Anti-Social Media

Following on from last month’s theme of 'ridiculous things people expect Garry to be good at,’ on Friday my boss sent me to a Social Media Marketing conference, with a view to improving the office’s presence on online social media. I’m not sure why they sent me specifically. I’ve no qualifications in marketing and I’m not especially sociable. It’s got absolutely nothing in common with anything else I do at work.

It might just be because I’m male and under 30 (just) and am therefore naturally assumed to be good with computers. This is foolishness, but I didn’t mind a day away from the office where I’m assumed to be good at project management, which is also foolishness.

It was more a training event than a conference, run by a crew from America called SkillPath. It was a two person team who were in town as part of a whirlwind tour of Australia, shining the light of social media into the deepest depths of cultural cynicism, represented ably by me in the back row.

It didn’t start well. I had to give the Americans points for trying to contextualise their data for the locals, but pointing out that some people were likely to be following Julia Gillard on Twitter, while others were following Tom Abbott (sic) didn’t quite have the desired effect. And the presenter’s revelation that she thought she was in Queensland, and didn’t actually have any idea where Darwin was, was just downright hilarious.

However, the obligatory mocking of visitors from America having been indulged, the content they presented was quite interesting at times. And some of the examples of how not to use social media were fascinating.

Possibly the most cataclysmic outcome of the conference for me was that I’ve finally been convinced of – if not the virtues – then certainly the utility of Twitter. I’m only ten years late. You can follow me @GarryCondoseres, but I can’t promise I’ll lead you anywhere useful. Next thing you know I’ll be posting pictures of other peoples’ cakes to my Pinterest board.

I don’t have a Pinterest board. One step at a time.

#MakeOfThatWhatYouWill.




@GarryWith2Rs

This is How it Starts

I’ve always had a rather strange relationship with prayer meetings. I’ve grown up in the Church, and I’ve acknowledged how important prayer is for people who claim to be in relationship with God, but special corporate prayer services have always struck me as being a bit like health food: I know it’s a good idea, but I don’t really get excited about it until someone guilts me into it.

I’m kind of a rubbish Christian when you look at it. Don’t get me started on my diet either.

I think part of the reason is that I’ve been to too many prayer meetings that are just opportunities for people to stand up in public and demonstrate how super-spiritual they are, not just by the fact that they like to go to prayer meetings, but by showing us all how fluent they are in the use of whatever spiritual buzzwords happen to be fashionable at the moment.

I don’t care what the dictionary says: “Prideful” is not a word! And even if it is I don’t think God is going to be impressed by how many times we can fit it into a paragraph.

But let’s be honest, I can babble on just as self-righteously as the next guy. I just do it on my blog instead of in a church service. The real reason I don’t go to prayer events is because I’m lazy and complacent.

But recently a bunch of people who run One Body with me have started calling random prayer and praise get-togethers. I went along mainly for solidarity, but I’ve been really struck by the power of what’s going on here.

This is no inner circle talk fest. This is a small group of young people who are quite passionate and committed to meeting together to seek the Lord. And we’re already seeing signs of a response. We met together at ten o’clock on Saturday night (because we’re all young and reckless like that. It’s absolutely a logical time to get together) and kept praying through to midnight, when we decided we’d better head home because we all had church in the morning.

My sister posted an article on Facebook this morning about something called Poe’s law, so now I’m all concerned that you’re not going to understand how sincerely excited I am (see my last post) to find more people in Darwin who are sick of the division and disunity that’s been crippling us for the last decade or so. If so, that’s fine. I’m sure this post makes for excellent satire if that’s how you want to read it.

If, on the other hand, you’ve decided that I’m dead serious, then keep an eye on the right sidebar. I’ll keep it as up to date as I can with news of the next get together. It’s on.

Make of that what you will. Unless you can’t tell whether I’m serious or not. In that case, make of that something else. If you will.

Will you?




Garry with 2 Rs