Why I Setup a Facebook Page for Myself

Because I’m kind of a big deal.

Today I launched a Facebook Page for myself. You can check it out and follow me by liking the page here. No, I didn’t really set it up because I think I’m a big deal (even though I kinda am). I set it up because as my reach and influence online has grown, I’ve realized that the people who follow me are divided up into several different audiences.

The people who follow me on Twitter are mostly pastors and business people who are interested in learning about church communications or what we’re doing at Mars Hill.

And my friends on Facebook are mainly real life friends and family who are more interested in how I’m feeling, and seeing photos of my kids. They don’t really engage with my posts when I post about business stuff, even if it’s things I’ve written.

Yet, as more people are following me on Twitter they are also requesting to be my friend on Facebook because they see that I’m posting stuff there too. But I don’t really want people I don’t know to see photos of my kids.

So going forward, if I blog for a website, say Innovate 4 Jesus or MarsHill.com, you can follow my posts on my Facebook Page, Twitter, or LinkedIN.

And if I know you personally, you can friend me on Facebook and I promise I won’t bombard your feed with a bunch of links and posts that you don’t really care about. 

If I don’t know you personally, then the Facebook Page and/or Twitter is the way to go. I’lll be weeding through my Facebook friends soon and cutting loose the folks that I don’t know too well. If I unfriend you, please don’t take it personally. I hope that you’ll like my Facebook Page and keep following and engaging with my content. And hopefully you’ll appreciate less photos of my kids (and tacos) in your Facebook feed.

What’s all the hubbub about Benghazi?

The problem when something hits the news, is that it’s hard to track what’s going on unless you read it right from the beginning.

I didn’t read the articles about Benghazi when it first came out. Then more articles came out, and I tried to read one or two, but the media does a poor job of recapping the story for those who haven’t been following along.

I think I got the gist of it, but I wanted to make sure I understood the story completely. But I just don’t have the time to read a bunch of articles and figure it out.

So I asked my Fancy Hands assistant to tell me everything I need to know about Benghazi. This is what he came back with:

The reason why Bengazi is in the news in the last couple of hours is due to a hospital blast in the city that has killed 12 people today.

But what you are probably referring to is the rest of the week. The Benghazi coverage was due to the testimony of
Stevens’s (the killed ambassador) second-in-command, Gregory Hicks, in front of the House of Representatives House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi. He described how he received a phone call from Stevens when the embassy was under attack and how his pleas were denied by military brass, who said they could not scramble planes and who gave a “stand-down” order to four Special Forces officers in Tripoli who were eager to race to Benghazi.“My reaction was that, O.K., we’re on our own,”.

He also said that he was “stunned” that UN Ambassador Susan Rice framed the raid as spontaneous, in testimony to a congressional panel.

Meanwhile House Speaker John Boehner called on the White House to release an email sent by a state department official saying she had informed the Libyan ambassador the attack had been carried out by Islamist militants.

On May 10th ABC News broke the story that the official talking points about the attacks in Libya, were edited by the state department to remove references to terrorism, which contradicted earlier White House comments that the memo was mostly developed by the CIA.

The state department apparently wanted to remove a reference to earlier CIA warnings about terror threats in Benghazi and excise the mention of Ansar al-Sharia, a group linked to al-Qaeda.

As the attack happened 6 weeks before the US election, the Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of downplaying a terrorist attack to win an election.

You can find more info about these events in the following links:

US official describes Benghazi consulate attack

http://fncy.it/13u5e98 (bbc.co.uk)

Officials removed terror reference from Benghazi memo - report

http://fncy.it/12vG47R (bbc.co.uk)

Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference

http://fncy.it/16vIngs (abcnews.go.com)

When Myths Collide in the Capital

http://fncy.it/11zNhrS (nytimes.com)

You can get your own Fancy Hands assistant here: http://fncy.it/L15Ozs

This JUST IN…

This JUST IN is a round up of news and articles that I don’t think you should miss.

