Lessons From Cultivate 09

Cultivate 09 was a fabulous one-day conference. Thanks to Tim Schraeder, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Kem Meyer and others for coming up with the concept. It was an amazing chance for me to get to know a lot of my friends from Twitter in person and to learn from some of the most gifted people in my field.

Rather than recap my session notes from conference (Tim took great notes over on his blog), I thought I’d give a few points from the lessons I’ve learned.

Stories

99% of what I do as a communications professional is (or should be) story-telling. Even when promoting events & ministries, I need to tell stories. Branding is, in essence, telling a story. Most people think of story-telling (in communications terms) as something done with video – and video is a great medium for visual story-telling – but it is also done through every other thing we do. The parking lot attendants are telling a story. Brochures, either directly or indirectly, are telling a story.

The tricky thing about story-telling is that everyone else is telling a story as well. In this current age of digital communication, there are shorter messages and more messages being sent. The challenge is to make our particular story relevant to the audience we’re trying to reach. One key to doing just that is to make sure we don’t fill up our stories with so much of  ‘us.’ By leaving a little extra space in the story, the hearer can have room to find themselves in and share a part of our story. The connection of two people or groups with separate stories in a common experience has the potential to speak loudly.

Youth Audiences

The differences between Generation X and Generation Y (Millennials) is significant. If we’re trying to reach both generations, we’ll likely fail to reach either of them. Gen X-ers are “me” focused while Millennials are “we” focused. That significantly effects what story we tell and what story they hear. Speaking of the story they hear, that leads me to the biggest lesson learned at the conference: It’s not about what ‘we’ are saying, it’s about what ‘they’ are hearing.

Web Site Design

I wonder what people are hearing when they visit websites that I’ve designed. I know what I (or the organization I work for) is trying to say, but I’m not sure that message is always being heard. In the web communication breakout I attended, I was challenged to re-evaluate all of the design techniques that I use when designing digitally with the end-user in mind. I learned that I need to be more community focused in web design. I also was challenged with the thought that the computer or even the traditional web site is no longer the first contact, but rather the mobile device. I need to design towad that idea.

To Sum It Up

At a conference full of Macbooks and iPhones and the latest, coolest trends in communications, there was one additional comment that was made that really struck me: The question isn’t what’s cool at the moment, but what people will respond to. The question is what will bring about life-change. Our job is not to send the right message; our job is to release the right response. My I never be more concerned with the tools than the people. May my love for the latest technology never be stronger than my love for God and love for others.