Global AIDS Summit at Saddleback
I’m gonna drop by Saddleback Church this afternoon, where the 3rd annual global summit on AIDS is already under way.
My friend Steve Knight tells me that there were over 200 media passes issued for this event. Will meetup for lunch with him, and plan to mingle and meet other church leaders at the venue.
So far, there are 30 news articles according to news.google.com, including this article at OC Register, Saddleback pastor calls leadership key to defeating AIDS, with live updates.
Amy Stevens (of OC Register) is live blogging from Saddleback about the AIDS summit. Other bloggers who are there include:
- Tony Steward, cf. 5 traits of real leaders
- someone from North Park Church Young Adults
- Laurie and Jay of MyCommonPlace.com
- and, Frank Pastore wrote this piece for crosswalk.com (who has the world record for fastest finish of the 72 oz steak dinner at Big Texan)
- [update] see video of Hillary Clinton getting on stage at Saddleback, meeting Rick Warren, and explaining her visit
[photo credit: LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER]
what works for a team blog
One of the lower-priority, but more visible, projects I get to work on at Leadership Network is setting up blogs to more quickly communicate the things our Leadership Network staff (and, now, friends) are learning about things that impact the American church.
During my first year, I had been a part of launching the Leadership Network Books blog to exclusively focused on books published by Leadership Network in its partnership with Jossey-Bass and Zondervan. Now we’re expanding the scope to cover all kinds of books that Christian leaders are reading. Yes, one place where you can get a pulse on the books that are informing and influencing almost 2 dozen Christian leaders.
This week is our “soft-launch”, which I’ve described as being similar to the concept of a “preview service” in church planting. And we’ll officially launch it next week, when I’ll be in Dallas at headquarters, coincidentally.
Click over to http://books.leadnet.org and check out all the new activities already under way! Spread the word!
Lesson learned: Something that seems to be working well for us is the concept of team blogs, where we have a team of contributors pitch in once a week, once a month, or once a quarter. This is how we’re doing the digital.leadnet.org blog, the Learnings blog, and now the Books blog. I think what keeps the team blog on track is a well-defined focused framework, so all contributors are blogging about one main topic.
I know of some team blogs that gather contributors that are more affinity-based, whether its a group of friends or a network of people with a common interest. Some of them have worked. Many of them seem to flounder. What may be missing for the ones that don’t work is a lack of focus, lack of content, or the topic might be too small and niche.
Did you know popular blogs like Engadget and Boing Boing are team blogs too? They were a part of our inspiration.
mobile card for total Internet access
Now that I am on a different coast, and have a different rhythm to how I work and where I work, I don’t think I need my mobile wireless Internet card any more. But I’ve got almost another year on the contract. So I’ve put it up for someone to take over the contract over at celltradeusa.com — or you can contact me directly to save me from paying the membership fee over there.
The hardware is a EDGE/GPRS/Wi-Fi PC card (Sony Ericsson GC89) and it works on the T-Mobile network. What’s great about the Total Internet data plan includes unlimited access to T-Mobile Hotspots at Starbucks + FedexKinko’s + other locations.
Far as I can tell, it’s for PC only, not Mac. And the contract runs $49.99 a month until November 19, 2008. I’m told that contract transfers are allowed. I hope so!
why I like spicy foods
One of my highlights in dining pleasures is eating spicy foods. I’m daring enough to try the spicy dishes in a Szechuan restaurant marked with 3 red hot peppers labeled “numb”, and venture right up to edge of the hot sauces that require you to sign a liability waiver form. The other night, I tasted a hot sauce called “beyond death” and I couldn’t eat much of it, only could bear to taste a dip with my onion ring. Whew that was hot! But it sure made me feel more alive. I’m happy to use Mexican hot sauces (Chuhala) and Tabasco, and ask for the 4-tray hot sauces at Thai restaurants. Hot salsa can be a very good condiment. Yes, I will kung-pao almost every chance I get, and warm up with hot-and-sour soup — which actually is often a good test of culinary quality, or lack thereof. Variety is the spice of life, eh?
The other reason is because I’m not the wild adventurer in real life. Some people are daring and courageous(?) and love risk taking. I had recent opportunities to lie on a bed of nails, to ride down a zip line. Other people did. I doubt I’d ever bungee jump, rock climbing, skydiving, hot air balooning, mountain climb with sherpas, parasail, pilot a plane, water ski, or go on Fear Factor or Survivor. Amazing Race and Big Brother maybe.
I would love to ride a motorcycle more often, but have family considerations. I do enjoy going 4-wheeling. Roller coasters are good, long as it doesn’t go twisty upside down too many times. I did learn to swim, albeit splashily, at age 36. So those are a few of my thrills in life. And, spicy foods.
leaving on a jet plane
Heading out tonight on a red-eye back to metro Washington DC, to visit friends and family for a week. Hope to decompress from life overload.