New LegoLand Hotel has a 400,000 piece fire breathing dragon. I want to go to there.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57579438-1/new-legoland-hotel-aims-for-brick-bliss/

Starbucks is cutting prices on its bags of beans. Didn’t they just raise prices on espresso drinks?

http://theweek.com/article/index/242707/why-is-starbucks-cutting-coffee-prices

Watch what it takes to turn the Chicago United Center from a hockey rink to a basketball court in under 2 hours. Why don’t the Bulls just play basketball on the ice?

http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/gamechangers/

Came across this gold mind of John Piper animated GIFs.

http://pipergifs.com/

A journalist from The Daily Beast shares about why she didn’t write about the Gonsell trial, and why she should have.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/12/why-the-mainstream-media-is-not-covering-the-gosnell-abortion-trial.html

5 Reasons I Hate Talking on the Phone

A lot of people will read this and call me insensitive and impersonal, claiming that Facebook and the Internet are ruining relationships, and life as we know it. Those people usually drive a Prius, and don’t eat bacon. I’m not sure how that’s relevant, it’s just what I’ve found. 

It’s no secret that I hate the phone. Not the actual phone, I love my iPhone, but I hate talking on it. (Unless it’s to Siri. She’s nice, and she gets me.) It’s not that I don’t like people or talking to them, I just find that talking on the phone frustrates the heck out of me, so I decided to share some thoughts on why.  

5 Reasons I Hate Talking on the Phone

1. I despise idle chitchat. 

It drives me nuts. I like to get straight to the point, and only say as much as needed. Partly because I’m incredibly busy, but that’s not the only reason. If I schedule a call, I can make it happen and take the time.  But I will still despise having to sit there on the phone. It’s mainly because my brain can’t handle just doing one thing, especially something that I find to be low priority (meaning chitchat, not necessarily the idea of talking to people). 

When you call someone on the phone, there is an expectation for at least a little chitchat. “How are you?, “How are the kids?,” ” Sorry I missed your birthday, and your wedding…,” etc…

Then there is the time it takes to wrap up the call. “Let’s not let it be so long before we chat again…,” “I’m your mother, you should call me more…,” etc…

Unless we are really good friends, I’d rather just communicate with you through Facebook, texting, and email. It’s much more efficient, I can keep up with a lot more, and I don’t have to waste time. 

2. Unless it’s a planed call, it’s interrupting something.

If you email, text, or Facebook then I choose when to reply. I have the freedom to read and digest what you sent and formulate an appropriate response at an appropriate time. By calling me you are expecting me to stop what I’m doing and chat with you. 

I rarely pick up the phone when it rings. I don’t like the authority it gives people over me. Unless you’re my wife or my boss, you’ll get voicemail. And my voicemail says “The best way to reach Justin is to hang up and text him.” If you leave a voicemail, I’ll text or email you back rather than call you - so it would be quicker if you just tried that in the first place. 

3. Crosstalk annoys me. 

When you’re on the phone you can’t see each other. You can’t read body language or facial expressions, so sometimes it’s hard to know when someone’s point is done and it’s your turn to talk. So you end up talking over each other. It drives me nuts. Maybe this is why I don’t mind FaceTime or Skype calls as much.

4. It’s harder to say “no” on the phone. 

Again, if you email me a question, I can formulate my response. I can do the research, build my case, and give you a well written, polite no. On the phone I’m put on the spot. I can’t think as fast. My number one priority is to get off the phone, so I end up making quick decisions that I regret. I hear your voice and I don’t want to disappoint you. 

5. Phone calls leave no paper trail. 

When I’m on the phone it’s hard for me to take notes because I have to focus on you the whole time, providing “uh-huh’s,” and “yeah’s,” and other words to let you know I’m listening. And even if I’m able to write things down, it’s me against you if what I wrote down is inaccurate. There’s no email or text message to go back and read to verify what was said and when. 

If it’s important I’ll usually immediately follow up a phone call with an email or text confirming what was said, and making a record of the decisions that were made so I can refer to them later. And this frustrates me because you just forced me to do the same thing twice. Had you just emailed, there would already be a record of it. 

5 Tools I Use Instead

Here’s some tools I use to help me avoid the phone. Maybe if you used them too, you wouldn’t feel the need to call me so much.

1. Libon Voicemail App for iPhone

I replaced the built in voicemail app on my phone with Libon. Much like Google Voice, Libon transcribes your voicemails into text so that you can read them without having to play them back. Except Libon uses your existing phone number, unlike Google Voice that requires you to use a new number (which has it’s purposes). I’ve found Libon’s transcribing to be 10X more accurate than Google. 

