Author: Ben Meredith

I recently got my hands on a free, new in-the-box OtterBox Commuter series case for my Republic Wireless Moto X.

I use my phone with just a screen protector, and am generally pretty good with phones without breaking them, so I’m going to give away a perfectly good $35 case. (I have the yellow and black one for giveaway)

When I worked at AT&T, the OtterBox was the go-to. The defender series (not this one) is a bit bulky, and has a built-in screen protector. The Commuter series slides in and out of pockets easily and has a screen protector included, just not built into the case.

So how will I determine who wins the case? Between now and July 3rd, 2014 at 11:59 PM EDT all you have to do to enter is:

1. Sign up for Republic Wireless using my refer-a-friend link (which already and always saves you $20!) and email me with a screen shot verifying that you placed your order (here’s how to take a screen shot). My link is http://benlikes.us/republic

or

2. Like one of my business Facebook pages and email me a screen shot for verification. (BenandJacq or Church Web Help)

People who choose option number 1 are entered into the giveaway 5 times, people who choose option 2 are entered once. So give yourself a better chance (and hundreds of dollars off your monthly phone bill) by choosing option 1. I will choose a winner at random.

But so that the lawyers are happy: you don’t have to pay to play. Also, if this sort of sweepstakes is illegal where you live, please don’t enter (I’m looking at you, Canada). Finally, this is only for people 18 and older. Happy, lawyers?

Oh, and if you have already used my referral link for Republic, email me a screen shot and let me know, and you’ll still be entered 5 times.

Here’s that link again. (note, this case only works on the Moto X, so don’t go buying the Moto G using this link and expect the case to fit.)

Do you know that there is a (relatively simple) trick to making your church’s podcast take 1/10th of the time it is currently taking to download? That one trick exponentially increases the number of people who will actually listen to the content there.

How about this: there is a way to know how many people even opened the email about the meeting this week, and how many of them clicked to see what time it starts. Do you know how to do that?

One last thing: how long does the home page on your church website take to load? If you can count to one (second) before it’s all there, you’re likely being penalized by Google.

As a church staff member in a church with only one full-time person, I’ve been there. In fact, I am there.

I had to teach myself this stuff.

Having immersed myself in learning Linux, Apache, PHP, and Databases until my eyes glazed over, I was shocked when I began to look around the blogosphere and discover how few churches are doing a good job with DIY websites.

In fact, churches fall into one of two groups: ones who are using a great service like Church Plant Media to build and maintain their sites, and ones who have a free site that hasn’t been updated in months or even years. There is sadly not much middle ground.

Once I landed a stellar gig with Socialexis, it gave me (just) enough financial margin to begin trying to help fix the church website problem. I set out to develop a website to help churches do the web better.

Last month, Church Web Help was quietly born. It’s a membership site to come alongside churches who can’t afford to pay a part-time webmaster, but want to effectively use the web to reach their community.

This month only, the price to join is $7 (one-time!!).

If you don’t value the internet in reaching people in your neighborhood with the gospel, yours will be a church that is slowly less and less full. You need to get this right.

The best case is to have a part time staff member whose entire job is to man the website about 5 hours per week. That will cost in the neighborhood of $2000–$5000 annually.

While I’m under no illusion that my content is going to completely replace the value of a part time staffer, it will go a long way toward equipping your existing team with the resources they need to effectively run a thriving web presence.

Hurry, because next month the price goes to a still-bargain $35. Eventually, once there’s enough content in the members area, the price will be a monthly commitment.

If you aren’t the web person at your church, please slap a link to this post into an email and pass it along to the folks at your church who need to read it. I’d really appreciate it!

Unemployment is a myth.

The highly publicized “unemployment rate” is a 50 year old yardstick with the numbers sand-blasted all the way off, and we are using it to gather intelligence that affects public policy?

In the information economy, what use is it to measure how many people are dead weight?

Before, when the only way a person worked was on a factory assembly line, and their only hope for income was continued clocking-in and widget-making, to measure the economy by unemployment made sense.

Now, a $25 webcam, hours of practice, and a free YouTube account is all that stands between you and an income. Or a $15 used power saw and an etsy shop to sell hand-made crafts made from used (free) pallets. In 25 minutes you can take what you are already good at, and make $1 doing it.

I get it (I’ve been there), there’s still no quick way (other than getting a job) to a reliable paycheck. To say that I’ve oversimplified making money online is itself an understatement.

But my point remains. Why are we measuring the health of the economy using a 50 year old broken yard stick?

Because there’s no better way to measure it, and the news cycle depends on reporting to make their money. So they have to say something.

Do we have to listen?

Please, do yourself a favor and filter everything you hear about the unemployment rate through the lens of “is this helpful?”

Using a broken yardstick to manufacture fake handwringing about an overblown non-problem doesn’t fix anything.

Worse, the handwringers are not actually concerned with fixing the problem. They’re likely more concerned with the number of pageviews they can muster in favor of the problem, or how many votes it’ll pick up to promise to fix the problem, or how they can spin the numbers to indicate that the have fixed the problem.

But that doesn’t mean I have to participate. I choose to be a part of the solution. I’m going to put in the hours of work to make the money to create some jobs (by hiring others to help me).

My current project? ChurchWebHelp.com

Tell a friend. Save the economy.