Chris Brogan talked about the challenges of commuting to work in a big city. His video challenged me to think about areas where I am unnecessarily commuting. Sadly I have to admit that I’m still commuting many of my resources.
When you think about the best resources you have are they being shared mostly/only with people that are either…
- geographically near
- relationally near
- asking you to send them something
These are all examples of resource commuting. Driving and depositing content that could easily be uploaded and available with significantly less time, energy, and resources invested.
If you’re comfortable with your resource commute:
- are you comfortable with other leaders spending time creating something that you have already done?
- if you’re a trainer or developer are you okay with the 5, 10, 20 people getting your best instead of 500, 1000, or 2000?
Places to share:
- Your blog or someone else’s blog that you trust
- Google Docs
- Dropbox****this is worth signing up for and trying for a week****
- Your ministry’s central database or wiki
Are you sold? Here’s the short video:
Can’t see the video? Click here to watch it.
GREAT application of Brogan’s thoughts – great parallel thinking. This idea – resource commuting is what drove me to start a blog. You nailed it with: “are you comfortable with other leaders spending time creating something that you have already done?” Mostly for selfish reasons – I hate spending time writing a talk or training material that I KNOW someone has already created. Drives me crazy to waste valuable ministry time like that. Our message (the gospel) is too important to be wasting time reinventing the wheel.
so glad you started blogging. the cumulative time saved if we shared our resources even a little more is staggering–that could be invested in urgent/not-important activities like nurturing young or emerging leaders, evangelism, movement starting, and rest to name a few.
Couple of thoughts. When living in Africa in the 1980’s leading teams showing the Jesus Film, I was very frustrated having to figure out solutions to problems as if I was the only person in the world showing Jesus Films and having these problems:political, technical, HR, strategy, followup, spiritual formation. My world opened up when I received an amateur (ham) radio license and began to connect with others in different countries doing some of the same things. Amazing how quickly problems were solved by global collaboration. Exciting how vision is renewed and passion re-kindled just by engaging with others working on the same problems. I returned to the U.S. with a passion to unleash collaboration for Great Commission objectives. That led to the internet in the 90’s and collaborative environments in the 00’s.
On a practical side, I invite anyone interested to join the eMinistry community at http://www.mygcx.org/eministry. Join a global community exploring similar issues.
In another practical opportunity to commute your resources, if you are a blogger and a part of the global Campus Crusade for Christ organization, connect your blog RSS feed to http://inconversation.org. Share the wealth. Find others blogging about the same topics as you and then you can follow them directly.
great illustration keith! exactly why i started the blogference a few years ago. i knew i was not the authority or expert in many matters where i was functioning as one.
i echo your encouragement! incoversation has been a great source of traffic for my blog and has connected me to the global community of staff who share similar passions. i didn’t even know there was a global community like this a couple years ago!