{"id":527,"date":"2014-09-01T09:47:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T09:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/09\/01\/innovation-key-to-relevance-in-new-attention-economy-media-experts-say\/"},"modified":"2014-09-01T09:47:17","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T09:47:17","slug":"innovation-key-to-relevance-in-new-attention-economy-media-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/innovation-key-to-relevance-in-new-attention-economy-media-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation Key to Relevance in New \u2018Attention Economy,\u2019 Media Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

18 February 2014 | Linthicum Heights, Maryland, United States [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN] <\/span>\u00a0Pushing the boundaries is no longer enough. Seventh-day Adventist tech and media professionals at this year\u2019s Global Adventist Internet Network conference were challenged to leave the boundaries in the rearview mirror or risk becoming irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Speaking at morning worship February 13, Pardon Mwansa, a general vice president for the Adventist world church, told hundreds of Web professionals that the \u201cboundary mindset\u201d and the \u201cexpansion mindset\u201d are limiting the scope of Adventist mission and ministry. A boundary mindset is throttled by traditions; an expansion mindset is content reimagining those traditions. What\u2019s needed instead, he said, is a \u201ccreation mindset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easier to go where others have already been. But who is it who has improved this world? People who have broken the boundaries,\u201d Mwansa said, citing early explorers, civil rights leaders and tech innovators.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not get anywhere with a boundary mindset,\u201d he told 400 GAiN participants meeting at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute in Linthicum Heights, Maryland, United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Author and marketing consultant Martha Gabriel amplified that idea in her February 14 keynote, describing what she called \u201csimplicity plateaus,\u201d where an organization stagnates at a level of technology they have mastered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWe can\u2019t stay here. Know the next level you need to conquer,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, perhaps more importantly, she added, know your audience. In today\u2019s \u201cattention economy,\u201d messages compete for relevance, Gabriel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to understand what makes your audience\u2019s hearts beat faster. If you are not part of the message they want to hear, you are part of the noise,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Organizations that thrive in the attention economy know that the currency of ideas and information is no longer enough to succeed. \u201cIdeas alone are worthless. What we need now are people who make things happen,\u201d Gabriel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Adventist pastor Sam Neves and a development team from the church\u2019s British Union Conference, that meant not waiting for the church to get behind a comic book style trivia game called \u201cHeroes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The first Seventh-day Adventist game for iPhone and iPad, \u201cHeroes\u201d was downloaded 3,000 times in the first 48 hours of its release, tripling the benchmark analysts say a mobile app should meet in its first week to be considered successful.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"On the final day of GAiN, the Adventist world church Youth Ministries department signed a deal to help support the Android release of \u201cHeroes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The game reintroduces players to heroic biblical characters\u2014such as Abraham, David and Esther\u2014while testing their Bible knowledge with quiz questions. Players can compare scores with their friends on Facebook. At GAiN, a demo of the game pitted players from the church\u2019s Trans-European Division with other divisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized that to bring a sense of identity to a new generation, we needed to remind them of who their heroes are,\u201d Neves said. \u201cAnd what better way, than to use a medium they are very familiar with?\u201d
Indeed, said Daryl Gungadoo, distribution and network engineer for Adventist World Radio Europe, \u201cgamification\u201d is the new frontier and successful companies will find ways to engage their audience with games.<\/span><\/p>\n

He cited an example from Sweden, where a marketing campaign from Volkswagen turned the oft-loathed speed cameras into a lottery, where people who drive the speed limit are automatically entered into a pool to win the fines paid by motorists who speed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another presenter challenged the popular adage that \u201ccontent is king\u201d in social media. Sonja Kovacevic, content manager of LIFEconnect in the church\u2019s Trans-European Division (TED), proposed that instead, \u201cthe audience is king.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[Our audience] prefers to trust someone they know. And they come to know us when we offer useful content. They come to like us when they enjoy our content. And they come to trust us when our content is credible, consistent and free,\u201d Kovacevic said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Representatives from the TED were also: Miroslav Pujic, Communication and Media Ministries Director, who was speaking about \u2018Social Media Evangelism: How to Create a Tribe of Loyal Disciples\u2019 and Mirjana Kicusic, Marketing and Network Development Manager for LIFEconnect (social media evangelism) talking about how to \u2018Use Social Media to Generate Leads\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brazilian businessman and philanthropist Milton Soldani Afonso received this year’s NetAward from Adventist Church President Ted N. C. Wilson. Afonso was key in establishing and funding the Adventist Church’s use of media outreach in South America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven more than his money, his vision for the church in communication and technology has been his greatest contribution,\u201d said Williams Costa Jr., Communication director for the Adventist world church.
This year\u2019s GAiN conference also featured a presentation by Antonio Monteiro, who was released last month from a prison in Togo after nearly two years of detainment. Monteiro and four others were imprisoned on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in a case that captured the attention of the Adventist world church.<\/span><\/p>\n

In December 2012, a social media campaign calling for a day of prayer helped raise awareness of the situation in Togo. Facebook followers interacted with \u201cPray for Togo\u201d content more than 50,000 times, while the Twitter event hashtag reached more than 7 million users. Later, a Change.org petition to release Monteiro reached more than 60,000 signatures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Monteiro received thousands of Christmas cards during a December 2013campaign to encourage Adventists in prison on false charges and forced to spend the holidays separated from family.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI told my wife, \u2018We will plaster them onto a wall in our home,\u2019\u201d Monteiro said, thanking his world church family for their support during an ordeal he says both tested and strengthened his faith.
\u2014additional reporting by Ansel Oliver [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 February 2014 | Linthicum Heights, Maryland, United States [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN] <\/span>\u00a0Pushing the boundaries is no longer enough. Seventh-day Adventist tech and media professionals at this year\u2019s Global Adventist Internet Network conference were challenged to leave the boundaries in the rearview mirror or risk becoming irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>Speaking at morning worship February 13, Pardon Mwansa, a general vice president for the Adventist world church, told hundreds of Web professionals that the \u201cboundary mindset\u201d and the \u201cexpansion mindset\u201d are limiting the scope of Adventist mission and ministry. A boundary mindset is throttled by traditions; an expansion mindset is content reimagining those traditions. What\u2019s needed instead, he said, is a \u201ccreation mindset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1569,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication-media-technology","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}