showers etc getting Kids ready.
• 20:00hrs - At church - Bible study on Foundations of Faith
• 22:00hrs - Bible study finishes - head-out to coffee shop to unwind
• 23:00hrs - Arrive home - crash on the sofa - catch-up on reading material
• 1:00hrs - Go to bed.

I am one hairbreadth away from burnout on the best of days, and I really have to watch what I take-on if I am going to be in this for the long-run and finish well. So my blogging is getting bumped-off. And things will remain this way until I can significantly clear my schedule to allow for at least an hour of blogging a day. Thank you for your understanding. Technorati Tags: Blogging, Burnout, Stress

The time is ripe for bloggers in the Kingdom of God. Bloggers are modern day scribes. Jesus foretold of this day when He said that He would be sending prophets, wise men, and scribes in the end times (link). Some want to jump into the blogging bandwagon, fascinated by the hype surrounding blogging but knowing little of what the reality entails. Others do not even know what a blog is. Still others insist on ignoring a tool that has the potential to reach millions in today’s wired generation. What should you do? In the light of the potential that blogging has for your ministry, read up, think through, pray, and go for it!

What is a blog?

A blog (from web-log) is an online diary of sorts where the author (called blogger) posts daily articles (called posts) and where readers can often post their comments on these posts and in a very real sense enter the “conversation”. This concept is revolutionary, as most previous forms of “marketing”, including traditional websites (nowadays increasingly referred to as static websites) only offer a one-way flow of communication – from the author to the reader. Blogs are totally different as interaction and input from the reader is crucial and actually helps develop and mature your topic online. Readers and contributors of your blog become champions of your ideas, spreading (read evangelizing) your circle of influence far and wide as the more comments you get the more search engines on the Internet pick up your blog as a key resource on the topic being discussed. It is this pull method of marketing (The user pulling the message out) that becomes viral infecting others that in turn become carriers of your message. The traditional push method of marketing is old ways for old days.

Why should I blog?

Blogs are awesome tools for recording what God is doing through your ministry, church, or organization. The format of a blog helps, as posts appear in reverse chronological order therefore the newest posts are always at the top of the page and the oldest posts at the bottom. This format makes for a timeline in which you can chronicle a journey that highlights your adventures with God, life, and people. You can look back after several months and see how the Lord plans and directs everything.

With this technology, it is the writer's hour. With a blog youcan literally impact millions whilst sitting at Starbucks with your laptop and a latte. I am convinced that the Apostle Paul would have been a blogger, writing his letters and imparting his revelation around the world during the course of his travels. Blogs allow for conversations with brilliant generals and commanders in God's army - what an impartation tool! I am frankly at a loss as to why more ministries and churches are not blogging.

Learn in order to write - write in order to learn. By putting down yourthoughts into an article and publishing it, you are forcing yourself to really condense and focus your thinking. It is in actually putting your feelings into words that you refine what is in your heart. I have found that a lot of what I blog about I end up using behind the pulpit including illustrations, points I have made etc. In that sense my blog has become something of a petri-dish - a place where I put stuff out there and cultivate thoughts leading to some stuff growing on it. Hopefully not all has been fungus and some worthwhile points have been gleaned from this process.

At the end of the day, I read a lot of blogs, gaining learning from the insights and experiences of of others, I then distill and churn all of this through my blog and the result is that I have used my learning in order to write, and I have used my writing in order to learn some more.

How much will this cost me?

Blogging has zero start-up costs. You can literally setup a free blog at Blogger or Wordpress in order to start blogging and once you get with it you can transfer the blog to a fancy website address (Called a domain) along the lines of yourname.com or yourtopic.com, you get the picture. The investment you have to make is not monetary, but it is costly. Time investment. With all this talk of reaching billions with your message, I do not want in any way to anaesthetise you to the real costs involved in blogging. A serious blogger, aiming to build a serious readership around their blog, will be looking at investing a respectable amount of time every day to blogging. Blogging involves writing, reading, research, and other background administrative tasks related to developing maintaining and enhancing your blog. I normally spend around one hour a day doing some of these blogging tasks, and I post around one post every other day. You will need to start developing ideas for articles/posts and researching these. Then write, write and write some more. When you have these articles down, do not forget to read, read, and read some more. Read other blogs, comment on them, join the blog conversations around the "blogosphere". When people leave comments on your blog, reply to them as a comment too - acknowledge their input, build relationships with them, maybe even emailing them some information or follow-up to what they wrote. Take an interest and active participation in grooming and developing the readership of your blog, and your audience will grow.

Blogging is hard but extremely rewarding. There are technical hurdles to jump - any blogger will need to develop a relatively good grasp of tweaking their website design etc. However don't let technical limitations hold you back - you could always delegate the techie stuff to a keen youngster or capable family member. The bottom line is that blogging though time intensive has the potential to broadcast your message to the world. Ask yourself not therefore whether you can afford to blog, ask yourself whether you can afford not to.

Further information:

• The Blogging Church - This book is an indispensable resource for those thinking about blogging.
• A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of Successful Blogs - a more advanced blog post regarding blogging and its related activities
• The Nine Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - along the same lines.

In one of the most significant maintenance sessions in its almost two-year history, wildoxgib.com has had an under-the-radar overhaul that was well-past its due date. Complete nerdery possessed me on my lunch break the "IT support department" and the following cool stuff has been accomplished:-

1. Updated platform: Wordpress, the blogging platform that I use (sweet!), has been updated to version WO2.1.2. (Yes I know, that was released a LONG time ago!).
2. A new “Feed on this” icon on the right sidebar now provides easy access to the blog's RSS feed in case you want to subscribe using a feed-reader like Google reader.
3. The photos, page and coComments page are up and running again. Unbeknown to me they were not functional for quite some time. “coComments”, by the way, is a neat tool that track all of the comments that I leave on other blogs, and displays them so that you can track what I am saying in the Blogosphere.
4. My contact details have been removed from the “contact” page and I now have a neat online form that you can fill-out and submit. I have had enough of spammers obtaining my email details via the old contact information.
5. All of the site feeds now load using “Feedburner” a service that allows me to monitor my subscribers from a central web page.
6. A “Donate” button on the left side bar now connects this function to my Pay Pal account – (Because the man has bills to pay)...so ...click and give, click and give!
7. A cute little icon of me now appears beside the URL (Web address) – sorry Annabelle, I had to do this.

The maintenance has proved pretty painless up to now. If you find any broken links, or pictures that are missing, or if anything does not work, please let me know and I shall immediately notify Tech Support. Technorati Tags: Wordpress, Blogging, Nerdery

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Every now and again two wholly complementary entities end up together. This has now happened and the divine encounter between Quentin Miller and wordpress has made the blogging world is so much the richer! Today we cast the spotlight on the "Re-Leaf Pub" (link). This pub serves "as a literary roadhouse and [offers] the illusive NUTRITIOUS hot fudge sundae. A taste and see encounter." It certainly is, and is none other than the new blog home of Quentin Miller! I certainly have this place bookmarked and will frequently be visiting this online pub where, rumour has it, hot fudge sundaes are actually good for you. Quentin...you were born for this! Go serve me some of that gooey stuff! Technorati Tags: Quentin Miller, Re-Leaf Pub, Gooey stuff

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This blog is experiencing a lean cows season at the moment as the blog author (Blother / Blauther?) is currently taking a few days off work in order to catch up on some DIY at home. Your prayers are highly appreciated (For the safety of those around him!!!).

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