Libon has many other features that I find useful as well. I can arrange my contacts into groups and give each group a different voicemail greeting. If my wife calls and I miss her call, then Libon tells her my location. This helps her determine if I’m still at work and maybe stuck in a meetings, or if I’m on my way home, or if I’m in jail and she needs to come bail me out again.

If you aren’t in my contact list you get a more generic greeting. Good friends get a more personal greeting. If you called from a blocked number, you get a greeting that asks you to make sure you leave your name and phone number. There’s a ton of different options. Libon can even read your last Facebook or Twitter status to your callers if you feel that’s important.

2. Fancy Hands

I just started using the Fancy Hands personal assistant service. Fancy Hands provides help with any task that can be done via a computer or phone. It’s like having a real life personal assistant, who handles your research, scheduling, and more. Whenever I need to make a call that isn’t personal, I try to have my Fancy Hands assistant take care of it. In the last few days Fancy Hands has helped me with:

  1. Called my local VW dealership and made me an appointment to have a coolant leak in my car checked out. They called, booked the appointment, looked into getting a loaner vehicle, and added it to my calendar. I didn’t have to do a thing.
  2. Called around to homeschool co-ops to research costs and services available for helping us homeschool my son.
  3. Find a restaurant for a meeting, make a reservation, and add the appointment to my calendar and those I’m meeting with.
Without Fancy Hands I would have had to make these phone calls myself, which means they probably wouldn’t have been done yet.

 

3. Apple VIP Settings

On my iPhone I use Apple’s VIP and Favorites settings for contacts. I have a list of people who I don’t want to miss when they call or email. If someone from this list calls or emails then my phone immediately lets me know, otherwise it leaves me alone. For everyone else, I’ll check your email or return your phone call during times I’ve set aside to handle email and phone calls. 

4. Evernote

I save and archive everything. Important voicemails, important emails, notes, clippings, websites, even my Fancy Hands tasks are all sent to Evernote so that I can categorize, tag, and search for later.

5. Facebook Settings

When you take the time to organize Facebook it can be a very useful communication tool and not a distraction or burden. I have 500 friends on Facebook, and I “like” thousands of pages from businesses, news sites, blogs, celebrities, and products. However, only about 25-30 of those people and pages make it in my news feed. And even those 30 are tailored down in the settings (for example, I see everything my wife posts, but for someone else I may only see their status updates and not photos of their dog and kids). I only see a stream of the stuff that is important to me. 

Keeping it trimmed down like this means that I can check it often throughout the day and it only takes me 4-5 minutes to get updated on everything, including news and blog stories from sources that are important to me. And for those people or pages that I don’t want to miss, I turn on notifications for their content, and I turn off notifications for everyone else. So when I get a notification from Facebook I know it’s not something stupid that will waste my time.

It also helps that I block all games and invites. I don’t use Facebook as a time waster. 

Questions?

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions, need tips, or just want to say Hi, feel free to email me, find me on Facebook, or Twitter.  

lifetoheryears:

This.

This is beautiful. #thatsagooddad

Everyone's Up In Arms Over Instagram's Terms Of Service They Didn't Read In The First Place

parislemon:

More rational thinking from Mike Masnick on the Instagram TOS changes:

Furthermore, even if the terms are worded poorly (it’s mostly boilerplate, and you’ll find somewhat similar terms in lots of places) if Instagram really went out and started selling your photos to appear in, say, a big magazine or TV ad, there would be significant public backlash over that, such that it’s probably in their own best interest not to do that without direct permission.

Exactly. Does anyone believe Instagram or Facebook would be stupid enough to do this? Why? Because they’re “evil”? Only an extremely paranoid or insane person would believe that. To make money? Sure, but that money would quickly fall to $0 when everyone left over actually justified outrage.

Despite what everyone would like to believe, these companies are neither stupid nor evil.

Agree. People love to jump on stupid bandwagons for stuff they don’t even understand.

marshillchurch:

Jose and Gena Hernandez’ marriage was all but over. The military couple had tried every type of counseling offered to them, but by this point they were roommates, not husband and wife. But today, their marriage is marked by God’s grace and reconciliation.


Love this video, and this wonderful family.

Top